Word of mouth referrals are the easiest, most effective and most productive way to attract new guitar students, and they usually bring in the highest quality students, too. If you haven’t started mobilizing your existing students and using them to do your advertising and recruiting for you through word-of-mouth referrals, you’re not making as much money as you could be in your teaching business.

In this episode I’ll explain why word of mouth referrals are such a powerful and effective way to attract new students and I’ll give you some cutting-edge strategies you can start implementing today in your own teaching business to transform your stream of referrals from a trickle into a flash flood! If you haven’t been able to get your teaching business “over the hump” and generate the level of revenue you’ve been trying to reach, the strategies in this episode can help you get there.

This PREMIUM episode of the Start Teaching Guitar Podcast is available exclusively for STG All-Access members!

To give your teaching business a huge advantage and get TONS of cool benefits INCLUDING the full-length, commercial-free version of this episode, click here to start your 14-DAY FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP to STG All-Access today!

STG All-Access members get access to the following VALUABLE RESOURCES:

• WEEKLY full-length episodes of the STG Podcast with no advertising or commercials, including a mind map outline containing my PRIVATE NOTES used to record the episodes

• Access to PREMIUM EPISODES that nobody else gets to listen to with more in-depth “how-to” information

• Monthly live Q&A calls where you can get ANSWERS to your QUESTIONS about teaching guitar

• Access to the STG Podcast Archive, and the FIRST 25 EPISODES that are no longer available to the general public

• Access to the STG Community Forums, where you can interact with other guitar teachers from around the world

• Much more!

Give yourself a weekly shot of ENCOURAGEMENT and MOTIVATION and the RESOURCES you need to help you build your guitar teaching business! Click this button to start your FREE 14-DAY TRIAL MEMBERSHIP:

Your confidence level has a big impact on how successful you are with teaching guitar lessons. A high level of confidence will help you keep moving forward when times are tough, and a low level of confidence will make you feel like giving up. If you can keep your confidence level high, you have a lot more potential for success and you can actually enjoy your business more, too.

In this episode I’ll get into the mysterious link between confidence and running a successful teaching business. I’ll explain why protecting your confidence level is so important and I’ll also cover 5 common “confidence killers” and 5 ways to protect yourself from them. If you’ve been struggling with your business lately, this episode might help you understand why.

This PREMIUM episode of the Start Teaching Guitar Podcast is available exclusively for STG All-Access members!

To give your teaching business a huge advantage and get TONS of cool benefits INCLUDING the full-length, commercial-free version of this episode, click here to start your 14-DAY FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP to STG All-Access today!

STG All-Access members get access to the following VALUABLE RESOURCES:

• WEEKLY full-length episodes of the STG Podcast with no advertising or commercials, including a mind map outline containing my PRIVATE NOTES used to record the episodes

• Access to PREMIUM EPISODES that nobody else gets to listen to with more in-depth “how-to” information

• Monthly live Q&A calls where you can get ANSWERS to your QUESTIONS about teaching guitar

• Access to the STG Podcast Archive, and the FIRST 25 EPISODES that are no longer available to the general public

• Access to the STG Community Forums, where you can interact with other guitar teachers from around the world

• Much more!

Give yourself a weekly shot of ENCOURAGEMENT and MOTIVATION and the RESOURCES you need to help you build your guitar teaching business! Click this button to start your FREE 14-DAY TRIAL MEMBERSHIP:

What is a complete guitar player? There are a lot of different aspects to being a well-rounded musician. People debate this subject all the time. Is it all about how well you can play technical passages, or how well you understand theory or how many cool sounds you can wrangle out of your guitar? The correct answer is “all of the above”!

In this episode, I’ll get into 15 different components that go into making a complete guitar player. I’m sure there are MORE than 15, but this list is a good starting point. If you have a good understanding about what makes a guitar player “professional”, you can help your guitar students make a lot more progress on the instrument and do a lot better with your teaching business, too.

This is the FREE EDITION of this episode of the Start Teaching Guitar Podcast

To give your teaching business a huge advantage and get TONS of cool benefits INCLUDING the full-length, commercial-free version of this episode, click here to start your 14-DAY FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP to STG All-Access today!

STG All-Access members get access to the following VALUABLE RESOURCES:

• WEEKLY full-length episodes of the STG Podcast with no advertising or commercials, including a mind map outline containing my PRIVATE NOTES used to record the episodes

• Access to PREMIUM EPISODES that nobody else gets to listen to with more in-depth “how-to” information

• Monthly live Q&A calls where you can get ANSWERS to your QUESTIONS about teaching guitar

• Access to the STG Podcast Archive, and the FIRST 25 EPISODES that are no longer available to the general public

• Access to the STG Community Forums, where you can interact with other guitar teachers from around the world

• Much more!

