Archive for category: Business Guides

About this guide

The Mere Exposure Effect is a psychological phenomenon that plays a big part in how easily you can attract new students. Once you learn how the effect works, you'll be able to apply it to your marketing efforts to convince more people to sign up for your lessons. It can also be used to build your perceived credibility and raise your reputation as a guitar teacher.

This guide will explain how the Mere Exposure Effect works, how it affects everybody (including you), how to use it in your marketing efforts, and how to use it within your lessons. It's an incredibly powerful tool when used properly, so take your time reading through this guide so you can properly learn how to use it.

About this guide

BSR-01 Building a Community explains one of the most powerful ways to improve student retention. If a student feels like they're part of a community, they're more likely to stay longer, get involved and recommend your lessons to other people (help spread word of mouth).

A powerful way to build a community is to use a forum or a Facebook Group. The guide BMK-20 talks about Facebook Groups and for some teachers they're the best choice. In this guide we'll look at forums, why you may prefer a forum over a Facebook Group, then look at how to set one up and run it effectively.

Forums aren't for everybody, so use this guide as a way to make sure it's the right option for you before you invest your time in creating one.

About this guide

The price you set for your lessons and for any extra products or services you offer students is more important than most people think. Even a slight raise or decrease can have a significant impact on your income over time.

While there are three guides dedicated to helping you set your lesson rates (check out BPL-08, BPL-09 & BPL-10), there's an important pricing stategy worth looking at. In this guide you will find out what price anchoring is, why it's so important and examples on how to use it properly.

You can use price anchoring when setting your lesson rates as well as anything else you sell on the side such as online courses or guitar repair service.

Why you need to understand price anchoring

Potential students don't look at your lesson rates in isolation. They don't check out your website, see your lesson rate is X, then decide whether they're happy with that rate or not. Instead, they compare that rate to other options. They jump on your competitors' websites and compare your rate to their rates and they look at online courses and lesson-based websites to compare your rate to those prices.

While you might think your rate is perfect, in reality it depends on what the potential student is comparing your rate to. If you think you have a good rate but the student can see four or five different options that offer a 'better' rate, you will lose that student. Even if your rate is better because you offer better service and benefits than the other teachers, you lose out because of price anchoring.

Price anchoring gives you a way of controlling the comparisons a potential student make with your rate. Instead of seeing your rate in isolation or comparing it to your competitors' rates, price anchoring allows you to keep the potential student on your website and persuade them into thinking your rate is perfect.

After reading this guide you will start to notice price anchoring used all the time outside of the guitar teaching world. It's an incredibly common strategy because it works so well. Let's look at how to use it in your guitar lessons.

About this guide

Cross-selling and up-selling are two of the most underutilized practices with guitar teachers. Successful businesses and professionals in other industries know how powerful cross-selling and up-selling can be but most guitar teachers are unaware of the practices or how to use them.

If you've heard of the terms before, you might hesitate because you think it means being pushy or salesy. But in this guide you'll see that you can give you students a better lessons experience when you cross sell or up sell in the right way. It's not just about making you more money, it's also about making your students happier.

In this guide we will look at what both practices are, why you should use them and various examples of how to use them. By the end of the guide you will have enough information to start using one or both practices to raise your income.

About this guide

Andertons Music is a musical instrument store in the UK. At first it might not be clear why you would want to read a case study on a store, there's a lot we can learn from how Andertons run their store. In this guide you will learn what makes Andertons stand out from other stores and how you can apply some of the strategies they use to grow your guitar teaching business.