to help you get the most from your tuition service

BMK-02 The Sales Process

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About this guide

Having an understanding of the process people go through before they decide to become your student will help you improve your marketing efforts and get more students. Just like a salesperson can make more sales if they understand the sales process, you will be able to use this information to get more students.

By the end of this guide you will have a good understanding of what stages people go through before they decide to commit on guitar lessons with you.

You will be able to use this information to:

  • Improve the effectiveness of any advertising or marketing promotion
  • Get your website to convert more visitors into students
  • Convince prospective students over the phone to try lessons out with you
  • Focus your attention on the things that actually make a difference

After you finish reading the guide it's recommended you do a self assessment on your website and any marketing activities you're currently using. You'll be surprised how easy it will be to improve them.

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EXP-04 Building an Email List: Getting Started

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About this guide

Building an email list is a great way to grow your guitar teaching business as it gives you direct contact with people who are interested in what you have to say. These people could one day start taking lessons with you or may purchase any courses or products you decide to sell in the future. Think of an email list as a way to warm people up to you so they will be more likely to buy any services you offer.

It's actually quite easy to set up everything you need to build an email list. The best part is once it's all set up, you won't have to do much work to keep it running. If you set everything up properly, your email list will gradually build up over time. The time and effort you put into creating a mailing list now will pay off in the future. Think of it as in investment in your future self.

By the end of this guide you will be able to:

  • Decide if creating a mailing list is right for you
  • Understand how you could use an email list
  • Follow the steps to create your own email list

We will cover the best options to create your list so you can make an informed decision on what to do to put your list together.

NOTE: We have created a training course that explains list building in more detail with examples and instructions. After reading through this guide we recommend you check out our Email List Building Course for more details and advice.

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EXP-03 Selling Online Guitar Courses

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About this guide

Advances in online technology now make it incredibly easy to create your own online guitar course and sell it to earn extra income. Depending on your goals you could sell an online course as a way to earn some extra money or it could potentially be a significant source of income that could even become a full time pursuit.

In this guide you will learn:

  • What makes a successful course
  • Step-by-step how to create your own course
  • How to promote your course

By the end of this guide you will know if creating your own online guitar course is the right option for you and if you decide to create one, you will know exactly what to do. In addition to this guide, we can provide you support in creating your own course and give advice specific to your situation. Simply fill out our advice request form after reading this guide.

What Makes A Successful Online Guitar Course

You have probably noticed that some guitar lesson videos on YouTube generate millions of views. When you watched the video you probably found it useful but nothing out of the ordinary that you could do yourself. That is the first key point to keep in mind when creating online guitar courses,

Any guitar teacher can create a successful online guitar course. You don't need special training and it's easier than it sounds.

The keys to a successful online guitar course are:

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BMK-01 Comparing Advertising Options

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About this guide

If you want to advertise your guitar teaching business, it's important you know how to compare the different options and make an informed decision. The problem is that all the options are so different that it's hard to know what to look for. A newspaper ad is very different to a radio ad which is extremely different to online advertising.

This guide will provide you with a simple way to analyze the different advertising options and figure out which ones are worth spending money on. You will also protect yourself from wasting money by identifying ineffective and expensive advertising.

The guide will use four different advertising options to show you how to work out important metrics and compare the options.

Measuring Results

The problem a lot of guitar teachers experience with advertising is they don't know how to compare the advertising methods and end up losing a lot of money over time. Let's look at four examples to see why this is so important:

Example 1: You want to advertise in a local paper and it's going to cost you $20 every week.

Example 2: A local radio station offers a 30 second ad to run for two months for $500.

Example 3: An online guitar teacher directory has a 'premium' listing option for $30 a year.

Example 4: You can create a Facebook at that costs $0.30 per 1000 'impressions'

Making decisions on the above examples can be difficult. How do you know you're spending your money wisely? After two months will you know whether it's a good idea to keep going or not?

Unless you know exactly how well a paid advertising campaign is working, you could easily be wasting your money. Don't think that you can just keep track in your head, you need to be a bit more involved when you're spending your hard earned money.

Let's look at how to figure all of this out and pick the best advertising options for your guitar teaching business.

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BPL-04 Business Plans for Guitar Teachers

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About this guide

Creating a business plan can help clarify what you need to do to succeed as a guitar teacher. Studies have found time and time again that businesses that use a business plan become more successful than businesses that don't. While that doesn't mean you can't succeed without one, a well thought out business plan can definitely help.

In this guide you will put together your own useful business plan to help you either start teaching guitar or to grow your teaching business. By the end of the guide you will have a strong understanding on exactly what you need to do to succeed. Instead of taking a trial and error approach you will have a logical process to follow. We've helped many guitar teachers get started and grow their teaching business so you will be able to apply the most useful strategies and have a business plan that works.

What Makes A Good Business Plan

The number one point to remember with business plans is that they're only useful if you actually use them. You can have the best business plan in the world but if it never comes out of your bottom drawer then it's useless. The purpose of this guide is to give you a business plan that you will actually use and find helpful.

There's a lot of misconceptions on what should be included in a business plan. Here you will learn what you should and shouldn't focus on.

