I’m 18 Years Old. Am I Too Young To Earn Money Teaching Guitar Lessons?

"I had 4 students when I started out 7 years ago in my teaching business. It really improved rapidly. In the first year, I got to 100 students. 7 years later we have hundreds of students and 3 locations."

We have a team of 14 different teachers working for us and it’s just been the nicest thing ever cause I never have to work a day of my life. I can do pretty much anything that I want ... and I just love my job so the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle pretty much helped me developing that. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere near the level of success that I am riding on without the program.

When I first started teaching guitar, I was 22 years old and didn’t really knew what I was doing. So I was member of the Music Careers Mentoring Program with Tom Hess. And I figured if I want to have a music career, I might as well learn to coach students and create students… I was teaching anyway, I had 4 students at the time. So I had to find a way to really step up my game and I couldn’t really afford to not look into the program, so that made me realize that it’s like a one-time opportunity. I’ve been here in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle for 7 years now, and it’s been steady progress and the learning curve is excellent, the support and the people on the forum is worth the entire investment in the program, and I’m really content about the progress I’ve made so far.

I think Tom Hess is the number one in the area of teaching businesses as far as the whole online courses go. I’ve never really checked out other resources on this topic. I have read a couple of articles written by other guys, but if I guess if you don’t have built your own business to the point that you can be really successful at teaching, there’s no point at teaching others. And that’s what separates Tom Hess from all his competitors. He’s doing it. He has build a massive amount of presence on the internet. So I think that is what most people are drawn to. He doesn’t only talk about it, he does it. So that’s why for me, there’s like no one else that comes close in the area of coaching you on the teaching business.

My life really looks awesome right now, so couldn’t be any happier. Me and my fiancée just travel whenever we want, we do whatever we want, like that’s a big part of why I decided to join the program because I didn’t want to have shitty day job. And I just wanted to build my own lifestyle and we did ever since.

Antony Reynaert, Ostend, Belgium

“I can't think of any other program that has had so much success making people make great guitar teachers and music school owners. The track record is just overwhelming if you compare it with any other program out there. I think that also comes from a certain mindset that I really identify with and that is very motivating.”

I wanted to make a living from music and I didn't see how I could do this directly from being a recording or performing artist. And I thought that teaching guitar would be a great way to make money and even develop my [guitar playing] skills, because you learn a lot about that when you are teaching...and being 100% focused on music, so everything that I did for my music practice reinforced the business part, and everything that I did for the business part reinforced the music part. So everything was in the same direction.

When I started two and half years ago, I had a job that gave me a lot of flexibility, (I was a translator) but there was zero human contact, because all the time I was just translating text onto a computer. I had never seen the people I was working with, and it was not really my passion. And I was limited by how much money I could make in an hour. In two years I got my business to six figures which, in Spain, is quite high because the living standard is up to 2.5 times lower than in some cities in America. I mean, if you make six figures there you are very comfortable.

I'm able to do this while having some freedom of time, so I choose to work on the business because I love it. It's the contact with the students, the contact with the other teachers in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I talk with them every day. We support each other, many of them have become some of my best friends. The events, when I come to Chicago and I see these people in real life, not only on the forum, it's one of the best moments of the year. But what is even better is that I know that I have a great school that I can come back to, and I just love hanging out with my students because, thanks to Tom Hess, I've been able to build systems that allow me to select my students. I have loads of people calling me all the time and I'm able to be a little selective.

If I want to take days off, I can. I have big goals for this music school so I choose to work hard on it, but I really don't feel forced. In fact it doesn't even feel like I'm working at all. It's not work, it's fun.

Matthieu Delage, Madrid, Spain

“I think what convinced me that the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle was right for me was seeing the success that other people in that program have had since starting their businesses, following what Tom Hess tells them to do, and how they've grown as a business owner, as a teacher, as people, and just seeing those results. That's what convinced me. It's like "Hey, if these people can do it, there's no reason why I can’t”.”

