How to Greatly Expand Your Guitar Teaching Business by Avoiding Common Guitar Teacher Mistakes

Do you struggle to attract and keep many guitar students who would remain highly loyal to you for many years? Do you have a hard time consistently creating highly advanced guitar students who are happy with their musical skills? Are you struggling to earn the kind of income from teaching guitar that you want and deserve?

Many guitar teachers would nod in agreement to at least one of the questions above. Many years ago, I was no different. I used to have a difficult time balancing the challenges of trying to help more guitar students, become a more effective guitar teacher, growing my guitar teaching income, and having anytime left at the end of the day. When I began teaching guitar, I had only a few guitar students and struggled to support myself on guitar teaching income only. My biggest challenges were getting consistent results with different types of students, having reliable systems in place for attracting more students and keeping my existing students from quitting before reaching their musical goals. I also couldn't see an effective way to increase my income other than increasing the number of hours I taught or raising my lesson rates to very high levels.

Unfortunately, I could not find much help from anyone on how to change my situation. Although there were some very good musicians teaching guitar in my area, very few had anything that I considered to be a thriving guitar teaching business: one that ensures effective, powerful and consistent results for students as well as financial success for the guitar teacher.

It became clear to me that following the conventional approaches to teaching guitar was not going to bring me the results I was after (for myself and for my students). It took a long time of studying successful business people (outside of music), and a lot of trial and error, before I finally began to understand why my earlier attempts to become successful teaching guitar were so ineffective. Eventually I realized what I needed to change in my approach before I would be ready to start a highly successful guitar teaching business.

In this article, I will describe several of the most severe mistakes you need to avoid in your guitar teaching business and will give you some valuable advice on how to do so.

Note: This article is focused specifically on how to improve the business side of your guitar teaching, the 'teaching side' of your teaching business will be discussed in a future guitar teaching article.

Before you continue reading the rest of the article, I would like you to take a special test to examine your current level of readiness for becoming the most successful guitar teacher in your area. Take this guitar teacher skills test before reading further.

1. Having Limited Guitar Teaching Models

The vast majority of guitar teachers only engage in one form of teaching: one-on-one guitar lessons. While this approach certainly has its place, it is not the only guitar teaching method that could be or should be used to maximize the benefit to both your guitar students and yourself. Contrary to conventional wisdom, students do not "always" learn most effectively in a one-on-one guitar lesson format. Unfortunately, very few guitar teachers ever venture outside of this traditional method. Many teachers simply aren't aware of the benefits that other guitar teaching formats have, or they follow what other guitar teachers do. There are many cases where a group class could be a more appropriate model, or at least be a useful addition to private guitar lessons. The wide range of group teaching formats (when designed and taught in the right way)allows your students to interact and learn from one another. This is obviously not possible in private lessons. Also, group guitar classes are usually more focused on one specific topic, allowing students to master it in less time. Finally, including group formats into your guitar teaching can make your guitar teaching business much more lucrative, less time-demanding and add more value to your students (plus it becomes more affordable for them!)

2. Not Achieving Meaningful Results With Students

When it comes down to it, the only thing that really matters is the results that your guitar students get from you. If you are able to consistently turn out good or great guitar players, then your positive reputation will begin to spread and referrals will come to you. So if your business is not growing at the rate you would like it to, one of the questions you should ask is: "How effective am I in getting powerful results with my students?" If your students are not happy with the results they receive, then you need to take a closer look at your guitar teaching methods and ask yourself: How can I teach more effectively? How can I add more value to my students? Do the guitar lesson formats I use produce effective results? Do I inspire my students or do I simply give them "information" about guitar playing? How can I lead my students through a literal life transforming experience as their guitar teacher, trainer, coach and mentor? One great way to improve as a teacher is to find the most successful guitar teacher you can, and take lessons with him or her on how to TEACH. Remember that the more you are able to fulfill and transform people's musical lives in genuinely empowering ways, the faster your teaching business will grow.

