How to Maximize Your Income from Guitar Teaching

If you are like most guitar teachers, you are struggling to earn enough money in your guitar teaching business. This can cause a lot of frustration because you will often feel as if you are putting out a lot of effort, only to receive very little in return.

This situation often discourages most guitar teachers from doing more to grow their business and they become very pessimistic toward making a lot of money teaching guitar lessons. Fact is, making a great living (over $100k annually) with guitar teaching is a very obtainable goal.

The majority of guitar teachers do not reach this level of success; however everyone, including you, has the potential to do so if you know the right steps to take to expand your own guitar teaching business.

In order to help you get started, I want to show you why most guitar teachers have a hard time making money with guitar lessons. After reading the list below, you will be able to avoid the costly mistakes that other people make while teaching guitar. By knowing what not to do as a guitar teacher, you can make much faster progress toward making a lot more money with guitar lessons.

You are not sure how to promote your guitar teaching business and get students on a consistent basis.

Most guitar teachers tend to use the same method for attracting new guitar students (whether it works or not). Once this method stops working, they end up running out of guitar students, and do not know how to find new ones. Unfortunately, these guitar teachers generally have poor marketing strategies that do not promote their teaching business very well. The most successful guitar teachers have many different overlapping strategies working for them all at the same time that provide them with a continual stream of new guitar students. To test the effectiveness of your own methods of promoting your guitar teaching business, take this short test to find out how much you know about attracting guitar students.

You aren’t sure how to keep your current guitar students coming back.

Most guitar teachers put all of their efforts into finding prospective guitar students. These teachers neglect learning how to keep their current students coming back for a long time. If your guitar students are not staying with you for a couple years or longer, then you have much work to do.

By learning how to keep your students longer, your guitar teaching business will be much more stable. This is because you will not need to find new guitar students in order to simply ‘make up’ for the loss of those who quit lessons with you. As you become better at retaining students, you will be able to expand your business and make much more money teaching guitar.

You don’t know how to consistently turn your guitar students into really great guitar players.

If you do not know how to help your guitar students achieve everything they want with guitar on a consistent basis, they will not recommend you to other potential guitar students. The most highly successful guitar teachers (who earn six figures-plus) maintain a reputation for getting great results for their guitar students. This is an important component to their success, and is what helps them to quickly expand their guitar teaching business. This is why, in my guitar teacher program I spend a lot of time training members how to help their students progress in the fastest way possible

You don’t make money from guitar lessons for every week of the year.

Most guitar teachers think that they must either get paid while teaching guitar lessons or not get paid whenever they need time off (for vacation, sick days, holidays, etc.). On top of that, these teachers do not get paid whenever a guitar student does not show up to a lesson. The good news is that as a guitar teacher you can get paid for both the time you spend with students, and the time you spend away from teaching guitar lessons. Additionally, you can provide huge value to your guitar students, so that they will be ‘glad’ to pay for days when you are taking time off (you read this right!). To learn how to make money in your guitar teaching business every week of the year while keeping your students happy, get this free guide for earning money in your guitar teaching business.

You do not charge enough for guitar lessons.

Most guitar teachers think that by lowering the price of guitar lessons they will be able to get the attention of more prospective guitar students. In reality they are merely making less money per student. Additionally, this approach is a mistake for the following two reasons:

1. When you charge less for your guitar lessons, your prospective guitar students will perceive your guitar teaching to be lower quality. Fact is, many people would love to pay more money in order to get the best quality guitar instruction.
2. If you are charging a higher price for guitar lessons, your guitar students will naturally feel a need to get the most out of their investment. Your students will feel more motivated to practice, listen during lessons, and become great guitar players. If you charge less for guitar lessons, you are taking away a huge natural advantage from your students that can help them get all they can while working together with you.

The most successful guitar teachers do not lower their teaching rates in order to get the attention of new guitar students. These teachers focus on building ‘higher value’ while working to constantly improve their guitar teaching skills. By doing this, they overwhelm their guitar students with value and benefits that no other guitar teacher can match. This makes their teaching rates seem much ‘lower’ by comparison.