My teaching skills have improved immensely since starting the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. I'm much better able to take what a student wants to learn, what they want to achieve on guitar, and be able to craft a plan for them that will lead them to the result that they want. And whenever there are obstacles that block them from playing, I'm able to break it down, isolate the root of the problem, help them overcome that...while still being able to motivate them and encourage them along the way.

Before I stated the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle I was sort of like a lot of other people, just sort of working the usual daily grind of 9-5 sort of job, doing a job that, even though it was in an industry that I enjoyed, it wasn't doing something that I really liked. And in order to get that position that I really liked, it involved a certain amount of work and climbing a ladder that I didn't really want to do because, at the end of the day I wasn't really as passionate about that. With joining the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, it's been a total 180. I work for myself now, I have my own hours, I have a lot more time on my hands to do the things that I want to do, things I enjoy doing, because I create my own schedule. I decide when I work, what I do with my time, and life's become a lot more relaxing that way because I know that I am the mater of my destiny in that way. I plan everything I do and having that sense of freedom is incredibly liberating because you're not chained to someone else's schedule. You set the boundaries, you set the terms, and you've just got to follow them.

The forum is such a wealth of information. I remember when I first joined I was going through the forum for hours and hours just finding so much incredible stuff. and before that I was actually a Correspondence Lesson student of Tom Hess...seeing the regular forum for the first time, my mind just kept getting blown everywhere. And that's when I really started to realize just how incredible this program is and just how much potential there is for people who, even if they haven't been playing guitar as long as someone else, you can still come into the program, you can still become a great teacher and a great player, and you can walk up the stairs and climb that ladder that same way that everybody else did and it's easy to do it. You just gotta put in the time and the effort and stay persistent and never give up.

Ryan Mueller, Toronto, Canada

"Tom Hess has helped me teach my guitar students better because he’s shown me not just ideas on what to teach them, but how to actually help them whatever kind of student they are on a more kind of psychological level, how to get them practicing more, how to really get them picturing the success that they’re going to have, and actually making that a reality with the students."

I’ve got students who’ve been with me for only a year who are kicking other teacher’s students in the local area down the road with their playing, managing things in a year that other teachers have managed to teach theirs in 5 or 6 years.

I sought the help of Tom Hess because I made the decision at the time I wasn’t ever going to have a day job again. I had a few students at the time, but I just decided I was really serious that I was going to be a professional musician, and part of being a professional musician was that I wanted to teach to earn money.

And after finding some articles online, I tried out a couple of things that he was saying and I was like, okay if these things work and this is the free stuff, well let’s see what he has to offer with his pay stuff. And I think within two weeks of actually paying for the course, I’d already got enough students to pay off what the course was costing me. And then everything else after that was profit and new students and it was awesome.

Since I started the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, my business has improved massively. I started with only 4 students and I now have about 45 students who come very regularly and they learn much more than I’ve ever been able to teach students in the past. The business is growing very very quickly and I’m able to not only teach from my home and have students come to me, I have a space that I rent out as well and I have lots of students come and visit me there.

So for a new teacher, joining the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle is massive. I don’t even know how to explain it. I’ve tried to explain it to other people before. Sometimes they just don’t believe me, they don’t think it’s possible. You have to see it to experience it, and to experience it, you have to do the things that the course tells you to do. But when you do that, the things you have to do are actually really easy and it’s just getting off your backside doing them, and you will use it to make money, get a whole lot of students and have some awesome kickass students who you can really help to become cool guitar players.

It’s great being around the other people in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, because I can ask them for advice whenever I want. I’ve never been in a situation before where I can ask people who are earning 4, 5, 6 times the amount I am for advice on what I should do. And because they're not in the same location of me, they’re not competitors of mine, they can give me that advice, and they’re happy to do so. They're from all around the world and okay, they might not be able to give me the exact advice I want for my country, but they can tell me where to look. They can tell me who to speak to and they can give me great advice on how to grow my business loads of areas. It’s awesome.

Darryl Powis, London, England