to help you get the most from your tuition service

BQA-04 Handling No-Shows

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A student not showing up for their scheduled lesson can be one of the most frustrating experiences for a guitar teacher. If the student warns you in advance and they have a decent reason why they will miss the lesson it's not too bad. But when they simply don't turn up it's very frustrating. This guide will help you handle no-shows and give you advice on what you can do to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Conversation templates are provided to give you specific ideas on what to say to the student to stop the issue happening again.

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BPL-10 Setting Your Rates 3: Changing Your Rates

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This is the third part in our guide to help you set your lesson rates. If you haven't already done so, make sure you have read:

BPL-08 Setting Your Rates 1: Comparing the Competition

BPL-09 Setting Your Rates 2: Prepaid Lessons & Discounts

This part will focus on the importance of reviewing your rates after you initially set them and how it impacts your earnings over your life. You will be given different strategies to ensure you're always getting paid a fair rate for your lessons. You will learn how to change your rates while keeping your existing students happy.

Why You Need To Review Your Rates

A dollar today doesn't have the same purchasing power it did ten or twenty years ago. When we consider inflation, a dollar today is worth less than a dollar ten years ago. As a guitar teacher this is important to understand because the income you're receiving from lessons today will actually be worth less in the future unless you review your rates regularly. The sad reality is that many guitar teachers are not earning what they deserve simply because they never considered reviewing their rates over time.

If you teach guitar full time or plan on teaching to make a living, setting your rates right is even more important as you will depend a great deal on your rates. When was the last time you reviewed your rates? Let's have a look at a hypothetical example so you can get an idea on the impact inflation has on the money you earn.

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BPL-11 When to say no to a prospective student

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About this guide

The reality of teaching guitar is that not all students are equal. Some students are a pleasure to deal with as they seem to follow every word you say and practice like crazy. Other students show up late, cancel lessons at short notice, don't practice, etc. You need to decide where you draw the line and say no to teaching students. Some teachers try to teach everybody and anybody, while other teachers realize that some students just aren't worth the headaches.
This guide will help you decide where to draw the line and prevent bad students from ruining the enjoyment you get out of teaching guitar.

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BXP-02 Becoming a Full Time Guitar Teacher

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About this guide

If you want to make the jump from part time teaching to a full time career as a guitar teacher, this guide is for you. For most people this is a significant decision to make and requires careful thought to ensure that you make the right choice. This guide will discuss all the points you need to consider before becoming a full time teacher. We will show you how to set yourself up so you will have enough income as well as room for growth in the future.

Working out the minimum income needed

The first thing you need to consider is whether it's possible for you to make enough money teaching guitar full time to support yourself. Even if you have a spouse that earns an income, it's worth considering what would happen if they were unable to work and you had to be the sole provider. Considering worst case scenarios like this will ensure that you never run into the problem of not having enough money to survive.

As a starting point, you need to figure out what the minimum amount you need to earn is to survive. This gives you the absolute bottom at which you can consider teaching guitar full time. If you realize you won't be able to earn this amount, it's not wise to leave your current job. Let's have a look at a case study to figure out this number.

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BMG-02 Using Evernote to stay organised

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About this guide

This guide provides you with an alternative method to using physical books and notes to organize your guitar lessons. Instead of writing down notes and keeping files on each student, you can use programs such as Evernote to keep everything digitally. Before you decide which path to go down, read through this guide. By the end you will have a clear understanding of whether this method will work for you.

Best practices are given later on so you can see exactly how other guitar teachers use Evernote to organize their guitar teaching business.

Disclaimer: We have no affiliation with Evernote in any way and receive no benefit from Evernote. We only discuss products that we use as guitar teachers.

What is Evernote

Evernote

The most basic way to explain Evernote is that it's a free program that keeps notes, audio files, photos and everything else you could possibly want. It's available on essentially all computers, tablets, smartphones. There's plenty of information on what Evernote is on their website so we'll keep this guide focused on information relevant to guitar teachers.

There are other programs similar to Evernote such as Google Keep and OneNote. Although the features may differ you can achieve the same thing with whatever option you choose.

