Sharon Shaheed and Phoebe Simpson

March, 2006

2006-04-01T01:28:00.000-05:00

Happy Spring !

Its been another non-stop month. I keep telling Sharon that I need to get married soon and get a real life. However, I do have my Bassett Hound(Herschel a.k.a Hershey) who keeps me occupied with very interesting antics. I've had him since October. He is adorable .
Sharon always seems to keep me in awe with the perpetual tri- multi-tasking. How does she do it? I ask myself that a lot. Having a teenager and a husband in one sentence tells it all. I hope you're giggling--- I am.

Update on Business
Our meeting with the investors is scheduled for next month (April 12, 2006)

We hired a finance expert who previously worked for a VC firm.
She is putting together an investor package which will include
a modified business plan, examples of our new products in development
(color printed books, software story boards, etc), ROI and different
levels of investments.

Phoebe attended the 2006 Annual NAWBO luncheon at the Beverly Hilton on March 17, 2006 as a guest. It was a great networking opportunity and another aspiring event.

Phoebe also had a meeting with our graphics designer and
Website designer regarding our 20th Year Anniversary logo.
We will be updating our website to offer on-line registration & e-commerce.

We will also have a planning meeting regarding all the special workshops we will offer for the 20th Anniversary celebration.

We additionally submitted old video footage to a video editor to see if it would be possible to put together a fun and inepensive DVD. He will review and tell us next month.

Our realtor found a great building for expansion that would allow us to do everything we've always wanted to do : a great model center with an auditorium. We just found out last night that we lost the bid. Though we are disappointed, we have faith that there's something out there for us.

The school completed the Certificate of Merit Testing on March 25th and 26th. Our school had over 60 participants in the program. This specialized program is only done once a year in the Spring . The students take a special written test in music theory and are judicated on their prepared pieces. This is actually
administered nationally with other Music Teachers Associations.
Its been pretty grueling.

We hired an additional private teacher. Yeah !

Research was done on submitting award entries for our products.
We also sent in our membership for NAAM
(National Association of Music Merchants)

We put together a special survey to find out how much interest
is present with our clients for fundraising on a smaller scale.

We received more Copyright certificates for our books and most are
our trademarks are still in pending status.

Coach
Still no contact.

PR/ Media
We have finally scheduled meeting with two PR firms next month to get ourselves in the loop,especially since the software project will be finished by the summer .

M3
We still get such positive encouragement from other business owners that we remain in contact with. They always want to know about what the program is doing and its such a highlight to be able to send them to the website. I know we don't say it enough, but thank-you for this opportunity. It keeps us motivated. as we look back over the months, we have made head way not only because we have to , but we know if we just keep pushing a little harder we can do it. You're the evidence.

February, 2006

2006-04-01T00:49:00.000-05:00

Update on Business
This has been a month we will never forget. Its been rollercoaster-wild.

We had the Open House at the Culver City location on February 5, 2006 (Super Bowl Sunday). The day was unorganized and chaotic. Unfortunately the teacher that was referred to us did not work out ,nor was there any other teachers available. So, we decided to postpone the program. We just don't have the time to be in two places at once anymore. There actually was quite a bit of interest. Bummer.

Our Private recitals took place the very next weekend (Valentines weekend). We had a total of 8 recitals with 180 students participating.

Our Spring Semester began February 7th. To date ,this is probably our largest enrollment as we currently have about 540 students attending weekly with about 20 additional people on a waitlist for classes.

The clip art replacement artist has one last book to complete and
then its on to two other projects.

The software project is coming along. We are still in the approval stages of game documents, background scenes along with character modifications.

We had a second meeting with the Hollywood producer, this time our attorney was present. He is interested in working on a 3 DVD project and possible merchandising.
After reviewing what the terms of the contracts would be with our attorney(though very appealing), we felt it would be in our best interest to push back the deal for a later date until we completed our software project.

Our new group teacher that we started training in the fall seems to be working out great.

The technical writer and Phoebe have set-up an appointment
for next month to review beginning documents. Phoebe sent a preliminary
plan for him to review.

We have a realtor currently looking for property in both our area and Pasadena.

Coach
We have again, had no contact with our coach.

