to help you get the most from your tuition service

BAC-03 Expense Trackers

About this resource

A crucial part of the business side to teaching guitar is keeping records of any expenses. Keeping records using these simple trackers not only make it easier to prepare tax returns, but they can provide you with important insights into how you're spending your money and whether you're getting any value out of it. You may discover that the newspaper advertising you have been paying for every month isn't bringing in any new students or that the Google Adwords expenses are bringing in three new students a month. A simple observation like that can save you a lot of money over time.

There are two expense trackers available - one for weekly expenses and one for monthly expenses. Use whichever one suits your situation better. Be sure to use these trackers in combination with an income tracker.

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BAC-02 Income Trackers

BAC-02 Income Trackers

About this resource

As a teacher it's important you keep a good record of money you receive from your students. Not only will it makes things easier at tax time, but it can give you helpful insights into any issues you may be experiencing with payment. You may have some students who actually owe you money from previous lessons and without some way of keeping track you would never be able to figure it out.

The income trackers in this resource are extremely simple and you don't need any accounting experience to fill out. You simply enter the amount received, the student name and the date. You have a choice of three different trackers: daily, weekly, or monthly. Depending on how many students you have you can choose a different type of tracker. For example: if you teach 20 students a week, a daily tracker is essential. On the other hand if you only teach 3 students a week, then you could use the weekly or monthly tracker.

These income trackers are here to make things easier for you so print a copy off and simply add to it every time you receive money from your students. It's as simple as that.

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BAC-03 Expense Trackers

BMK-05 Word of mouth marketing

About this guide

Word of mouth marketing can be the most powerful marketing strategy if used the right way. In this guide we will look at various ways you can promote your tuition business through word of mouth without spending a cent. You can get started with one strategy and over time try new strategies to find which work best for you and bring you the most new students.

About word of mouth marketing

Every time somebody talks about you and your guitar tuition, that’s word of mouth in action. If for example one of your students mentions to somebody else that you teach guitar and you’re good at it, the other person is going to keep that in mind if they or somebody else wants to learn guitar. The key point is that you still need to be a very good teacher. Otherwise instead of your student telling others how good you are, they will tell everybody why they shouldn’t go with you.

So before we look at any marketing strategy, you must realize that you still need to be very good at what you do or none of the strategies will achieve good results. By following the Teaching Guides and using the Lesson Materials effectively, you can avoid being labeled as a bad tutor.

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BMK-06 Using Facebook

About this guide

Facebook and other social media sites have exploded in popularity over recent years. This presents a worthwhile marketing opportunity you can use, to not only attract more students, but to also increase your reputation as a guitar tutor. In this guide, we will look at why you should use Facebook as a marketing tool. The guide will discuss what it means to reach out to students using Facebook, and how to set up a profile for your tutoring service.

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BMK-07 Facebook marketing strategies

About this guide

As discussed in BMK-06 Using Facebook, Facebook is a powerful tool you can use to find more students and build up a reputation as a great guitar tutor. There are so many different ways you can connect with people and grow your teaching business using Facebook. In this guide we will look at two simple strategies you can use immediately to raise your presence on Facebook.

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BPL-03 Properly managing your timetable

About this guide

Tutors often run into serious issues due to poor timetable managing. This guide will spell out typical issues tutors face and help to make sure you never run into the same issues. Once you have set up your timetable (see BPL-02), it's important to make sure you continue to run your timetable effectively. Simple solutions and suggestions are provided for you.

Why it’s important to properly manage your timetable

It doesn’t matter if you have three or thirty students, you need to have a timetable you can control. The difference between a professional tutor and an unprofessional tutor can be as little as how they manage their timetables.

Take this scenario as an example: imagine you’re a student starting with a new tutor. You both agree on a lesson time and you show up for the first lesson on time. The tutor seems surprised to see you when you ring the doorbell. He rushes to get some materials ready and proceeds with the lesson. Next week you show up and after three rings of the doorbell he runs out to tell you to wait five minutes as his earlier student’s lesson is running late. You show up next week and when your tutor answers the door, he flat out tells you that he forgot you had a lesson today.

