Statistics have shown that the majority of guitar teachers do not succeed with their teaching businesses. Most guitar teachers have just a few really great students (if they actually have any) - and for most of them, a $60,000 per year income seems like a distant dream. Most of these teachers get frustrated and end up working at some day job that has nothing to do with music, preaching the myth that making money by teaching guitar it's too hard, if not impossible.
Truth is, it’s not that guitar teachers fail, but people fail. Teaching guitar can be a very rewarding career. After years of training thousands of guitar players to become great, building a successful guitar teaching business and coaching several teachers to make 6-figures per year, I can truly tell you that there are limitless possibilities when it comes to succeeding with a teaching business.
Guitar teaching business owners do not fail because it is too hard to succeed, they fail because they have the wrong mindset. The vast majority of guitar teachers have a pessimistic view of life that makes it impossible to reach success.
In this article I will show you how dangerous this mindset is for your teaching career, but before continuing, take this free assessment to learn your potential for success as a guitar teacher.
The following are the common reasons why most guitar teachers' mindsets lead cause them to fail and how you can prevent this in order to achieve big success in your teaching business.
Reason One: Possessing A Pessimistic Mindset
Teachers with a pessimistic mindset never even attempt to achieve (nor even set) big goals like making $100K per year by teaching guitar or transforming hundreds guitarists into great players. They tend to think that such a goal is not a down-to-earth goal. Here is why this happens:
These harmful beliefs hold most guitar teachers back from taking any step that (for sure) would lead them to success.
Reason Two: Blaming Others
Unsuccessful guitar teachers are usually prone to blaming others for their business failures. Whenever these types of guitar teachers cannot find enough guitar students, they end up making excuses like these:
Truth is, the most successful guitar teachers systematically attract guitar students all year long, in any place of the world, with or without great credentials.
In reality, the only credential that really counts is the level of training you have with teaching guitar. The good news is: this credential is easily acquired and you can get it whenever you want and you do not have to spend (waste) thousands of dollars and many years like you would with any traditional music degree.
Reason Three: Sabotaging Yourself And Your Students
Having a cynical mindset will not only hold you back from earning huge amounts of money, but will also hurt your guitar students’ progress – preventing them from ever being able to reach the playing level they wanted to reach by studying with you. Here is why:
1. They will notice your poor conviction and will not take your guitar lessons seriously. Your own cynicism infests your students’ mindset, causing them to start thinking negatively about their own potential and making them less likely to get results.
2. Due to not being one hundred percent committed to becoming the best guitar teacher you can be, you will never take the needed steps for learning how to train your students to become the best players.
This will only give you a very bad reputation in your local area... and the serious students - the ones that are willing to spend money on guitar lessons - will never take lessons with you.
How To Beat Guitar Teaching Pessimism:
1. Find And Join A Successful Guitar Teacher Coaching Group: This means, enroll a group of guitar teachers who have reached high levels of success and/or are on their way to making $100K per year of income with their teaching business.
Beware: the vast majority of online teaching forums are filled with unsuccessful and pessimistic teachers who do not have a high standard for success – you must avoid them at all costs. Alternatively, find and hang out with guitar teachers that have achieved real success in their local areas. Success coach Tony Robbins has said “Your level of success will be in direct proportion with the people you surround yourself with”. This applies for guitar teachers too. Cynics will often tear you down with their negative mindset, but at the same time, successful guitar teachers will inspire you and encourage you to become even more successful than them... that's how successful people think.
2. Use A Verified Guitar Teaching Model: When you have taken the steps needed to surround yourself with highly successful guitar teachers and have begun developing a winning mindset, you have to do what other successful teachers have done: get a map for your guitar teaching success. This means get the tools, support system and training to build a teaching business. As soon as you develop this, becoming the best and most successful guitar teacher in your local area will be inevitable for you.
Beware: In order to get the best possible outcome from these steps, you need to get rid of all sorts of cynical beliefs that might dwell in your mind and align it with the same mental attitude that the world's top teachers have. To do this, take this free assessment: “Can you really build a successful guitar teaching business?” and get free feedback from me on your progress towards building a successful teaching business.
About The Author: Tom Hess is a successful professional guitar teacher and touring musician. He also mentors guitar teachers from around the world in his guitar teacher training program. Visit his website, tomhess.net to read more articles about guitar teaching, guitar teaching tips and get free guitar teacher skill assessments.