Give yourself a weekly shot of ENCOURAGEMENT and MOTIVATION and the RESOURCES you need to help you build your guitar teaching business! Click this button to start your FREE 14-DAY TRIAL MEMBERSHIP:

What do you think it means to be a complete guitar player? To call in with a question, a comment or to leave feedback for the show, call the Listener Feedback Hotline at (719) 428-5480 and leave a message! I just might include your recorded message in a future episode.

Items Mentioned In This Episode (15 Components of a Complete Guitar Player):

Link - Theta Music Trainer
Book - “Fretboard Theory” by Desi Serna
Book - “A Modern Method For Guitar” by William Leavitt
Link - Guitar Pro 6
Link - The Gear Page
Book - “Zen Guitar” by Philip Toshio Sudo

Hands down, the biggest reason why every kind of small business goes belly-up (including guitar teachers) is because of MONEY. Not staying on top of your income and expenses can get you into all kinds of trouble, including tax problems, not being able to pay your bills and not being able to keep your teaching business open. The solution is an amazing age-old forecasting tool called a BUDGET.

In this episode, I’ll explain what a business budget IS and why you need one for your teaching business. I’ll also explain how to put one together and how to USE it to predict the future. I’ll even throw in a spreadsheet I put together that will help you keep track of your teaching business budget and help you avoid getting burned by cash flow problems. Budgeting is really cool once you catch a vision for it and it can cover your butt in numerous ways as a business owner!

This PREMIUM episode of the Start Teaching Guitar Podcast is available exclusively for STG All-Access members!

To give your teaching business a huge advantage and get TONS of cool benefits INCLUDING the full-length, commercial-free version of this episode, click here to start your 14-DAY FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP to STG All-Access today!

STG All-Access members get access to the following VALUABLE RESOURCES:

• WEEKLY full-length episodes of the STG Podcast with no advertising or commercials, including a mind map outline containing my PRIVATE NOTES used to record the episodes

• Access to PREMIUM EPISODES that nobody else gets to listen to with more in-depth “how-to” information

• Monthly live Q&A calls where you can get ANSWERS to your QUESTIONS about teaching guitar

• Access to the STG Podcast Archive, and the FIRST 25 EPISODES that are no longer available to the general public

• Access to the STG Community Forums, where you can interact with other guitar teachers from around the world

• Much more!

Give yourself a weekly shot of ENCOURAGEMENT and MOTIVATION and the RESOURCES you need to help you build your guitar teaching business! Click this button to start your FREE 14-DAY TRIAL MEMBERSHIP:

One of the driving principles behind Start Teaching Guitar is that we can all learn from each other. This “Guitar Teacher Interview” series is a chance for us to hear from other guitar teachers around the world and hopefully get some ideas for our own teaching businesses.

This interview is with Joshua C Liston, a guitar teacher, blogger, podcaster and STG All-Access member from Albury/Wodonga, Australia. To find out more about Joshua and his teaching business, visit his website at http://www.diymusicmovement.com

Guitar Teacher Interview

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where do you live? What’s your background?

Josh Liston here and I live in Albury/Wodonga, Australia (Population 130,000) which is lies half way between Sydney and Melbourne on the famous Murray River. I grew up in an even smaller town 120km East of Albury and started I playing bass and electric guitar at 14. Since then I have been suffering what some might call a guitar-obsessed-seizure, and I still play every day – 17 years later. I have worked as a music teacher, private tutor, been signed to record label, booked international touring bands and even managed to “manage” several of my own bands; all whilst working the proverbial 9 to 5. I currently play for 2 alternative rock bands: A Candela Lie and Bella Maris.

My biggest musical journey, though, began a little over 12 months ago with the release of my music marketing blog and Podcast [DIY MUSIC MOVEMENT]. With a little inspiration from a particular podcast (ok, ok, it was Internet Business Mastery), I launched into an entrepreneurial learning frenzy and the world of music marketing. It’s been a wild year so far, as my own bands and the DIYMM Podcast started to grow more quickly, I once again felt my desire to return to teaching.  And the Start Teaching Guitar Podcast was both the catalyst and remedy for my teaching urges! I have since started to recruit students on both bass and guitar.