PR/Media
No activity

M3 Experience
We had our award specially plaqued by a Trophy Company. It looks spectacular and reminds us of what we need to do everyday. We are so blessed.

January, 2006

2006-03-31T17:20:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year To All & Many Blessings!!!!!!!

Update on Business
Well it seems that the new year is upon us and we are extremely excited.
We have moved ahead on the following goals :

We did hit our financial mark for the 2005 year.

We worked out the details with the Fundamentals owner. We are linked up on the website and will start classes in mid February and will participate in an Open House next month at the Culver City location. One of our conditions in order do the program at the new site is having one of his staff teachers in training to get us started. He has provided us with another teacher that we will start training right away. That teacher will then teach our program over there, so that we don't have to stretch so much. We will split profits of the class
(70/30)and will get product placement.
He will receive a small consignment fee for the products.

We had our Sherman Oaks Open House on January 22nd. It was well attended . Over 90%
were referrals.

One of our lab instructors in now in training to teach group classes. We think she will be ready by Feb.

We are also busy with recitals this month. Our group recital was double booked ,so we had to quickly find a new spot within 3 days. That was stressful to say the least.

Phoebe is still mananging the last portion of all projects with the work for hire artists to finish up scenes for Music Tales Books, covers of Method Books and Cd's for both Lowey Hija Series and Music Tales. For the first time, our Music Tales' CD's will be screen printed.

Phoebe met a senior corporate technical writer that puts together manuals for a major autoamker. He has agreed to assist us in putting together an operational manual. This will be key in our expansion.

We have also been approached by another client of ours who marketing expertise in in product placement. She has connections with a Hollwood producer who has an interest in our educational system products . He currently has a couple of distribution deals with Sony-Tristar and Warner Bros.

Coach
No connections with Margaret Magnus this month. Our schedule has been very hectic.

Media/ PR
Still no activity

M3 Experience
We continue to share with any of our collegues the great experience we are having with the program. We have been encouraging these particular female businesses to apply this year. We hope this will be beneficial to the organization.

December, 2005

2006-03-31T16:59:00.000-05:00

Update on Business
We are still plowing through lines and goals for the end of the year.

Sharon attended the New York Conference on December 1-2. She had a great time networking and catching up with the other M3 winners. She enjoyed herself immensly.

The school went on Winter Break for two weeks. We really needed this short hiatus to rejuvenate.

On December 27, we will have a meeting with one of our clients who would like to become an investor to help us possibly set-up a new location in Pasadena. She has spoken with about 5 other people that may bring other expertise to the table.

We finally were able to get through the final negotiations on the software and we've hit the ground running. We felt our attorney did an amazing job and we feel very safe in all areas.

We went in the recording studio on December 25-26th for about 4 hours each to record segments for the software project and also new audio books of stories written about our main characters emphasizing reading skills.

Coach

Margaret Magnus our coach had a in the family and could not attend the conference. Sharon spoke to her briefly about monitoring our goals.

Media/PR

Still no PR this month

M3 Experience

Though it has been a pretty busy year, it has been a great feeling to know that there is support with us. Sharon felt the re-connection in New York was so inspiring. This is such an awesome program.

November, 2005

2006-03-31T16:35:00.000-05:00

Update on Business
Sharon & I are still continuinfg to work on all of our goals we set forth for the end of the year such as:

Our commissioned artist we hired is moving out of state, but she finished the rest of the character pieces. They are simply adorable.

We are still working with our new graphic designer on cfompleteing the covers of the activity books of the Music Tales Series by the end of the month.

The software agreement with the Software Developer has been laborious. We are still in final negotiations.

Musical arrangements for the Roofuss Reports Series and the La Rue Mc Doosen Series are still in the process of being completed

Coaching

Sharon spoke with our coach Margaret Magnus by phone on November 13, 2005. This month we had to come up with a plan to figure out the specific days that we will do business tasks, two days that we would take out for our personal business and one day in the week that we would take up to three hours to tackle anything that you have procrastinated on. We are getting our days together.

Media/ PR
No activity this month.

M3 Experience

This program continues to keep us motivated.

August - September 2005

2005-12-14T20:45:00.000-05:00

August - October, 2005

Update on Business
Sharon took a much needed vacation for three weeks in August, beginning the day after the WLE conference and got a chance to touch bases with Channing Barringer from Open while she was in New York.