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BXP-01 Teaching Guitar via Skype

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About this guide

Teaching guitar online is a great way to expand your guitar teaching business. If you find that you have trouble finding students to fit in your schedule, opening yourself up to online lessons via Skype could be the solution. Not only can you find students across the globe to fit your schedule, but it's also a great way to build your reputation as a teacher.

This guide will explain in detail the pros and cons of using Skype (or similar applications) to teach guitar online. The guide will also explain the important points you need to succeed with this type of lesson. The biggest mistake people make when teaching guitar via Skype is to assume it's the same as a lesson in person. This guide will show you how you can succeed with online lessons.

Why teach guitar online?

If you're not sure if online lessons are for you, here's a few reasons from other members on why they teach guitar online:

  • Flexibility with schedules
  • Reach more students
  • Able to teach full time
  • Low cost
  • Convenience (no travel)

There are many more reasons but the above reasons were quite common. The main reason you may decide to teach guitar online is flexibility. Want to teach guitar at 3am? You may have trouble finding students in your local area wanting to learn guitar at that hour but you're sure to find somebody in a different time zone. Have trouble finding students to teach during the mornings? There will be people in other countries keen to take those times.

The basics on Skype

Although this guide is on Skype, you can use any similar program and achieve the same results. Some teachers use Google+ Hangouts instead and some Mac users prefer to use iChat. If you're not sure which to use, choose Skype because it's popular and it's free.

Basically Skype allows you to make video calls to other Skype users. That means the student must have Skype installed prior to lessons with you. In addition to video via Webcam, Skype does allow you to share your computer screen in addition to a video of you which can be used to show Guitar TAB, guitar lesson plans, etc. For a full explanation on what Skype can do, visit www.skype.com

Keep in mind that there are other more comprehensive alternatives to Skype or Google Hangouts. Read through this guide first, then check out BMG-01 for a review of online tutoring platforms.

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Use Twitter to find new students

BMK-08 Using Twitter to find new guitar students

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About this guide

Twitter is a powerful tool you can use to grow your student base, build your reputation and even keep your existing students happy. The chances are your competitors don't use Twitter at all which leaves a massive opportunity for you. This guide will show you step by step how you can use Twitter to find new students in your local area.

Basics on Twitter

Many people think that Twitter is pointless and it's understandable when you see some of the pointless 'Tweets' many people send everyday. But as you will see, Twitter is an extremely powerful marketing tool when used the right way and it can bring you in a new source of students. It's also 100% free so even if you're skeptical on the usefulness of Twitter, give it a go as you won't be wasting any money.

We're not going to cover the basics on what Twitter is as there are far better guides available with a quick search. If you don't know what Twitter is, Google it and come back when you have a basic understanding.

This guide will explain everything clearly for people who haven't used Twitter before.

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BMK-12 Guitar Lesson Flyers

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About this resource

The best way to attract new students is to use a mix of marketing and promotion methods. A simple letterbox drop can be enough to build your student base quickly. If somebody is considering learning guitar and they receive a flyer in the mail it may be enough for them to take action and give you a call. Flyers work well if you emphasize the fact that you're based locally as students will like knowing they can easily walk/drive to your location. Download one or more of the following templates, customize it to suit your needs and print them off. If you don't want to spend time and money with online marketing methods, using flyers will do the job well enough for you.

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BMK-11 Marketing to people buying guitars as gifts

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About this guide

A large portion of your students will be children and adults who started lessons after receiving a guitar as a gift. Most of the time they will receive the guitar then start looking for a teacher after realizing it's too hard to learn on their own. Essentially every guitar teacher markets to the recipient of the gift, but what if you can market your lessons to the buyer of the gift? If you can convince the person buying a guitar to prepay some lessons with you then you can straight away take your competitors out of the market.

This guide will show you in detail how you can promote your guitar lessons to the person buying a guitar as a gift. You will be able to lock in the student before they even know they're getting a guitar. If you implement this strategy you'll be taking your competitors out of the game completely.

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BQA-03 Students Cancelling Lessons

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As a guitar teacher it can be very frustrating when a student consistently cancels lessons week after week. If you rely on income from guitar lessons then it's important that students don't get into the habit of cancelling lessons without a legitimate reason. While most students do the right thing and only cancel for the right reasons, you may have a student who simply can't be bothered showing up and cancels. This guide will help you deal with that type of student and to try to prevent it from happening.

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