How To Become A Massively Successful Guitar Teacher

How To Become A Massively Successful Guitar Teacher

By Tom Hess

Do you wish you understood what it takes to become successful as a guitar teacher? Fact is, you will find out a lot about becoming successful by studying athletes who compete in the Olympics. For the most part, those who compete in the Olympics are very similar in terms of speed, strength and overall physical ability. Usually there is only a small gap between those who win gold medals and those who go home with nothing at all.

Truth is, teaching guitar in your local community is not so different from this. There are tons of guitar teachers around the globe, but only a tiny fraction of them build successful businesses and get significant results for their students. Everyone else works just as hard at becoming successful but are unable to realize their goals, make a great living through guitar teaching and produce great guitar students. How do I know? I’ve been in both positions. Many years ago (when I first began teaching guitar) I had a hard time building a successful teaching business before becoming the world’s leader in guitar lessons and mentor to many great guitar instructors.

Nearly all guitar teachers who are having a hard time building successful businesses think the following: “Guitar teachers who are really successful know more about music or have special guitar teaching knowledge”. Although there is certainly some truth to this, these things are not the ONLY things required for achieving massive success in your guitar teaching business. Over the past 25 years or so I’ve spent teaching guitar, I’ve learned what sets apart the small fraction of highly successful guitar teachers from all other teachers. The crucial element needed for becoming a highly successful teacher has to do with how solid your foundation is for your guitar teaching business (this is not related to your musical skills or teaching knowledge).

Obviously you must always work on becoming a more effective guitar teacher. The real difference between highly successful guitar teachers and mediocre ones is this: Those who are unable to succeed at a high level spend most of their time working on the everyday tasks of ‘teaching lessons’, while the most successful spend their time working on their business (not just ‘in’ it). So just like two Olympic athletes, they can both compete in an event and have almost identical ability – only to end up with drastically different results in terms of their success.

There are many things that make up the core of any massively successful guitar teaching business. Some of these things include: developing a specific guitar teaching niche, putting together student referral systems, creating a solid teaching policy, understanding the process for attracting new students on a consistent basis, building Win/Win partnerships and much more (find out what the elements are for creating a successful guitar teaching business by reading this resource on how to build a guitar teaching business). Truth is, the majority of guitar teachers either ignores the elements mentioned above or do not develop them enough to quickly expand their business in order to overcome local competition.

If you haven’t already become the number one guitar teacher in your area, here is some good news:

1. It’s much easier than you would think to change the way you run your guitar teaching business. It just takes a strong desire to get started – the work is not actually very hard at all. Most of the guitar teachers I train are surprised when I show them how easy it is to become successful in this business.

2. You will receive HUGE benefits from doing this both for your guitar teaching business and your guitar students.

Here is how developing a strong foundation for your guitar instruction business will help you take the next step and become a successful guitar teacher:

Your Students Will Refer Their Friends To You

One of the greatest things about having serious guitar students is getting a lot more referrals from them (compared to how many you’ll get from average students). It’s likely that your most dedicated and serious students already know other guitarists who are also serious about getting better (and are looking for the best local guitar lessons). After they see that their friend is taking lessons with you and is making progress, they will see you as the best option when choosing a new teacher.

You Will Naturally Begin Taking In More Of The ‘Right’ Students

Every guitar teacher want to work with students who are highly enthusiastic, practice on their own, take learning seriously and make quick progress. These kinds of students are very enjoyable to teach, however, the majority of guitar teachers are never able to find and teach these types of players. To consistently attract these kinds of students to your guitar teaching business, you must make your business cater to these specific types of people. You will do this by developing the things I mentioned above.

You Will Make A Great Living From Teaching Guitar

When you start thinking of guitar teaching as a ‘business’ and invest time into developing the foundation that is required to run it effectively, it’s very likely you’ll be able to make a lot of money (100k+) while working relatively few hours in a week. However, before you can do this, you must do the things that most teachers don’t do. I discuss this more extensively in this free guide about how you can earn money teaching guitar.

Your Students Are Going To Take Lessons With You Longer

Once you are able to attract serious guitar students, you will also be able to keep your students taking lessons for longer periods of time. The reasons why this happens are a) serious students are more likely to study longer with you and b) finding creative ways to inspire your students to keep studying with you is a critical aspect of building a successful guitar teaching business in the long term.

You Will Help Your Students Get MASSIVE Results In Less Time

Here is why this will happen:

1. Once you take action to expand your guitar teaching business by developing a solid foundation, you will attract tons of serious students. These students will feel much more inspired to improve their playing and do everything you tell them to do in your lessons. This will lead them to make tons of progress fast. Your other guitar students will notice this and feel inspired to achieve great results too (in many cases this will happen without them even being aware of it).

2. Once you begin expanding your guitar teaching business and start making a good income, you will find it much easier to help your students improve their skills in new and creative ways that you would never be able to do if you weren’t making much money from teaching (like the majority of guitar teachers).

Now that you are aware of the difference between the guitar teachers who have great success and the ones who struggle, you must decide which group you want to associate yourself with. If you are ready to take the next step and become a serious, highly successful guitar teacher, this is what you must do:

1. Learn all you can about developing a successful guitar teaching business by reading this free resource about how to earn money teaching guitar.

2. Invest some time each week into working ON your guitar teaching career rather than only concentrating on preparing lessons, teaching materials, etc.

3. Take the same path as successful Olympic athletes: find an experienced trainer who helps other guitar teachers achieve the greatest success possible in their local areas and who will show exactly how to do this for yourself. Your trainer will not simply tell you what needs to be done, but will hold you accountable for completing all the necessary steps for building a successful teaching business.

When you take these steps, you will separate yourself from the majority of guitar teachers (who never achieve anything significant) and take your guitar teaching business to the highest level.

Download your free eBook about how to earn money teaching guitar.