3. Working Too Much "In" Your Guitar Teaching Business And Not Enough "On" It

It is very common for guitar teachers (and business owners) to get so caught up in doing the daily work of "teaching" that little action is taken to actively expand and grow the business further. As a result, a business owner doesn't really own a business; he/she only owns a "job". Of course your guitar teaching may expand on its own to some extent, but it will grow MUCH faster if you invest some time each week into doing things that will speed up this process. Focusing on promotion, analyzing and improving your guitar teaching effectiveness and business models, creating referral programs, joint ventures and partnerships all create opportunities for you to maximize the value you add to your students and expand your business! Schedule some time each week to plan the direction you want your business to take in the next 3, 6, and 12 months... By being proactive in this way, you will see many positive results.

4. Not Knowing How To Distinguish Yourself From The Competition

The best way to distinguish yourself from your competitors is to not have any. Read the last sentence several times and think about what it means! How can this apply to your situation as a guitar teacher? There are probably dozens (or hundreds) of guitar teachers in your local area, so it may seem impossible to "not have competitors"....or is it? One effective way to make all competition "irrelevant" is to offer something that no other guitar teacher in your area does. Having several teaching models in addition to the standard one-on-one guitar lessons is one such possibility, but there are MANY others.

The options range from changing the way you conduct lessons to thinking of innovative ways for overcoming objections of prospective guitar students that will make them want to choose you over the competition every time.

Here is another common competition problem and something you can do about it:

Very often you may only be able to attract guitar students who live close to your teaching studio. When a prospective student lives further away, that distance creates a barrier of inconvenience and the student is more inclined to find a guitar instructor who is closer. Most guitar teachers would simply give up and allow the person to study with someone else. But have you ever thought about what that inconvenience really means? Most of the time, the "distance" isn't the problem. The problem (the objection) is the "time" that the student feels is wasted each week as they travel to and from your guitar lessons. They may love your lessons but hate wasting an hour to travel to you. Have you ever thought about what that means for you and how understanding this difference can be of great benefit to both you and your prospective students? There are several things you could do to turn this situation into a positive one. The question on your mind should be, "How can every minute they invest into traveling to me be reinvested into something useful for them?" Asking this question will likely inspire you to create some powerful resources to offer to your prospective students that they can study while commuting to and from your lessons! This is one of many examples of how you can differentiate yourself from the competition. The more you set yourself apart, the easier it will be to grow your guitar teaching business.

5. Not Understanding How To Achieve Geometric Growth Rather Than Linear Growth

Most guitar teachers only know how to grow their business linearly. They take one action in one area, and achieve some result. Then they repeat that same action and receive more results. Of course there is nothing wrong about this, but such an approach limits the amount of total growth you can achieve and the number of people you can help. Here is an example.

Most guitar teachers have only 1 or 2 ways of acquiring new students. Perhaps the most common method is advertising locally (posting flyers or placing ads in newspapers). So to recruit more new guitar students, most teachers either increase the number of ads they release, or change the ads to make them more effective. Let's assume that last year you were able to recruit 20 new guitar students. To increase this number, you publish more ads than before. As a result, this year you recruit 25 new students. Certainly this is good progress (a growth of 5 students or 25% per year), but you have only achieved linear growth. What if, in addition to advertisements you also focused on keeping your existing students longer, establishing joint ventures with music stores, and focused on converting a higher percentage of prospects into students? Most music teachers are completely unaware of how these elements can contribute to their guitar teaching business, and miss huge opportunities for MASSIVE growth!

If each of these elements provided you with 25% more students, your growth would now become geometric! The growth in each of these elements would compound on top of the others. Instead of expanding by only 25%, you can now grow by 144%! If your current state of business is at level 1, and you expand it by 25% (multiply by a factor 1.25) from 4 different business elements, your total growth is about 144%! (1 x 1.25 x 1.25 x 1.25 x 1.25 = 2.44 or 144% increase!!!). This means that your student count can go from 20 to 48 instead of 20 to 25 in one year!

6. Not Being Able To Think Of Unconventional Ways Of Attracting More Prospective Students.

Even if all you do is post flyers in your area and take out ads in newspapers, what have you done to maximize the results you get from these efforts? If you simply try to copy what everyone around you is doing to attract more guitar students, you will get the same results as everyone else. But if you want to grow your guitar teaching business and help more people than the average guitar teacher, then you will need to use approaches that are better than average. Taking some marketing classes will help you to greatly increase the response rate to standard ads. But in addition to the obvious, it is often the most unconventional methods that bring the best results. Have you thought about partnering up with a music store around your area to refer students/customers to each other? This idea can result in much more business for both parties, and it costs nothing to set up! I have a guitar student right now (who is a professional guitar teacher) who does this in his area and almost all of his 57 students came from this single idea!

