Are you not making as much money with guitar teaching as you would like to? Does it seem that you are working hard to teach guitar only to get back very little in return for your efforts? Do you feel skeptical toward the idea of earning BIG money in your guitar teaching business?

Most guitar teachers who read the paragraph above would respond with an enthusiastic “YES” to each question. In fact, if you think like these people, you likely have strong doubts about the possibility of making a massive income ($100k+ each year) with guitar teaching. The truth is that such a level of success is definitely attainable, even though the unfortunate reality is such that most guitar teachers still struggle to make ends meet financially. The good news is that if you begin to approach your guitar teaching business in the same way as truly successful guitar teachers do, you too will realize your own potential to make a lot of money teaching music for a living. In order to help you better understand what you must do to start making more money as a guitar teacher, I have put together 10 of the biggest reasons why most guitar teachers have a hard time making money. By reading through the rest of this article, you will be able to learn from the mistakes of other guitar teachers. The more information you gain on what NOT to do, the faster you can begin to move toward achieving your financial goals.

You do not have a solid strategy for attracting A LOT of new guitar students on a continual basis.

The majority of guitar teachers are only aware of a few ways to get the attention of potential guitar students. On top of that, these teachers almost always go about marketing their guitar lessons in very inefficient ways. Guitar teachers who make a lot of money in their guitar teaching businesses use many different strategies to gain new students all throughout the year. One of the major factors for their success is the fact that they do not rely on any single method to build their student base. This way, if one method turns out to not be particularly effective, they still have many others to draw from. Find out how you can become more effective at attracting students by taking this short survey about attracting a lot of guitar students.

You have no reliable methods for keeping your students for long periods of time.

The primary focus of most guitar teachers is on ‘how to find new guitar students’. In their efforts to get new students, these teachers often lose focus of keeping the students they already have. If your students are not staying with you for two years or more, this is a sign that you are struggling to keep students.

The key to maintaining your guitar teaching business is to increase your student ‘retention rate’ (how long students continue taking lessons with you). Once you know how to keep your students for longer periods of time, you will not need to keep finding new students just to replace the ones who have left in order to return to the same level of income. This will allow you to grow your guitar teaching business steadily without having to constantly worry about losing money due to decreasing student numbers.

Your guitar teaching does not consistently turn ‘so-so’ guitar students into excellent musicians.

Fact is, guitar students come to you in order to make progress and reach their musical goals. The better you are at helping them accomplish their highest guitar goals, the more new guitar students you will get through word of mouth and referrals to friends. Any highly successful guitar teacher who makes $100k+per year has a strong reputation for transforming average guitar players into great guitar players (in short periods of time). This is what helps them to build and expand their guitar teaching business. If you have a hard time getting great results for your guitar students, check out this guitar teaching program.

You don’t get paid for every single week of the year (including days when you are sick or on vacation).

Many guitar players experience great frustration due to the fact that they do not get paid for every single week of the year…whether their guitar students show up or not. In most cases, guitar teachers think that they must either take unpaid time off or teach guitar lessons more often. However, these two options are NOT the only choices you have. In fact, it is possible to take PAID time off while also delivering great guitar teaching material to your guitar students. If done right, your students will be more than willing to pay you good money for days when you are not even there teaching them in person (yes, you read that right!). To get several ideas to help you do this in your guitar teaching business, download this free eBook for making money as a guitar teacher.

You are not charging enough money for your guitar lessons.

One of the biggest misunderstandings made by beginning guitar teachers is thinking that lower teaching rates means more new guitar students. Fact is, lowering the costs of your lessons not only decreases the amount of money you make from each lesson, but it also does the following:

1. There are many potential guitar students who believe in the saying ‘you get what you pay for’. By lowering the costs of your guitar lessons, you create the perception that you are a lower quality guitar teacher.
2. Whether they are aware of it or not, your guitar students will naturally be inclined to practice better if they are paying more for the lessons they receive. If you lower your teaching rates, you are effectively lowering your students’ standards for how hard they feel they need to practice. This is because they feel less accountable for their progress due to a relatively low financial investment.

Guitar teachers who earn a lot of money in their guitar teaching business do not lower their prices to attract new students. Instead of doing this, they focus on increasing the value of their guitar lessons as much as possible so that the price of lessons seems low when compared to the MASSIVE results and benefits their students receive.