Here's what DOESN'T make a good business plan:

  • Fancy headings and layouts
  • 100+ pages
  • Long and wordy 'mission statements'
  • Cliche phrases like 'innovation', 'synergy', 'push the envelope'
  • Overly technical language, business jargon or acronyms
  • Pointless information to make it sound impressive

The above points are very common in a lot of business plans from small and big businesses. Using fancy sounding words and over the top mission statements don't do anything to help a business succeed. The reason these points are so common is because business owners and managers mistakenly feel that a business plan must sound bold and impressive. The truth is that a 100+ page business plan filled with long mission statements and cliche phrases won't be used at all.

Now let's look at what actually makes a good business plan that can help you grow your guitar teaching business.

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BWS-03 Structuring Your Website

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About this guide

This guide follows on from BWS-02 SEO for Guitar Teachers and discusses how to effectively structure your website for the best SEO results. Most people when creating a website don't consider the overall website structure. The way you structure your website will have a big impact on how the search engines categorize and rank your pages in the search results.

By the end of this guide you will know exactly how to structure your website using quality SEO principles. Once you structure your website properly you will have a better chance of ranking high in the search engines and attract more visitors. If you already have a website you can use this guide to assess the quality of your site's structure and make changes if needed. If you don't have a website, we can build one for you and maintain it as part of Gold or Platinum Membership.

Why the Structure of Your Website Matters

Google and the other search engines display webpages in their search results based on the content of the pages and the overall content of the website. To do this Google will go through your site and try to figure out what the site is about and what search terms it should rank high for. If Google can easily navigate through your site and understand the structure of your site, you will rank better and attract more visitors. If your site doesn't have a logical structure, Google won't be able to understand the purpose of the site and you will have a hard time ranking well for any search terms.

The other reason why you should have a logical structure to your website is that it will make it easier for visitors to find the information they're looking for which leads to more people contacting you for lessons. In other words, by having a logical structure to your website it will help both search engines and humans.

The Three Tier Structure

A simple strategy to organizing your website structure is to use a three tier system. The below diagram demonstrates how this is set up:

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BWS-02 SEO Basics for Guitar Teachers

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About this guide

Recent studies have found that up to 97% of people use the Internet to search for local services and products. As a guitar teacher this means that unless you're easy to find online, you're going to miss out on future students.

This guide will provide you with an effective strategy you can use to improve your online presence and make it easier for students to find you. The guide will introduce you to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and how you can use it in your role as a guitar teacher. The guide has been written in plain English so even if you don't have a technical background you will learn exactly what SEO is and how you can use it to attract more guitar students.

The guitar teachers who read through and implement the ideas in this guide will have a clear advantage over their competitors. Understanding SEO and how to use it will ensure you remain competitive into the future.

As an alternative to learning about SEO strategies and applying them to a site, Gold and Platinum Members can get us to build and maintain a website for you. If you would rather somebody else take care of all of this for you, check out Gold or Platinum Membership.

What is SEO

Before we explain why SEO is so important and how you can use it to your advantage, let's have a look at what SEO is.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Generally speaking this is the process of structuring your website pages so they rank well for search terms you want to target. A website that uses good SEO principles will rank very well in search engines which means more people will see the link and visit the site.

Whenever you search for something in Google, Bing, Yahoo or any other search engine, the results are displayed starting with the most relevant website. When we talk about ranking we're talking about how far down the list your website displays for a search term. A higher ranking will mean your site will attract more visitors which could lead to more students.

SEO aims to improve ranking by making sure the content on your webpages match what people are looking for. For example if you want to target beginner students in your local area, setting up a page specifically talking about how you help beginner students in your local area will improve your ranking in search engines.

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BQA-07 Negotiating Lesson Rates

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About this guide

Some prospective students will try to haggle with you and bring your lesson rate down. Even a small change in your rate can make a significant difference to your overall income over time. This guide will prepare you for people trying to bring your price down and show you how to negotiate your lesson rates in a fair way.

Why you need to be prepared

While most students will be happy to pay the rate as advertised (assuming it is a fair rate), some people will try to bring that rate down to save them money. Being caught off guard by one of these people can end up with you earning a less than fair rate. The people who try to bring your price down are the type of people who do it regularly for other products and services. They've had practice with it so have a good success rate. Unless you prepare yourself against anybody trying to talk your price down, you could end up in trouble.

A $5 discount may not sound like much but for a weekly lesson that $5 discount means you will miss out on $250 a year just from one student. You definitely wouldn't agree to giving a student $250 worth of lessons for free at the start so keep this in mind if they try to ask for a discount.

The problem is compounded if you let it happen regularly. Having five or ten students on your books each with a $5 lesson discount will cost you thousands every year. Preparing against this can really save you a lot of money.

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BQA-05 Questions on Qualifications and Experience

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This guide will help you answer any questions potential students may have about your qualifications and experience. As explained, you don't need to have any formal qualifications to teach guitar however some people may still ask for some credentials. This guide will prepare you to answer those questions.

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BTD-01 Your Timetable Fills Up Completely

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About this guide

This guide will help you decide what to do next if you find your timetable fills up completely. If you have been promoting your lessons and taking care of your existing students you will eventually reach a point when your timetable fills up. Once you do have a full timetable it's important to consider what options you have going forward. How do you deal with any prospective students? Should you adjust anything? This guide will give you information on what to expect and help you plan ahead.

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