13 Habits Of Successful Guitar Teachers Who Make A Lot Of Money Teaching Guitar
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Most guitar players think it’s hard to make great money teaching guitar.
This is a big reason why many would-be guitar teachers never even try to learn how to teach guitar.
But some guitar teachers become so successful...
...they make all other guitar teachers in their area look bad by comparison.
What’s the successful guitar teachers’ secret to making money teaching guitar?
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 answer comes down to:
13 simple guitar teaching habits.
These habits allow those guitar teachers to easily make a lot of money teaching guitar.
Why do I say these habits are simple?
Because anyone can easily learn and copy them to make so much money teaching guitar...
Other guitar teachers can only drool with envy.
What are these habits?
Let's get into the list:
Guitar Teaching Success Habit #1. They Have A “Ready – Fire! – Aim” Mindset.
Guitar teachers who become successful start teaching guitar soon after the thought enters their mind.
They know that if they are considering to become a guitar teacher – their musical skills are likely close to good enough to start.
And they know there is no “perfect” time to start teaching guitar – just like there is no perfect time to get married or have children.
This article on how to make money teaching guitar gives you 10 fast-acting ways to learn how to teach guitar.
Question: “But Tom Hess, I'm afraid to start teaching guitar, because other guitar teachers in my area have impressive music degrees and I don’t. What should I do?”
Answer: if you start teaching complete beginner guitar players – they won’t care at all about what degree you have or don’t have.
Why? Because they are way more concerned about themselves.
They wonder if they have what it takes to learn guitar well. They wonder if their hands are the right size and shape to play guitar.
They wonder if they are too old to play guitar. They wonder if they have enough practice time. They wonder if they are going to improve slower than other guitar players they know.
And here is a BIG tip if you want to make money teaching guitar:
If you can make your beginner guitar students feel ok about their big fears – they’ll likely choose you over all the other guitar teachers in your area.
And that means you’ll have an easier time making great money teaching guitar.
Guitar Teaching Success Habit #2. They Are Consistent In Their Actions.
Successful guitar teachers know that making money teaching guitar doesn't come from any one big action you take in the future. Success is the sum total of small actions you take daily.
What does this mean exactly?
It means they aren’t looking for a magic bullet (one thing) that will make them successful guitar teachers who make great money teaching guitar.
They focus on the guitar teaching business fundamentals, such as:
- Learning how to attract new prospective guitar students
- Motivating the potential students who contact them to start teaching guitar
- Upgrading their guitar teaching skills to deliver world-class results to their guitar students
- Making their guitar lessons such an important part of their students’ lives – they almost can’t imagine going somewhere else for guitar lessons.
Guitar Teaching Success Habit #3. They Continuously Invest In Upgrading Their Guitar Teaching Skills.
This is how they become the best guitar teachers they can be and begin to make good money teaching guitar.
Upgrading your guitar teaching skills means: you get training to learn how to teach guitar.
Think of it like “lessons for guitar teachers”. Guitar teacher training helps you shrink the learning curve required to make serious money teaching guitar.
Disclaimer: Yes, I know that the above looks like I'm just trying to promote my Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. (That is a program where I help guitar teachers make great money teaching guitar, working part time.) But you don’t have to learn how to teach guitar from me. You can learn about teaching guitar from whomever you want. I'm just telling you to get it, because a guitar teacher training credential is way more important than any music degree.
Question: “But Tom Hess, didn’t you say that a music degree is not that important for guitar teachers who want to make money teaching guitar?”
Answer: Correct. And part of the reason why music degrees don’t matter much is because music schools typically teach you nothing about how to teach guitar.
But guitar teacher training is different (since it focuses 100% on how to teach guitar at a high level). It’s instantly obvious to any guitar student that you getting guitar teacher training benefits them.
It’s also way easier (and cheaper) to get guitar teacher training than to spend years studying for a music degree.
Guitar Teaching Success Habit #4. They Work “On” Their Business, Not Just “In” It.
When you work on “in” your guitar teaching business – all you are doing is teaching guitar lessons.
The problem with this?
You have little time left over to do things like: learn how to teach guitar better, do more advertising to attract more guitar students, learn how to inspire your guitar students to stay with you longer and get your past students to come back to take guitar lessons from you again.
Those are the things that drive your guitar teaching business forward, help you make money teaching guitar and become more successful than other guitar teachers in your area.
This is called working “on” your guitar teaching business.
Guitar Teaching Success Habit #5. They Are Careful About Who They Listen To.
Successful guitar teachers (who make a lot of money teaching guitar) only take guitar teaching advice from people who know what they are talking about.
If you get guitar teacher training, you will usually be able to talk to other guitar teachers who live far away from your area.
That means:
…they can freely share their best secrets with you (and you with them) – without anyone fearing losing students to a guitar teaching competitor who will make more money teaching guitar at their expense.
Guitar Teaching Success Habit #6. They Don’t Put All Their Eggs Into One Basket.
Successful guitar teachers do their best to attract guitar students from many different channels, to keep their business safe from downturns.
This includes “active” ways (where you have to do ongoing to work advertise your guitar teaching business)… and “passive” ways (where you do the work once and that advertising channel works for you forever.
Most importantly, successful guitar teachers don’t get seduced by any single advertising channel, no matter how well it might be working.
Guitar Teaching Success Habit #7. They “Train” Their Students Twice As Much As They “Teach” Them.
Successful guitar teachers don’t assume that their guitar students will practice guitar correctly on their own. Most guitar students won’t, unless their guitar teacher:
- Watches them practice guitar right in front of you (during their guitar lessons) and correct their mistakes.