You are not currently implementing a solid teaching policy.

If you have never taken the time to create your own guitar teaching policy, or if you do not enforce your current policy, you are probably experiencing many negative issues with your students. Some of these issues include the following:

1. Not having a teaching policy (and enforcing it) creates the perception that you are a very ‘relaxed’ teacher and do not take lessons seriously. As a result, your students will ‘walk all over you’ by not showing up to lessons on time, not paying when they are supposed to, or frequently asking to reschedule.
2. As an effect of point #1, your guitar students will not practice enough to make significant progress.
3. You will need to put out a great deal of extra effort to contact students, ask for late payments and teach make-up lessons (on your own, unpaid time). This will become frustrating very quickly. The bottom line is that you need to implement a solid guitar teaching policy in order for your students to take guitar lessons seriously and make a lot of progress in their guitar playing. Learn how to create a solid guitar teaching policy with this free eBook for making money as a guitar teacher.

You are not able to make a strong connection with your guitar students.

Guitar teachers frequently get so caught up in the act of ‘teaching guitar’, that they forget about the actual person sitting in front of them. Fact is, being a guitar teacher is about ‘people’ first and ‘guitar’ second. If you’d like to become highly successful at gaining and keeping students all year round, you must learn how to demonstrate the following to your students:

1. You are totally COMMITTED to helping your students reach their highest goals on guitar.
2. You genuinely care about helping them become a better guitar player.
3. You can identify with their current struggles on guitar and have been through them yourself.

By creating a solid connection with your guitar students, they will acknowledge you by giving you strong loyalty, continued lessons together and A LOT of money for years to come.

You get in the way of your own progress.

When thinking of ways to make money in their guitar teaching businesses, most guitar teachers usually think about 3 things:

1. The price of their guitar lessons.
2. How many hours they spend teaching each week.
3. How many guitar students they have.

If these are the only 3 factors you are using when thinking of ways to increase your guitar teaching income, you are greatly reducing your potential for financial growth. These factors are important; however they are only a small part of the big picture when it comes to making money teaching guitar. The truth is, you can MASSIVELY increase your yearly income from guitar teaching without raising the rates of your lessons or teaching more hours in the week. Find out how to earn two to three times more money as a guitar teacher in this video for building a successful guitar teaching business.

You exclusively teach private guitar lessons in a 1 on 1 format.

A big myth among guitar teachers is that guitar lessons in a 1 on 1 format are the best way to teach (and learn) guitar. Although this format can be good in some cases, it is certainly not the only way to get good results for you students. On top of that, it is an extremely limiting format in terms of making money as a guitar teacher. A better approach is to combine various different group teaching formats together with your current 1 on 1 format. Not only will this help your students learn more effectively, but it will help you make much more money in your guitar teaching business. To learn new and innovative guitar teaching formats that you can use right now for your guitar lessons, watch this successful guitar teaching business video.

You do not have a specific strategy that will get you from your current financial situation to earning $100k+ with guitar teaching.

Guitar teachers who earn 6 figures or more each year have not built their businesses through ‘luck’. They have achieved their success through investing many hours to test and implement many specific strategies. Unfortunately, most guitar teachers do not take the time to create effective systems to grow their guitar teaching businesses. Instead, they simply copy what they think is working for other teachers in their local area. The downfall of this approach is that the other guitar teachers are almost always in the same exact financial position of making very little money! If you want to truly earn a good living from teaching music, you must learn from someone who is a highly successful guitar teacher and who can show you the proven methods to make money in your guitar teaching business.

If you identified with some of the problems I have discussed, you have become aware of some of the biggest areas you need to improve in order to earn more money as a guitar teacher. Once you have taken the time to implement the points talked about in this article, you will experience significant growth in your guitar teaching business.

Get help to expand your guitar business and make more money as a guitar teacher with these free guitar teacher resources:

• eBook about making money as a guitar teacher.
• Video for growing a successful guitar teaching business.
• Guitar teaching test to help you start attracting a lot of guitar students.

About The Author:
Tom Hess is a professional guitar teacher, composer and the guitar player for the metal band Rhapsody Of Fire. He shows guitar teachers from around the world how to make money teaching guitar. On his website tomhess.net, you can find guitar teacher resources, and guitar teaching articles.