You aren’t using a strong teaching policy.

One of the biggest problems for most guitar teachers is that they do not have a solid teaching policy in place for their guitar teaching business (or they do not enforce the one they have). This has various negative side effects, including the following:

1. It makes you seem as if you do not take your guitar teaching business seriously. Your guitar students will quickly notice this, and will respect you much less as a guitar teacher. Some students will show up late (or not at all) for lessons, re-schedule, or miss payments.
2. Since your guitar students do not respect you as a guitar teacher, they will feel less motivated to practice the things you show them during lessons. As a result, they will make much less progress on guitar.
3. You will experience great frustration while spending your time calling students about missed payments, teaching free make up guitar lessons, and waiting around for students who decide not to show up on time.

You must create and enforce a strict guitar teaching policy in order to get your students to take you seriously as a guitar teacher. This will save you a lot of time and money, and will help you to build a positive reputation in your local area. Find out how to create a good guitar teaching policy with this free guide for earning money in your guitar teaching business.

You are not sure how to fully understand your guitar students’ unique personal needs.

Most guitar teachers do not understand that teaching guitar is based around meeting the emotional needs of your students first. In order to reach high levels of success as a guitar teacher, it is essential that you learn how to directly communicate the following points with your guitar students:

1. You are 100% dedicated to helping them achieve the best results in their guitar playing.
2. You understand the struggles that they are experiencing with guitar and have had to deal with them yourself.
3. You sincerely care about their success with guitar, and are totally committed to helping them succeed.

When you build strong connections with your guitar students (and follow up on giving them the results you promised), your students will become very loyal to you. As a result, they will continue guitar lessons with you for years, and will help you make much more money.

You hold yourself back.

Most guitar teachers only consider three different things when thinking of ways to make more money with guitar lessons:

1. How much they charge per guitar lesson.
2. How many guitar students they give lessons to.
3. How many hours they teach guitar per week.

If you attempt to become a successful guitar teacher using the three points above, you will be massively limiting your potential to grow your guitar teaching business. Although these three points are important, they are only a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to making more money as a guitar teacher. What would you think if I told you that you could make three or four times your current yearly guitar teaching income without charging more per lesson? Believe it or not, this is a reality for most highly successful guitar teachers. Learn how to do this by watching this video on making money as a guitar teacher.

You consider one on one guitar lessons to be the #1 method for teaching guitar.

It is true that one on one guitar lessons can be great in some cases; however it is not true that teaching guitar in this manner is the only way to get great results for your students. Additionally, this approach is very limiting to your potential to make a lot more money teaching guitar. In order to earn a lot of money in your guitar teaching business, you need to combine one on one lessons with group classes and other unique teaching formats. This will not only make you more money, but will also help your guitar students to reach their goals much faster than if they were taking one on one lessons only. To find out more about how to teach guitar lessons in a variety of unique formats, make sure to watch this video on making money as a guitar teacher.

You have not developed an effective strategy to get from your current situation to a six figure yearly income.

The most successful guitar teachers build their guitar teaching business through extensive planning and strategy. These teachers do not rely on any form of luck, instead they work hard to implement new ideas until they manifest their own success. Unfortunately, the majority of guitar teachers simply copy what other teachers are doing in hopes that it might work for them, too. The main problem with this is that most other guitar teachers are unsuccessful, and do not make a lot of money teaching guitar. By doing the same things these teachers do, you will only be working toward mediocre results (if any). If you want to build a highly successful guitar teaching business while making a lot of money, it is necessary to seek the advice of someone who knows what you need to do to become the most successful guitar teacher in your local area.

If you have identified with the points described in this article, then you now know what stands in the way of your progress toward having a highly successful (and profitable) guitar teaching business. Once you use this knowledge, you will quickly notice rapid growth as a guitar teacher, as well as higher interest and motivation for your guitar students.

Check out these free guitar teacher resources in order to be able to quickly begin implementing the ideas in this article:

• eBook on earning money in your guitar teaching business.
• Video for making money as a guitar teacher.
• Guitar Teaching Resource on attracting guitar students.