- Trains them how to think while practicing to solve their guitar playing problems.
Attract More New Guitar StudentsFind out how to become effective
at attracting new guitar students.
Improve Your Guitar Teaching BizDiscover how to make your guitar teaching business more successful.
Earn Good Money Teaching GuitarLearn 11 steps you should take to earn more money teaching guitar.
Training your guitar students to practice makes them better guitar players a lot faster.
Why is training your students to practice so important for you making money teaching guitar?
It’s important, because much of what determines your guitar students’ progress happens outside their guitar lessons with you.
(i.e. when they are practicing guitar at home.) If they aren’t practicing guitar correctly, they won’t make much progress in their playing.
And if your guitar students don’t feel like you (their guitar teacher) are helping them make enough progress, what do you think will happen?
Yep – many will quit.
Also: training your guitar students to practice creates another opportunity for your students to train under you several times per week. This is a fantastic way to make more money teaching guitar.
Plus: most other guitar teachers in your area don’t train their guitar students to practice. This creates a great opportunity for you to outshine them and become the leading guitar teacher in your area who makes the most money teaching guitar.
Question: “What if my students want me to teach them a lot of information? Isn’t it my job as the guitar teacher to teach my students what they want to learn?”
Answer: No. Your job as the guitar teacher is to help your students become good guitar players as quickly as possible.
Teaching new content (information) is only 1 part of what it takes to become a good guitar player. This is the only part that an average guitar teacher focuses on. And that is a big reason why average guitar teachers don’t turn most of their students into great players or make a lot of money teaching guitar.
A great guitar teacher combines teaching with training his guitar students to review, apply and master old materials. This accelerates your students progress, minimizes overwhelm and accelerates their progress.
Do this and your guitar students will become great players quickly and continue taking lessons with you for years – helping you make more money teaching guitar.
Guitar Teaching Success Habit #8. They Prepare For Economic Downturns When Times Are Good.
That’s how they are able to grow their businesses (and keep making money teaching guitar) when other guitar teachers go back to day jobs.
It’s just like one of Aesop’s fables - about the ant and the grasshopper:
The grasshopper spent the summer singing, while the ant worked to store up food for winter.
Grasshopper ignored the wise ant’s advice to prepare for the cold. And even mocked him for working so hard, instead of enjoying himself.
But when winter came?
The grasshopper came to the ant, begging for food.
As they say, he who laughs last – laughs best.
And when it comes to teaching guitar? You better be saving cash reserves in times when business is good, so you can sustain yourself through economic slowdowns and continue making even more money teaching guitar than before.
Guitar Teaching Success Habit #9. They Advertise 24/7/365.
This includes the summer months AND times when the economy is slow.
Here is a perfect example of how NOT to do this:
Since most guitar teachers know that there will be less inquiries about guitar lessons in the summer, many of them prematurely give up trying to grow their business during this time.
This is a big mistake for other guitar teachers and a golden opportunity for anyone who wants to make money teaching guitar.
Here is why:
The summer gives YOU a golden opportunity to market to all the students that everyone else is missing out on.
Fact is, there ARE guitar students looking for guitar lessons 365 days per year (even if the total number of new prospects goes down during the summer).
Guitar Teaching Success Habit #10. They Ruthlessly Protect Their Time.
Because successful guitar teachers know that time is the one commodity you can’t make more of.
That’s why successful guitar teachers outsource low-level tasks in their guitar teaching business as soon as they can afford to. This allows them to focus their time and energy on the parts of their guitar teaching business that matter most.
Guitar Teaching Success Habit #11. They Have A Strict Lesson Policy And Stick To It.
That’s because successful guitar teachers know: the stricter your lesson policy – the more time & energy you have to serve your best students.
If you have no policy in place for your guitar teaching business, or if you do not enforce the policy you do have, most likely you will run into one or more of the following problems:
- Your guitar students will begin to not respect your time and their investment in studying with you. Many will be late with their payment for lessons and/or will ask to reschedule their lessons frequently to fit their schedule.
- As a result of point 1, your guitar students will also not practice as much as they should and will fail to make real progress.
If you want to stop struggling financially AND if you want your guitar students to take their lessons with you seriously and make real progress in their guitar playing, implement a strict guitar lesson policy and enforce it strongly with all of your guitar students.
Guitar Teaching Success Habit #12. They Learn From Guitar Teachers Who Are Way More Successful Than They Are.
This is much different from how the average guitar teachers learn to teach guitar.
The average guitar teachers look at other guitar teachers in their area and copy what they do.
The result? All guitar teachers teach roughly the same way – turning guitar lessons into a commodity.
That is a huge reason why so many guitar teachers struggle to make serious money teaching guitar.
Guitar Teaching Success Habit #13. They Set Income Goals Based On What They Want, Not Based On What They Think They Can Achieve.
For most guitar teachers – earning $60,000 per year is an unrealistic goal. Truth is – they could be earning way more than $100,000.
When you set bigger goals, you become more motivated to take bigger and more consistent actions to build your guitar teaching business.
That means you are almost certain to achieve much better results than someone with more modest guitar teaching goals.
Now that you know the 13 habits of successful guitar teachers, the next step is to learn how to get prospective guitar students to choose you as their guitar teacher. I can help you with this in my free eGuide “Do THIS & You’ll Get More Guitar Students”. Download it today and discover the guitar student attraction strategies most guitar teachers never know.
Learn how to get tons of new guitar students.
