The BIG Error That Keeps You Just Out Of Reach Of Successful Guitar Teaching

by Tom Hess

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You probably know that in sports (such as the Olympics) there is only a very small gap that separates the 3 finalists (gold, silver and bronze medalists) from the athletes in 4th place and below. Very often, a difference as tiny as a tenth of a second between the top finalists can be THE difference between winning a medal and receiving all the fame and glory that goes with it, or fading into obscurity…forgotten. Imagine the heartbreaking disappointment that is felt by the athletes who are virtually at the same level at their sport as the top 3 finalists…yet for them their goal of victory remains ‘just out of reach’.

In the world of guitar teaching, the situation is much the same. Out of many thousands of guitar teachers in the world, there is only a small handful of those who are highly successful financially and have taught a large number of REALLY good guitar students. The rest (the vast majority of guitar teachers) often try just as hard to be successful but are doomed to attain only mediocre results, both in their guitar teaching business as well as in their ability to help their students reach their guitar playing goals. I know this because I’ve been on both sides of the fence. I’ve gone from being one of the struggling guitar teachers in my area (when starting my guitar  teaching career) to becoming the leading guitar teacher online andeventually becoming the world’s top trainer and mentor for guitar teachers.

Most struggling guitar teachers mistakenly believe that the thriving teachers must ‘know a lot more’ about music or about guitar teaching in order to become highly successful. While this is partly true (the very elite guitar teachers DO know highly effective guitar teaching approaches), this factor alone isn’t enough to be the ‘deciding factor’ as to why some guitar teachers become MASSIVELY successful while thousands of others continue to struggle to make ends meet financially and help their students reach their goals. What I’ve found is that the key to becoming the leading guitar teacher in your area has the most to do with the things that make up the foundation of your guitar teaching business and on the surface are not related to how you teach your guitar lessons.

To be clear, it is a given that you should always seek to become better and more effective at ‘teaching’ guitar. However, the single biggest difference between successful guitar teachers and the ones who struggle is that the common guitar teachers limit their focus ONLY on the day-to-day tasks of ‘guitar teaching’ whereas superior teachers invest substantial time and effort working ‘on’ their business instead of ONLY ‘in’ it. As a result, 2 guitar teachers (just like 2 Olympic finalists) can be virtually identical in the skill for their chosen activity (in this case - ability to teach guitar) but still receive massively DIFFERENT outcomes in terms of success in their guitar teaching business.

The items that make up the foundation of any highly successful guitar teaching business include a variety of elements, such as establishing a guitar teaching niche, building referral systems, developing a rock solid lesson policy, knowing how to get more new guitar students in general AND learning how to attract the ‘right’ students specifically, building mutually beneficial partnerships, and a lot more (you can see a longer list with more detailed explanations about the elements needed to grow your guitar teaching career in this free guitar teaching business eBook). The point is that most guitar teachers either completely neglect working on the elements above or they do not focus on them enough to grow their business at the rate required to become the DOMINATING guitar teachers in their local areas.

If this sounds like you, then I have two pieces of good guitar teaching news for you:

1. ‘It’s not that hard’ to change your approach to running your guitar teaching business. All it takes is some commitment to getting started, while the work involved is not nearly as difficult as many think. When I train guitar teachers how to become highly successful, most are surprised to discover that the steps needed to create a thriving guitar teaching business are quite simple to do.
2. The benefits you will experience from doing this will be truly MASSIVE, both for your business and for your guitar students.

Here is how working on this foundation of your guitar teaching business will help to put you “over the top” in the amount of success you will achieve with guitar teaching:

You will naturally attract more of the ‘right’ type of students

All guitar teachers would prefer to work with highly motivated students who take their guitar lessons seriously, respect your lesson policies, practice guitar regularly and progress rapidly. These types of students are a pleasure to teach, but most guitar teachers do not know how to attract such clients into their business. In order to attract more of such guitar students to you, one of the first things you must do is create the guitar teaching environment that caters to THAT specific group of clients. Developing the pieces mentioned above in your guitar teaching will help you do just that.

You will earn A LOT more money with guitar teaching

When you treat your guitar teaching business as ‘a business’ and take the time to develop the foundation that is needed for it to run effectively, it is very realistic to grow your income without having to teach a crazy number of hours per week. However, doing so requires you to do the things that most teachers never take the time to do. I describe how to do this in detail in this free eBook about earning more money teaching guitar.

Your guitar students will stay with you longer

When (in addition to developing your general guitar teaching skills) you treat your guitar teaching business seriously and attract more serious guitar students, your ability to keep students studying with you for a LONG time will go up dramatically. This happens not only because more serious guitar students are likely to study with you longer on their own, but also because finding innovative ways to increase the motivation of your students to continue studying with you is one of the key foundational elements of any successful guitar teaching business.

Your guitar students will refer many more of their friends to you

One of the benefits that comes from attracting ‘serious’ guitar students is the increased number of referrals you will receive compared to the number of referrals from ‘ordinary’ guitar students (less serious guitar players/hobbyists). Your most committed guitar students likely know a lot of other guitar players who are ALSO very serious about improving their guitar playing and are looking for the best guitar teaching in your area. When they know that their ‘serious’ guitar playing friends are already taking guitar lessons with you, it will be more likely that you will be the top choice as a guitar teacher for those potential guitar students.

You will help your guitar students get much bigger (and FASTER) results in their guitar playing

This will happen for 2 reasons:

1. As mentioned above, when you take the action to grow your guitar teaching business by improving its foundation, you will attract more serious guitar students. These students will be a lot more motivated to practice with greater intensity and to follow everything you tell them to do in their guitar lessons with you. As a result, they will naturally progress faster. What then follows is a positive chain reaction in your other students who become inspired to reach the playing level of your more advanced guitar students. This often happens even without them realizing it, but the fact remains that when you apply the advice from this article to grow your guitar teaching business, it will create additional intrinsic motivation within all your students to help them get better results.
2. When your guitar teaching business grows and you start earning more money, it will become much easier for you to help your students become better guitar players in new and unconventional ways that you would never be able to do if you were struggling financially (like most guitar teachers).

Now that you understand the biggest difference that stands between the few highly successful guitar teachers and the ones who struggle, you must decide which group of guitar teachers you want to be a part of. If you are committed to achieving the greatest success possible in your guitar teaching business, here are the steps you must take:

1. Learn more about the things that need to make up the foundation of your guitar teaching business by studying this free eBook about earning more money teaching guitar.
2. Begin to allocate some time each week to work “on” your guitar teaching career instead of spending all of your work time simply going through the motions of guitar teaching.
3. Do what elite Olympic athletes do: seek out a proven coach who knows how to train guitar teachers to dominate over their competition and who will help you to implement the action steps you need to take to grow your guitar teaching business. In addition to simply telling you what ‘to do’, an effective coach will also hold you accountable for implementing the actions that you must take to grow your guitar teaching business.

By taking the steps above you will totally set yourself apart from any possible competing guitar teachers in your area and propel your guitar teaching career to new heights.

If you haven’t yet checked out the free eBook about earning more money teaching guitar, I recommend that you do so now.

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