In short regardless of where you are in your own musical journey I believe once again that teaching the “right things” to the “right students” is something that can fill a whole lot of gaps in your music life. Whether you need to keep your own chops up, meet more musicians, share techniques, learn about business or a crazy number of other awesome skills, teaching guitar is something your should start. Start today.

Tell us about your guitar teaching business. Are you doing it part-time or full-time? How many students are you currently teaching?

It’s a complementary product to my main music marketing and publishing platform over at DIY Music Movement (dot) com and DIYMM Podcast. I have only just gotten back into teaching but have taught up to 30 students per week in the past, but my goal is to have 20 private students and 2 group-acoustic-classes of 5 to 7 students each.

What’s been the biggest key to success in your teaching business so far?

That’s a simple one really:

• The 300+ business, entrepreneurship, psychology, marketing and sales books I’ve read and/or listened to over the past 18months. Audible 3X rules, ha.
• The Start Teaching Guitar and IBM Podcasts
• The books the The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco, Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port and Work the System by Sam Carpenter.

And finally, having a platform built online and off where people know and trust me has been key! Whether they have heard my own bands or checked out my blog or podcast, my word of mouth has been powerful from day 1. So build that platform, people, even if you don’t plan on teaching for a while yet. :)

What’s been your most effective way of attracting new students?

Having professionally recorded music out there has been huge, plus live performance videos and pictures have been awesome word-of-mouth builders. In terms of lead generators, the guitar recording blog posts on my website have been working well for online leads. Plus LeadPlayer on all my blog’s videos, as most of the people who follow me online are guitar people – kinda happens when you’re a Prog dude with G.A.S…

The biggest surprise in my Lead-Gen system so far though, has been my colored hand flyers. Both via SOCIAL and on paper. The old tricks still work in regional places – I feel all lovers of the guitar also have an appreciation for great design. So get some good looking web banners, Facebook pics, video thumbnails and physical hand flyers.

What’s been your most effective way of keeping your existing students from quitting?

This is something that I’ve yet to experience in my own teaching business, but I know that a keen focus on teaching students how to compose their own musical pieces always kept my attrition down in my previous teaching jobs.

Otherwise my plan is to do this:

• Teach my students what they want to learn
• Highly customize each lesson’s materials to suit the student
• Fit in theory and technique where I can without bogging the lessons down
• Give the students lots of “gifts” (lesson audios, follow up videos, screencasts, pedal experiment sessions, free guitar set-ups and songwriting sessions)

What helps to keep you motivated to continue when things don’t seem to be going as well as you would like?

Seeing the look on my students faces when they master a new riff, technique or even better – their own compositions – is priceless. I think, as the teacher, you must reach a place in your life where your focus can be completely student-focused or your lessons will always become a drag over time. If you’re teaching just for extra cash, to show off, to feel superior or to dictate styles to your students (aka your customers), you’re dead in the water! I know this because I was once one of those part-time-teachers as Donnie calls them…

What advice would you have for someone who would like to get started teaching guitar lessons for the first time?

At the 30,000ft level I’d say just go out and do it! But from a more practical perspective, I’d take stock of the following:

• Think about how many people have asked you about your guitar playing, gear, different techniques, songwriting and theoretical knowledge. If you have general guitar questions coming your way now, you might just be in a place to start teaching with an in-built audience.
• Next, give some thought to your own level of guitar skill, teaching skill and marketing skill. These will determine which students you should go after, how many students you can handle and what type of lead generation system you can build. (I say marketing instead of business skills, as I believe marketing is the key business skill you and you alone must master – everything else can either be learned or outsourced).

To save years of marketing learning I’d just listen to Donnie’s STG All Access episodes 1 to 60. His podcast is powerful and specific to building a teaching business.

Can you share one tip that has worked for you to help your students get better results on the guitar?

I can share two things that I’ve found work well with every beginner>>>intermediate guitar and bass student I’ve taught and they are:

1. Call-out aloud the name of the chord or note your changing to as you perform your change, for example Am, F, C, G, etc.
2. When learning more complex rhythm parts, ask your student to play the strumming or rhythm pattern on the guitar or bass as a series of tacets. Basically if your students can’t tacet out the pattern its doubtful they will find much joy in playing the more complex 2 hand riff or passage.

Well, that’s it for today’s Guitar Teacher Interview. If you’d like to be considered for a future interview, enter your name and email address below to join the Start Teaching Guitar community. I send out occasional interview requests to this mailing list.

If you have any questions, comments or feedback please leave a reply below!

