The guitar always fascinated me, ever since childhood. I took up playing the guitar as a hobby initially, but it became an obsession over the years. But the turn of events in life pushed me on to become an executive in an accounting firm for the last twenty years. All these years I never left the guitar and did whatever I could to improve my playing skills. I want to give up my job and want to teach the guitar to aspiring learners. I want some guidance as to how do I hire students and how do I run my school in a professional manner.
I think the key is to figure out exactly what you want to teach and then advertise that. For example, what level can you teach, beginner/intermediate/advanced levels? Are you proficient in music theory as it applies to the guitar? Are there certain age groups you want to teach? Group or individual lessons? What genres (Jazz guitar is much different than rock guitar)? Establish these things and then advertise in as many cheap ways as possible (Craigslist is great for this). Figure out reasonable pricing, cancellation policies etc. Also, make sure you have the required equipment, amps etc.
The most important thing for me, when I took lessons was if my instructor was prepared. Do you have handouts/learning materials/books/curriculum that you will teach? Know it back to front. If you want to teach more informally, make sure it's clear in your advertisement.
Also, be prepared for the income change. I don't know any wealthy guitar teachers, and to be honest I don't really know any guitar teachers who can afford rent on their own, so be prepared for this possible reality.
I don't know any wealthy guitar teachers, and to be honest I don't really know any guitar teachers who can afford rent on their own, so be prepared for this possible reality.
Actually, you know at least two. Both Tom ("Noteboat") and myself are full-time guitar teachers.
And you're absolutely right about being prepared. You have to honestly answer a whole lot of questions about yourself and your own needs (musically, financially and otherwise) before you can even begin. We've an article here at Guitar Noise that might help get one started on this path:
https://www.guitarnoise.com/lesson/crunching-numbers/
And I'm in the process of writing a lot more about it that will hopefully get online soon.
But planning things out ahead of time and looking at it rationally are important. As important, is knowing why you want to teach. Most of the guitar teachers I know and have met are guitarists first and teachers second. They teach in order to supplement their gigging income. The ones I know who are teachers first usually have a steadier go of thing, but you shouldn't read anything into that because my sampling is way too small to base a generalization like that upon.
Also, Tim said "school," which I am assuming means "music school" and that is very different than simply teaching on one's own. You can see Tom's numerous posts on this subject in the "News" forum.
Hope this helps get things started and I'm sure others will be chiming in, too.
Peace
Running a music school is a business - like any other business, you've got to do all the typical business stuff... marketing, accounting, sweeping the floor, whatever needs to be done.
Today was typical: I got up about 6:30, answered e-mail, planned my day, did my own practice. I headed to the school around 9:30, took out the garbage, vacuumed the carpeting, returned phone messages, wrote out one arrangement and several handouts for today's students, worked on the monthly student newsletter, called the local newspaper to book ad space for the summer, got final quotes from a contractor for constructing another teaching studio, met with the landlord about extending lease options before making the investment, made the bank deposit for the weekend receipts, and went to a networking lunch with some folks from a local high school. Then I taught from 2-9, and between each lesson checked off attendance for the other teachers I had working today. Locked the doors at 9, did the day's bookkeeping, and headed home - it's now almost 11, and I still have to write up an order for the books & accessories we need this week.
I do that six days a week. Except for the getting up at 6:30 part - on Saturdays I'm up at 5, because our Suzuki violin classes start at 8am. If you really want to run a school as a full-time gig... be aware that it's truly a FULL TIME gig!
On top of that, you've got a lot at risk in opening your own business. Every market is slightly different, and what works in one area won't work in others - you need to plan carefully, track your results, and learn from your mistakes. The investment is bigger than it appears: besides rent, insurance, payroll and advertising, you've got to buy chairs, music stands, CD players, amplifiers, a piano (or two or three), metronomes, and more. Wastebaskets. Toilet paper. Kleenex. Tools for basic repairs. Stuff you never thought of will cost at least twice what you expect.
Get used to dealing with adversity. You'll get calls 15 minutes AFTER a lesson is supposed to start saying "something came up and I can't make it - give me a makeup lesson". You'll have teachers who don't show up when they're supposed to. You'll get checks that bounce. You'll have a student coughing all over you, and the mother will tell you (after the lesson, of course) that she thinks Junior has strep throat - because his brothers and sisters all do. Kids will break your gear at times. You've got to be prepared for almost anything, because sooner or later it will happen.
One big problem you face: since you've never done it before, you don't really know what to expect. My advice: before you open your own school, teach at someone else's school for at least six months. Figure out what they do, and why. Figure out what they SHOULD do, and how you'll do it better. You'll still get hit with things you don't expect, but at least there will be fewer things you forgot about.
After you've got a handle on what it's really going to be like, if you still think opening a school is a good thing, go for it! For me, it's a great life - I run my own show, and I have a guitar in my hands about 12 hours a day.
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
I would check out Music Career Mentor Steve Nixon. He has all the answers for you in his site www.stevenixonmusic.net/careermentoring.cfm. Click on the site, enroll with him for all the help you need to start your own teaching business. Wish you all the best in your endeavors.
And don't expect students to come rushing in through the door. When I started marketing myself as a teacher in the UK it took something like seven months to get my first student - a 30 minute lesson once a week. Now, that's not so bad considering I was still working full time in Investment Banking and teaching guitar was a sideline that I hoped would come to something eventually. Eventually, it did, and I was turning away students because my book was full, but it took 18 months to fill up a Saturday afternoon with students.