7. Not Having Effective Systems In Place For Converting Prospects Into Becoming Students.

Guitar students will be so much more likely to take lessons from you when you can prove to them beyond any doubt that their life will be enhanced by having you as their guitar teacher. One of the best ways to do this is to show the results you have achieved by helping other guitar players. No matter what you promise "in words", there must be clear proof to back up your claims. When it comes to conversion, there is little else as effective as solid proof of your success with other students. Some guitar teachers make the mistake of acting like salespeople, trying to "sell" the lessons to students. What you need to do instead is to make the prospect see on their own that you are the most logical and most viable solution to their musical problems. Nobody likes to be "sold" to, so you should let your massive evidence of success with guitar students speak for itself. You must also find out as much as you can about your prospective student's specific goals, musical challenges, and current playing level. After you know this, it will be easier to prove to the person that you can give them the help that they need. Most importantly, you MUST back up every claim you make. If a prospective new guitar student asks to study with you, but you are not comfortable teaching in his/her style, skill level, or musical ambitions, then do NOT teach that student. The fastest way to destroy a business is to fail to deliver what you promise!

8. Not Knowing How To Keep Students For a Long Time (Years!)

Your students will continue studying with you as long as you continue to find unique ways to add value and enrich their musical lives. When you do this, it is possible to keep students for 5, 6, 8, 10 or more years! One effective way to ensure that students remain with you longer is to have something to offer that will allow them to continuously advance as musicians. This becomes easy to do if in addition to private lessons you teach several group guitar classes that go in depth on very specific topics. This will allow your students to learn more from you in a new setting while also learning from your other advancing guitar students. Think about the students you have now. You know them well (or at least you should). Ask yourself, in what ways might you be able to provide additional benefits and value to each person you work with? To be clear, I am not implying that you should create an environment of "dependency". Certainly our goal as guitar teachers is to make our students grow so that they may become totally independent and not "need" us forever, but that does not mean you should not constantly look to add huge amounts of value to them for years to come! They should WANT to remain your student for a long time because of the benefit you provide them (not because you are holding them back). Although this might seem like simple common sense, the truth is the VAST majority of music teachers in general, and guitar teachers in particular, don't do a very good job in this area, and that is why so many guitar teachers and students struggle unnecessarily.

9. Not Knowing How To Motivate Existing Students To Refer New Students To You.

Growing your student base through referrals is a very powerful method of expanding your guitar teaching business. However, in order to encourage referrals, you need to have incentives strong enough to make your existing students to WANT to refer their friends to you. One of the strongest incentives is to consistently turn your students into great players and help them reach their musical goals. In most cases, the more satisfied your students are, the more referrals you will get.

Another possibility is to offer bonus lessons or bonus instructional items that your students can ONLY obtain when they refer their friends to you. There are many more possibilities, but these are just 2 to get you started thinking. Don't simply rely on word of mouth to work for you! An effective, organized and systematic referral system will bring you exponentially more students!

It should now be more obvious why guitar teachers struggle with teaching guitar more effectively and earning more money in the process. I hope that by reading this article you have seen that this situation does not have to be this way! Although the list above is not all inclusive, if you take action on each of the 9 points discussed here, you will surely see your level of success and effectiveness as a guitar teacher begin to grow more rapidly.

Tom Hess is a highly successful guitar teacher, recording artist and touring musician. He trains guitar teachers from all over the world how to teach more effectively. Visit tomhess.net to get more free guitar teacher resources and tips for guitar teachers.

11 Damaging Mistakes Guitar Players Make and How to Avoid Them

Do you know how some guitar players practice most days of the week, work hard, and are passionate about their guitar playing, but they always struggle to be able to play guitar the way they want? They are frustrated because they don't improve fast enough, begin doubting their guitar playing potential, or even feel discouraged or angry with themselves when thinking about how long it is taking them to become a better guitar player.