While the above scenario seems extreme, the reality is that there are many students experiencing the same situations. While nobody may be as bad as the tutor described, it gives you an idea of what would be going through the student’s head. Do you think a tutor who treats their students like this would develop a good reputation and attract more students? Its more likely current students will quit in frustration and tell everybody not to go to him. By properly managing and organizing your timetable, you avoid these issues.

Let's look at some simple strategies you can put in place to avoid issues like the one above.

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BPL-02 Setting up your timetable

About this guide

After you decide on the type of tuition service you will offer people (read BPL-01 for more information), the next step is to set up your timetable. Having a timetable planned out and ready to go will help you sound like a professional even if you are yet to teach your first student. An unprofessional tutor will often run into trouble due to poor timetable planning. This guide will help you answer the important questions and set up the right timetable for you.

Why it’s important to properly set up your timetable

Set up your timetable poorly and you risk burning out. If you don’t set limits and control when you have students, you could end up with more students than you can manage and spend so much time teaching you won’t have any time for yourself.

Set up your timetable effectively and you will love teaching, as well as make great money. While it’s not hard to properly set up your timetable, many tutors overlook this important stage and run into issues later on. Now let's look at some important areas to think about.

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BPL-01 Planning your lesson service

About this guide

Once you decide to teach guitar it's crucial that you take the time to plan what type of service you will offer. The tools and advice in this guide will help you understand what you need to consider and will help you maximize your income from the very beginning. Included in this guide is a calculator that will help you work out your ideal situation and maximize your income. Even if you have already started teaching guitar, this guide will help you improve your service and make you more money.

Why it’s important to plan your lesson service

Some guitarists will one day decide, ‘Okay I’m going to teach guitar’, and then the next day start looking for students. Taking this trial and error approach can lead to a lot of issues that can easily be avoided with a little bit of planning. Imagine deciding to start teaching guitar, then six months later, hating each lesson and wanting to give up. If you don’t decide on what you want to achieve with lessons before you start, this could happen.

This guide will help you gain a clear understanding about what you want to achieve with guitar lessons, as well as guide you to resources that will help you with making these decisions. Take your time when thinking about your answers to the questions, as your answers will have a big impact on how much you enjoy teaching later on.

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BQA-02 Students Who Don't Pay On Time

It’s worth mentioning straight away that almost 100% of your students will pay up-front and on time every time. However, it is possible that eventually you will get a student who seems to always ‘forget’ to bring their money and promises to pay next time. This guide has been compiled to protect you, on the rare occasion that you get one of these students. This guide will provide you with multiple actions you can take to get your student to start paying promptly in every lesson.

What to expect

When you offer lessons to a new student, there is the slim possibility that they are the type of person who has trouble paying on time. The following points are signs to look out for, to help you identify these ‘non-paying’ students:

  • Student seems to always ‘forget’ to bring their money to the lesson
  • They ask during the lesson if they can pay double next week
  • They give you excuses- blaming either the bank or their work for not paying them on time
  • If they have a direct transfer to your bank account, you notice that the payments have stopped coming in
  • They offer to pay by cheque

Most of the time people are honest, and you will occasionally have a student who forgets to bring their money. That’s okay. But if you start to notice a pattern in the student’s behavior, it’s time to take control of the situation or you could end up not getting paid at all.

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BQA-01 FAQ From Prospective Students

How to answer the most common questions from prospective students

When a prospective student first contacts you about guitar lessons, they will most likely have a few questions. How you handle these questions can be the difference between gaining a valuable student and losing one to a competitor. Some people take your answers very seriously, so if they don’t hear what they want to hear, they will have no hesitation in moving on to the next tutor. This guide will give you examples of the most common questions asked by students, and sample answers you can use to achieve the best results. Of course, you can answer the questions in any way you prefer, but these examples are still here to help you out.

Some of these questions are easy and some are tough to answer. Reading this guide is the best way to prepare for these tough questions. The last thing you want to do is come across as unprofessional because a question stumped you.

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