I've only recently restarted the marketing, we moved house 18 months ago and there just hasn't been time. I'm going for substantially more coverage this time, with cards in the village shop, and the pub on the green as well as the three nearest guitar shops - and one of those is 20 miles away. There's a waiting list to get ads in the village magazine. The website has been updated - don't forget to keep on top of that. The music shops will always tell you they need more teachers, and that they've got doubts about one of their teachers because of the way he teaches and their others are all "full." I notice I didn't get any calls last week, and when you think that Saturdays are the shops' busiest days I guess I can safely say that I won't get any calls this week either.
Today is a marketing-free day and would probably have to be a student-free day too, as I have to put a set list together for tomorrow - I've wangled what will hopefully be a profitable residency round the local pub and I'll have business cards with me so I don't miss any opportunities.
I notice the Steve Nixon site, recommended by a new member in their first post, goes straight for the jugular, to part you from your cash. I think there's a lot of experience on this site about teaching music, which is free of charge, and if you're in the UK you can get government-subsidised classes on book-keeping or putting together a business plan.
A :-)
"Be good at what you can do" - Fingerbanger"
I have always felt that it is better to do what is beautiful than what is 'right'" - Eliot Fisk
Wedding music and guitar lessons in Essex. Listen at: http://www.rollmopmusic.co.uk
One more thing - don't throw your money away!
Once you open a school there will be LOTS of people contacting you with various pitches for advertising methods, "mentoring", etc. As you can see, it's already started :)
Here's my two cents on them:
1. "Mentors" and "mentoring services". Some of these guys know what they're doing, and most don't. One of the contributors to GN, Tom Hess, runs a mentoring program specifically for guitar teachers. Tom and I have shared ideas with each other, and he seems to know what he's doing... I don't know Steve; maybe he does, maybe he doesn't (but I'd be leery - his service appears to be a shotgun approach, offering answers no matter what you want to do in music). Even if you find a guy with "all the answers", keep your wallet in your pocket for now. You don't need all the answers until you've got all (or at least most) of the questions! (I'm a big fan of mentors, but not so much as a "service")
2. E-books. There are a ton of them out there on teaching music. I've bought a bunch of them - even though I've been teaching since 1978, I'm always looking for new ideas. The number I'd recommend: zero. Compared to print books, they tend to have less information, tend to be very poorly produced, and once you've got some experience you'll get the feeling at least some of the writers have never run a teaching business they're just in the e-book business!
3. Other sources of advice on starting a business in general (SBA, SCORE, etc). The SBA offers a lot of cheap classes - over the years I've probably taken all of them. They're generally taught by people who make a living telling people how to start a business... I don't recall ever attending one taught by someone who actually did it. You'll get a lot of very general information, heavily slanted towards the aspects you already know (financial side). You can get basically the same information from the booklets the SBA puts out for the price of a stamp - go ahead and get them. They're a decent place to start, but leave lots and lots of holes.
4. College classes on entrepreneurship. I've taken some of these; the presenters tend to know more than the SBA folks (and charge more for it). The slant will be heavily on business plans. If there's an entrepreneurship series, you'll also get general accounting info, which you don't need, and marketing info that's theoretical rather than practical... you need to know what works in your market, not what the four Ps are (product/price/placement/promotion). Classes are good if you need to write a business plan for outside investors - if not, you probably won't get your money's worth. (Note: I'm a fan of business plans, as in setting goals, analyzing problems, and outlining how to solve them. I'm not a fan of the business plans banks and lenders want to see. By all means do budgets and project cash flow, but don't worry about mission statements, owner biographies and other stuff that doesn't directly move you towards your goals unless one of your goals is outside funding.)
5. Trade organizations, like MENC (Music Educator's National Conference), MTNA (Music Teacher's National Association), NAMM (National Association of Music Merchandisers), etc. These guys all have magazines for their members that sometimes have articles applicable to teaching studios. They're also expensive - a couple hundred a year, average - and geared mostly to school teachers or full-service music stores. I've belonged to many of these in the past, and may again in the future... but their help in doing a start-up is limited.
6. Books in general: There are books on starting a teaching business, which might be useful in making up your list of questions... I've read all the ones I've been able to find, but I didn't learn much new from them. Better to get real-world teaching experience and start making your own lists of what you need, IMO. But there are a couple of books I'd consider must-reads: Guerilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson, and Promoting Your Music Studio by Phillip Johnston. The reality of the music teaching business is that you'll constantly lose students - they'll move away, give up their instrument, have a change in their income/priorities, or get good enough to outgrow you. I think the national average is about 17 weeks of lessons before a student changes teachers, which means for every student you've got you'll need to find two more each year just to stay even. Get good teachers and run your place well and you'll beat the average retention rate - right now my school needs about 1.2 students per year for each slot to stay even, but that's still a lot of prospecting for new students.
As a result, marketing is the second most important key to success - managing cash flow is the only thing I'd rank higher, because if you can't make the rent, you're toast. And as a practical matter, cash flow is related to marketing!
At the planning stage, I'd do two things: first, talk to the people you know who run any related businesses (tutoring services, dance academies, etc). They'll know the local lay of the land, including important stuff like permits, licenses, and demographic changes. Then talk to people in the same business who are outside your market area - I regularly talk to music school owners on both coasts to share ideas. They've been where you are, and many would be happy to talk.
Once you get going, meet all the local business people you can... sign makers, restaurant owners, auto mechanics, whatever. They've been in your market a while, and know who's who and what's what. A lot of the business challenges you'll have are just that: BUSINESS challenges. It's well worth getting to know folks in the same boat.
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
