The #1 Destroyer Of Guitar Teaching Success (And How To Save Your Guitar Teaching Business From It)
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Whether you’ve been teaching guitar for years...
Or if you’re just thinking of getting started as a guitar teacher...
There is one very common killer of guitar teaching success that wrecks your ability to make money teaching guitar.
And no...
It’s not ‘the economy’.
Nor is it the city you live in.
It’s also not your skills, your age or your guitar playing ability.
Sadly, most guitar teachers never even become aware of it...
... despite ‘it’ causing them to build their guitar teaching business on ‘hard and slow’ mode.
EMAIL TO GET ACCESS
By submitting your info, you agree to send it to Tom Hess Music Corporation who will process and use it according to their privacy policy.
The name of that killer of guitar teaching success is...
Ego.
In this article, I’ll show you 6 guitar teaching business mistakes (caused by ego) and simple things you can do to become more successful teaching guitar.
Let’s begin:
Guitar Teaching Mistake #1 Caused By Ego: Measuring Your Business Success By ‘Vanity Metrics’.
What are guitar teaching vanity metrics?
These are things that impress only those who are not in business, but – in reality – do little or nothing to help your reach the guitar teaching success you want.
A few examples of ‘vanity metrics’ include:
- Your guitar teaching business’ top-line revenue (i.e. the gross amount of money you make as a guitar teacher). Why isn’t this number a good measure of guitar teaching success?
Answer: because you don’t get to keep all the revenue you make from teaching guitar.
The only amount that ‘really’ matters is PROFIT (how much money is left over for you after you subtract your expenses).
- A waiting list – this is a list of students who (allegedly) are waiting for some of your other guitar students to quit so they can study with you. While this does make it look like you are in great demand, you can’t pay your bills with a waiting list.
This leads nicely into the next point, which isn’t a ‘metric’ per se, but it IS something guitar teachers often brag about (out of ego), which is:
- Having a “full schedule”. I can never understand how anyone can honestly feel ‘good’ about this. Because in order for your guitar teaching schedule to be full, you need to be both:
1. Incredibly busy.
2. Incredibly frustrated when you think about the money you’re missing out on by not being able to help more people.
But for some reason, many guitar teachers brag about it as if it’s some badge of accomplishment.
The next ego-driven vanity metric of guitar teaching “success” is...
- the number of locations your school has. Just because you are able to open a new guitar teaching location (or several), doesn't mean you should. Too often I see guitar teachers rush to open new schools ‘before’ fully refining the systems and operations in their first location.
This makes them feel good at first... but soon, it burns them out, as the amount of work, level of expenses rises, while the profit stays the same (or even falls in some cases).
Guitar Teaching Mistake #2 Caused By Ego: Giving In To Perfectionism.
Contrary to popular belief, ‘perfectionism’ isn’t a virtue.
Perfectionism is our ego’s attempt to shield us from a drop in status that (we assume) will happen if others see us doing things less than perfectly.
Examples of perfectionism (when it comes to teaching guitar) include:
- Taking forever to get the simplest things (e.g. guitar teaching flier or guitar teaching website) done and launched.
- Procrastinating on advertising your guitar teaching business and marketing to attract students.
- Coming up with endless excuses on why they are not ready yet to get started as a guitar teacher.
When I dig deeper into these behaviors (in guitar teachers I train) I often find they are rooted in fear (of what ‘students will think’ and ‘how students will judge you’) caused by perfectionism.
Point is:
Perfectionists believe that if they do things perfectly, their status will be higher in other people’s eyes.
But the truth is quite different...
1. You are way more likely to be respected (by your students, your family, your mentor (if you have one) and your peers) for taking proactive action towards your guitar teaching goals.
2. Perfection doesn't really exist. Whatever you think is perfect in your guitar teaching business today will not seem perfect a year from now, after you learn more and gain more guitar teaching experience and experience some guitar teaching success.
As such, my advice (to everyone who wants to make money teaching guitar) is:
Live by the ready-fire-aim principle.
The moment you decide to do something (e.g. make money teaching guitar), simply take action. Accept that things will NOT be perfect. Act anyway... and refine things as you go.
When you create something (a guitar teaching flier, a guitar lesson plan, etc.) limit the amount of time you allow yourself on it to create the ‘minimum viable product’.
You can refine things ‘after’ launching them.