Can you relate to that? I sure can, I just described myself 15 years ago.

There are specific reasons why guitar players go through such frustration and disappointment. Here are 11 key mistakes guitar players make and repeat over and over again that you should definitely avoid.

1. Teaching Yourself To Play Guitar. Many people attempt to teach themselves how to play guitar. Yes, it's true that some well known players were 'somewhat' self taught, but I do not suggest following that strategy even if your favorite player was self taught. If you are 100% sure that you can build powerfully effective learning and training systems on your own, that's great. However, if you are like most of us, doing it alone is the hardest, most time-consuming, stressful, and frustrating way to learn anything. This is a mistake that you should avoid. Some guitar players think it will impress others if they say, "I am a self taught guitar player". That statement might impress a few inexperienced people, but being self taught is not a 'badge of honor'. Would you rather impress others with your guitar playing or with an unimportant statement about your guitar playing? I'm not criticizing self taught guitar players, I'm only saying that there is no advantage to being self taught... and no, it is not true that being 'self taught' makes us more 'original'. In fact, the opposite is usually true.

2. Taking Guitar Lessons From Ineffective Guitar Teachers. Unfortunately, most electric guitar teachers receive ZERO training on how to teach guitar. What is worse is that the vast majority of teachers do little or nothing to improve their guitar teaching skills. Want some proof? Use google's keyword tool . Type in this keyword phrase: 'improve guitar teaching skills', 'guitar teaching skills', or 'guitar teaching training' and you will find that less than 10 searches per month are done for these topics at google! Of course there are some highly effective electric guitar teachers around, but there are a whole lot more ineffective teachers.

3. Seeking New Guitar Information (tricks, tips, tab) Without A Proven Strategy To Reach Your Specific Musical Goals. We need information, advice, help and music to play, but without a proven strategic learning and training process that is specific to you, your skill level, your musical style and what you want to be able to do as a guitar player, information won't get you where you want to go. It is better to first seek help in developing a customized strategy for you to become a better guitar player. After that strategy is in place, then it is time to deal with learning the right information.

4. Not Knowing Specifically What You Want To Be Able To Play. Most guitar players are not specific enough when they think about (or tell others about) what they want to be able to do with their guitar. To say, "I want to play whatever I wish to play" is too vague. How can you (or your guitar teacher) develop a specific and effective guitar training strategy unless the goals you have are specific? It's like saying you want to be a great athlete, how can you effectively train with such a vague goal? Sure there are things you can do to become faster, stronger, more flexible or whatever, but it's much easier if you first get specific such as, I want to train to be a gymnast, or a long distance runner, or a body builder. Yes you can still improve without a strategy, but it will take a lot longer and be much more frustrating. You can always change your goal later if you discover you want to do something else instead.

5. Not Enough Focus On Things That Matter Most To Making You A Better Guitar Player. Have you fallen into the trap of practicing guitar without focusing on the specific things that can quickly begin to improve your guitar playing? Many people really do not understand and apply this concept in enough detail.... for example, I have a student named Mark who used to take lessons from another teacher in the past. Mark was studying sweep picking arpeggios with his previous teacher, and was making some progress. However Mark did not understand what 'specific' things he needed to focus on first before attempting to master the sweep picking arpeggios he was practicing. This was holding him back and making him feel very frustrated. Mark's previous teacher only knew how to 'teach' arpeggios and general sweep picking concepts. He did not really know how to "train" Mark with the specific things to focus on and how to overcome the challenges Mark was having.

6. Too Much Focus On Things That Are Not Core To Your Goals. In addition to not focusing on specific things, many guitar players focus on the 'wrong things'. Some enthusiastic guitar players become temporarily obsessed with things which are distractions from other things that could be helping their guitar playing much more. Here is an example: I used to get so frustrated and angry when I could not play something perfectly, I'd lock myself in my guitar practice room and say, "I'm not coming out of this room until I master this damn lick if it takes me the next 19 hours! No breaks! No food! No human contact! I'm gonna nail this!" And I did master it. On the surface, it might seem like I was on the right track and practicing in a good way.... But in reality, I was spending my time only to stop being angry and frustrated. I was not investing my guitar practice time wisely by focusing on the things that mattered most to making a better guitar player. In other words, my perseverance was commendable, but my strategy to master important long-term goals was weak. I allowed myself to be distracted. I don't make this same mistake anymore, and I urge you to also avoid it! Focus on the things that really matter for your guitar playing right now. If you are not sure how to do this, seek out a proven guitar teacher today.