April 2013 Giveaway Contest

We’re giving away TWO copies of Guitar Pro 6 XL ($75.94 value)

This contest is CLOSED!
Congratulations to the winners:

Kerry Holsinger
Stephen Joseph

Guitar Pro is a musical software program offering all of the functionalities that guitarists need.

• Create, edit, visualize, and share tabs and charts
• Learn to play or improve your technique
• Accompany yourself by creating the instrumental tracks of your choice
• Enjoy a series of essential tools: scale-validating tool, tuner, metronome, guitar fretboard…

Entering is EASY:

1) Click here to visit the contest page

2) If you haven’t already done so, LIKE my Facebook page

3) Enter your email address to be notified of the contest results

4) Share the page on your own Facebook wall to help spread the word!

You can re-share the contest every 24 hours to increase your chances of winning. The contest ends on Saturday, April 27 at midnight MST. Good luck!

Click Here To Enter!

Guitar students can choose to quit taking lessons with you for several different reasons. Sometimes it’s because of something you did or didn’t do as a teacher, sometimes it’s just because life gets in the way, and sometimes it’s because they do it to themselves and mess things up.

In this episode, I’ll get into 5 ways your students can sabotage their guitar lessons and what you can do to help prevent that from happening. If you can anticipate and help prevent some of these things with your students, you can improve your retention rates, help them become better guitar players and even help them become better people.

This is the FREE EDITION of this episode of the Start Teaching Guitar Podcast

To give your teaching business a huge advantage and get TONS of cool benefits INCLUDING the full-length, commercial-free version of this episode, click here to start your 14-DAY FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP to STG All-Access today!

STG All-Access members get access to the following VALUABLE RESOURCES:

• WEEKLY full-length episodes of the STG Podcast with no advertising or commercials, including a mind map outline containing my PRIVATE NOTES used to record the episodes

• Access to PREMIUM EPISODES that nobody else gets to listen to with more in-depth “how-to” information

• Monthly live Q&A calls where you can get ANSWERS to your QUESTIONS about teaching guitar

• Access to the STG Podcast Archive, and the FIRST 25 EPISODES that are no longer available to the general public

• Access to the STG Community Forums, where you can interact with other guitar teachers from around the world

• Much more!

Give yourself a weekly shot of ENCOURAGEMENT and MOTIVATION and the RESOURCES you need to help you build your guitar teaching business! Click this button to start your FREE 14-DAY TRIAL MEMBERSHIP:

To call in with a question, a comment or to leave feedback for the show, call the Listener Feedback Hotline at (719) 428-5480 and leave a message! I just might include your recorded message in a future episode.

Are you so busy teaching guitar lessons that you don’t feel like you have time for the things that really matter? Or maybe you work a full-time day job and teach guitar on the side and it feels like you don’t have time for a real life. I’ve been there, too, and I learned that the secret to regaining control of your schedule and your sanity is to work on your time management skills.

In this episode, I’ll be interviewing Kevin Toller, the author of a handy little time management book called “The Time of Your Life”. Kevin is a guitar teacher, a Group Guitar Launch Formula owner and a time management expert from Somerset in the UK and he was kind enough to share some of his best time management tips for guitar teachers. Make sure to listen all the way to the end of this episode to hear about a special deal exclusively for STG podcast listeners!

This is the FREE EDITION of this episode of the Start Teaching Guitar Podcast

To give your teaching business a huge advantage and get TONS of cool benefits INCLUDING the full-length, commercial-free version of this episode, click here to start your 14-DAY FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP to STG All-Access today!

STG All-Access members get access to the following VALUABLE RESOURCES:

• WEEKLY full-length episodes of the STG Podcast with no advertising or commercials, including a mind map outline containing my PRIVATE NOTES used to record the episodes

• Access to PREMIUM EPISODES that nobody else gets to listen to with more in-depth “how-to” information

• Monthly live Q&A calls where you can get ANSWERS to your QUESTIONS about teaching guitar

• Access to the STG Podcast Archive, and the FIRST 25 EPISODES that are no longer available to the general public

• Access to the STG Community Forums, where you can interact with other guitar teachers from around the world

• Much more!

Give yourself a weekly shot of ENCOURAGEMENT and MOTIVATION and the RESOURCES you need to help you build your guitar teaching business! Click this button to start your FREE 14-DAY TRIAL MEMBERSHIP:

To call in with a question, a comment or to leave feedback for the show, call the Listener Feedback Hotline at (719) 428-5480 and leave a message! I just might include your recorded message in a future episode.

Items Mentioned In This Episode:

Link - Group Guitar Launch Formula
Book - “The Time of Your Life” by Kevin Toller