This approach helps you tame the perfectionism ego monster and achieve the guitar teaching success you want a lot faster.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #3 Caused By Ego: Taking On Unnecessary Risk To Look More Successful.
Examples include: Hiring employees or moving your teaching into a commercial location before the business can afford it.
This ego mistake is similar to the guitar teaching success crusher I talked about earlier (tracking your guitar teaching success by vanity metrics).
In fact, the big reason why many guitar teachers take on unnecessary risks is because they want to pump up the vanity metrics that make them ‘appear’ more successful than they are.
Other examples of unnecessary risk that put your guitar teaching success in jeopardy include...
- Spending all (or most) of your guitar teaching profits when times are good, instead of reinvesting a healthy chunk of that money into your business.
- Not preparing for economic downturns (that periodically happen and affect every industry) when times are good.
This is why my advice to all guitar teachers I mentor is to live by this mantra:
“Take care of your (guitar teaching) business and your business will take care of you”.
And instead of giving in to the ego’s pull for short-term gratification, think about what’s in the best long-term interest of your guitar teaching business. (If you don't know the answer – get guitar teacher training with a coach who specializes in helping people make money teaching guitar.)
Guitar Teaching Mistake #4 Caused By Ego: Taking Business Advice From Non-Experts Who Are Not Involved In The Business.
What does this have to do with ego?
And how does listening to non-experts’ advice stop you from achieving guitar teaching success?
Answer:
Many guitar teachers follow advice from a spouse or friend (who isn’t qualified to advise you on how to run a business)... simply to preserve a good relationship with those people.
Ironically, this happens even when the guitar teacher knows that the advice they are given is the opposite of what they should do.
This advice may be about:
- How much money to take out money from the business vs. reinvesting it into the business.
- What your guitar teaching format should be.
- What your website (and other marketing materials) ought to look like.
- What kind of marketing (and how much of it) you should do.
The point – which is so obvious, it feels like it hardly needs to be said – is:
Just because you have a close relationship with someone, doesn't mean that this ‘someone’ should have any say in how you run your guitar teaching business.
If you want your guitar teaching business to grow and thrive (reaching the 6-figure level and beyond), keep relationship ego out of business decisions... and only take business advice from people qualified to give it.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #5 Caused By Ego: Misinterpreting All Criticism As A Personal Attack.
(Instead Of Ignoring All (Unconstructive) Criticism And Appreciating Constructive Feedback From People Who Are Trying To Help.)
This is something I see all the time as a mentor to guitar teachers.
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A big part of my job is to give (constructive) feedback to guitar teachers about:
- their marketing
- their communication with guitar students (e.g. how they sell their guitar lessons)
- their teaching
- their guitar teaching business strategy
I do it all with intention to help them reach the highest levels of guitar teaching success and make money teaching guitar.
Well, guess what?
Quite a few guitar teachers struggle to take even the feedback they pay and ask for (!) as anything other than a personal attack. (Some have even quit my coaching program shortly after I gave them some advice they took personally.)
The best way I found to keep your ego in check when getting feedback is to remember that people’s words have no power of you except the power ‘you’ give to them.
So, if someone ‘is’ trying to attack you with their “feedback” – you can simply choose to ignore it.
But if someone you trust is giving you feedback, it’s almost always done from a place of wanting to help achieve guitar teaching success.
So, take it as an opportunity to improve and grow.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #6 Caused By Ego: Refusing To Ask For Help.
Example: Trying to build your business on your own - without any training or coaching.
Yes, I am of course very biased here, because I have a guitar teacher training program (where I help guitar teachers earn at least 6-figures per year, while working part-time).
That said, it is stunning how many guitar teachers would rather reinvent the wheel on everything (i.e. build their business on their own) than ask someone for help.
The “mistake” (caused by pride and ego) is in the extreme cost of time, money and frustration from doing things on your own.
My advice is: whether you get mentoring from me or anyone else – find someone to help you build your guitar teaching business faster.
Someone who has done it before and helped others get where you want to go.
The long-term pride you feel from having achieved your goals will be worth the investment many times over.
Now that you know how to prevent your ego wrecking your potential to make money teaching guitar, I want to show you how to fill your guitar teaching schedule with more guitar students. I show you how in my free eGuide: This Will Get you A Lot More Guitar Students. Download it today and discover the guitar teaching secrets most guitar teachers will never know.
Get training on how to become a successful guitar teacher.