7. Focusing On The Right Things, But in The Wrong Order. This is a common mistake that even many advanced guitar players make which causes a lot of wasted time and frustration. Imagine you want to improve your ability to create your own cool guitar solos. Let's assume that you are advanced enough to truly understand all the primary and secondary elements of composing guitar solos (or you have a guitar teacher to help you). Each of the many elements need to be learned and/or practiced in order to easily create awesome solos that you like. Where should you begin? What should you focus on first, second, third? Which of these things should you practice simultaneously? There is always a specific order in which musical skills should be learned and mastered in order to EXPLODE your musical skills. Unfortunately, that order is totally different for every person, style of music, musical goal, skill set and knowledge, so giving an example here would be pointless. My advice, find the best teacher you can and study with him/her in order to be able to do what you want to do with your guitar much faster and easier.

8. Not Isolating Problem Areas. Few guitar players are aware of the small things that hold them back in big ways. Because these little imperfections seem insignificant to us, we often ignore them. The truth is, small hinges open big doors. In the video mentioned above I explained how allowing your guitar pick to lose its momentum when you are 'not picking' a note on the guitar makes your playing slow and sloppy.... which will make you feel very frustrated. This is why I was sure to make a special point to help you avoid that mistake.

9. Learning And Practicing Guitar In A Step By Step Linear Process. Does following a linear step by step approach to learning, practicing and mastering guitar seem like common sense good to you? Yes it does... And that is why guitar players who follow such a path are NOT great guitar players. I'm going to let you in an insider's secret... The truth is, following a linear approach to learning guitar, practicing guitar, and mastering guitar is the NUMBER ONE REASON WHY "GOOD GUITAR PLAYERS" STRUGGLE TO BECOME "GREAT GUITAR PLAYERS"...

10. Practicing Guitar In The Same Way Your Favorite Guitar Players Practice Guitar. Have you ever read about how your favorite guitar players practice guitar and then tried to repeat the same practice routine? Yes, I've made this mistake too! It seems natural to use a similar guitar practice schedule that our favorite guitar players are using. This is a mistake, because your current guitar skill level and knowledge of music is probably very different from your favorite player. His/her challenges and needs are likely not the same as yours.

Professional guitar players practice for different reasons than most amateur players do. For example, before recording a new album I will practice very differently compared to the period before going on tour. Once I'm actually on tour my practice routine changes drastically again. The rest of the year my practicing schedule changes yet again. This happens because in each case my challenges and goals are totally different. When my guitar students ask me, "Tom, how do you practice guitar?" I'm careful not to let my students assume that they should practice the same way that I do. Your practice schedule and strategy needs to be built around YOU and you only! If you need help building your own practice schedule, email me directly.

11. Learning From Too Many Different Sources Of Information. There will always be many learning opportunities and various paths to take, but it is critical that you do not get distracted into following a piece of advice from one person, then another piece of advice from another person and then follow more resources from somewhere else and so on and so on... while different people may have some good ideas to offer, the fact is, distraction is a big reason why many guitar players who are actively learning, don't really move forward quickly... these people are always busy following totally different resources, teachers, philosophies, instructional videos, free online guitar lessons, but all of this leads them to take one step forward, then 2 steps to the right, then one step forward, then 3 steps to the left, then one step backward, then two to the right, then 1 step forward and then another step to the left...

Once you have an effective strategy to become the guitar player you want to be, ALWAYS stay focused on it (unless your goals radically change)!! The very best way to do this is to have ONE primary guitar teacher who helps you to become the musician you really want to be.

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't take advice from other people too, but you should have one 'primary' source of information, training and coaching, and see the other advice as an additional resource, but do not become distracted by it.

T. Hess is a professional touring guitarist and recording artist. He teaches guitar players around the world via online guitar lessons. Visit his site to get free guitar tips, assessments, surveys, mini courses and more.