During the following weeks of August after our conference call on August 6, we continued to expedite business and product development tasks such as:

Completed a small renovation of our studio
Set up a meeting in September with a new tax accountant who we met at the WLE conference & also meeting with old accountant on August 27, 2005 to tie up loose ends
Upgraded our web site& trademark attorney is currently revising our privacy policy for our web site to prepare for e-commerce in the spring of 2006.
Set a completion date to finish book project (January 2006)
Finalized more characters and revised illustrations in our Kindergarten series (Music Tales)
Finalized audio CD arrangements with our arranger for remaining method books (Roofuss Ruttagens 2-3 & La Rue McDoosen 2-3) will be completed in September.
Set up a meeting with an educational software development firm who’s interested in producing software with us.
Coaching & Mentoring
Dresdene Flynn-White gave us a wonderful suggestion and contact information at the conference regarding patenting our methodology. We followed up with Ron Reardon with Patents & More to discuss what direction we could take. We are still in the process of reviewing our options and completing his questionnaire.

M3 Experience
As Sharon & I had a meeting tonight, we still are in awe of this wonderful experience and opportunity we have set before us. CMI was one of the greatest finds ever. We feel we have a tremendous responsibility to not only ourselves, but to the M3 project. Secondly, we feel its going to be a tough year ahead (for the better) because we have some huge decisions to make, some “cleaning house” and some risk involved in the decision. Finally, we have to finalize our strategies for funding this month and plan to have a business dinner to update a core group of people that are assisting us in our vision. We feel blessed in that Sharon never saw us a just a “piano school” and neither did I. M3 has given Piano Play hope to bring our dreams into a reality state and we are grateful. No PR this month.

October, 2005

Sharon & I are still working on the goals for the end of the year such as the following:

We received eight of the twelve commissioned character pieces . We should receive the balance by the end of November.
We met with our new accountant from Padgett Business Services. We first met her at the WLE s conference at Long Beach this past August. She will be doing an overhaul on all of our financials. Will keep bookkeeping services as is.
Trademark lawyer is still working on pending trademarks and copyrights of characters since Phoebe 's trip to D.C. last month. Pending statuses of missing certificates.
The new graphic designer is finishing up the new Music Tales Method book and Activity Book covers by November 7, 2005.The additional artist has completed two activity books for Music Tales and is currently working on two new books.
Still currently working on last revisions of illustrations in our Music Tales series.
Still in process of finishing up arrangements for books 2-3 of Roofuss Ruttagens & La Rue Mc Doosen.
Received the Project Scope and Software Development agreement in October. Our attorney reviewed Project Scope & Agreement and made several changes. We also had her draft a non-disclosure agreement. We are currently still in final negotiations.
We received the CMI loan in the amount of $45,000 to assist us in completing the software and books on Monday, October 21, 2005.
We received an email update regarding the award winners for the specialized music programs from the MENC (Music Educator's Nat Conference). The committee is still reviewing the proposal and will not have a final decision now until November. Again, Winners will receive a $1500 grant and will be placed on their web site for members around the country.
We met with the owner of Music Fundamentals on Thursday, October 13 & October 20, 2005. He is interested in possibly forming a strategic alliance with us , as his current piano program is under developed and the weakest aspect of his business. Currently he is running about 30 small studios and outreach programs between Southern California , Orange County and San Diego.
Phoebe met with our corporate attorney on two occasions to make sure we are in compliance with all paperwork.
We hired a new instructor. (Yeah !)
Coaching & Mentoring
Sharon had a phone conference with Margaret Magnus on Monday, October 17 , 2005 and she was again , very helpful. She spoke with Sharon on additional fundraising ideas, and mainly how she dealt with separating business & personal time. We had our Alignment meetings with Dresdene on October 3rd & 10th . She gave us some excellent feedback and suggestions . We look forward to receiving the final report from our second session and enjoyed the report on Sharon 's managerial style.

Media/PR
Still no follow-up from reporter at the Pasadena Star News from last month.

M3 Experience
This program continues to push us in a timely manner . The monthly reports helps us keep a tangible record of progress we are making, which has been so important . We are still sharing our story and encouraging other women entrepreneurs to attend the WLE conference and check out CMI. Thanks for your support.