Becoming a guitar tutor - advice needed

BigLicks67

Don't think this has been mentioned above, but if you are looking to work from home or an office then you should look into getting Public Liability insurance. So, if in the unlikely event a student has an accident in your home/office you are covered against any subsequent claim. Additionally, home insurance is more expensive if you use your home to conduct business.

longshins

BigLicks67 said:

Don't think this has been mentioned above, but if you are looking to work from home or an office then you should look into getting Public Liability insurance. So, if in the unlikely event a student has an accident in your home/office you are covered against any subsequent claim. Additionally, home insurance is more expensive if you use your home to conduct business.

You get public liability insurance with the MU I think

TonyR

siraxeman said:

"Ah'p norf" you'd be extremely lucky to get away with charging that much.

I agree with that, especially you’re just starting out.

You’ll need to be careful about setting your price point - if it’s too high, it could put people off even enquiring.

Lestratcaster

siraxeman said:

@Lestratcaster ;

"Ah'p norf" you'd be extremely lucky to get away with charging that much. Possibly so if you worked out of a shop doing 30min lessons @£15 You'd more likely be doing it as a sideline. 

I don’t think it’s that much even if it’s outside of London. Anything under £30 is far too cheap in my opinion. And this this isn’t a hobby thing it’s something I try to pay the bills with so I won’t make any money with cheap ass rates. I don’t go in to price matching bullshit either as I’m confident in my ability and services. I think some tutors feel guilty about taking too much money off people but you have to think business. Some tutors I’ve seen are charging £60 per hour! 

If you are starting out though it’s going to be a bit different, look up other tutors in the area and charge in line with them. Once you get the numbers up then you can consider raising it a bit. That’s what I did.

paddyb

Cant offer any advice on the setting up part but I would add something as someone who has had a few different teachers over the past few years.
In finally settled on a teacher that I have been seeing once a month for the past year. All of the teachers have been great guitar players but my current one is also a great teacher. He explains stuff clearly, creates a relaxed learning environment, encourages me to try new stuff and basically when I leave the lesson I cant wait to get home and play my guitar again.
I pay £35 an hour in London

close2u

All good info so far ...

Good links for free web sites? And any advice on creating one?

What is a good way to build a separate 'business' account on facebook, twitter etc? What are the best ways of getting those social media pages circulated, connected to networks locally etc?

What do people tend to do in terms of resources? Do you offer tailor-made paper print-outs? Hand-written notes? Reference to online freebies?

Do you charge supplementary for visiting students at their homes?

Do you run separate business bank, email etc accounts?

Lestratcaster

I used Wix.com to create my website. Its quite user friendly, literally drag and drop, and type. The annual domain isn't too bad either.

I have a Fb page for my tuition, separate from my personal page. I use Instagram and Twitter also as they're great ways to show potential clients your work. All social media accounts are linked to my website.

I always do tailor made print outs, depending on what they're learning, obviously you can re-use if say 3 students are doing the same sorta thing. Can't stand scruffy hand-written notes from tutors! All song charts and tabs are done by myself.

I charge a good amount to travel to people as there's not just fuel costs you're covering, its sitting in traffic and travel time, set up time either side of the lesson (I travel with all my own equipment). So its not just 1 hour they're paying for it can be 2 hours if you include travel time, that could have gone to someone else.

Haven't got a business bank account yet, and still use gmail for my email contact, but looking at getting my own domain website info@<mysitename> as it looks more professional.

TommyVercetti

Prepare. Nothing pissed me off more than my tutor turning up having done no prep whatsoever.

Build up a library of tabs that help teach different skills. Again, i spent a long time with my teacher doing lots of riffs and licks but could barely play any songs! Practical stuff that sounds good is much more encouraging for newbies i reckon

antifash

I've had to drastically reduce the number I teach cos students pissed me off so much. Now I only teach a handful and will no longer teach in schools - cos of idiotic, non-paying parents. But good luck to ya.

siraxeman

Lestratcaster said:

siraxeman said:

@Lestratcaster ;

"Ah'p norf" you'd be extremely lucky to get away with charging that much. Possibly so if you worked out of a shop doing 30min lessons @£15 You'd more likely be doing it as a sideline. 

I don’t think it’s that much even if it’s outside of London. Anything under £30 is far too cheap in my opinion. And this this isn’t a hobby thing it’s something I try to pay the bills with so I won’t make any money with cheap ass rates. I don’t go in to price matching bullshit either as I’m confident in my ability and services. I think some tutors feel guilty about taking too much money off people but you have to think business. Some tutors I’ve seen are charging £60 per hour! 

If you are starting out though it’s going to be a bit different, look up other tutors in the area and charge in line with them. Once you get the numbers up then you can consider raising it a bit. That’s what I did.

If your way of doing things works cool, just saying you'd be lucky to be that way up here. You really should try the £60 per hour rate.....your clearly selling yourself short!

siraxeman

paddyb said:

Cant offer any advice on the setting up part but I would add something as someone who has had a few different teachers over the past few years.
In finally settled on a teacher that I have been seeing once a month for the past year. All of the teachers have been great guitar players but my current one is also a great teacher. He explains stuff clearly, creates a relaxed learning environment, encourages me to try new stuff and basically when I leave the lesson I cant wait to get home and play my guitar again.
I pay £35 an hour in London

You once a month'ers are no good to us! 

  I wonder how many of his other students are having just monthly lessons? (not that you'd really know that).

Lestratcaster

siraxeman said:

Lestratcaster said:

siraxeman said:

@Lestratcaster ;

"Ah'p norf" you'd be extremely lucky to get away with charging that much. Possibly so if you worked out of a shop doing 30min lessons @£15 You'd more likely be doing it as a sideline. 

I don’t think it’s that much even if it’s outside of London. Anything under £30 is far too cheap in my opinion. And this this isn’t a hobby thing it’s something I try to pay the bills with so I won’t make any money with cheap ass rates. I don’t go in to price matching bullshit either as I’m confident in my ability and services. I think some tutors feel guilty about taking too much money off people but you have to think business. Some tutors I’ve seen are charging £60 per hour! 

If you are starting out though it’s going to be a bit different, look up other tutors in the area and charge in line with them. Once you get the numbers up then you can consider raising it a bit. That’s what I did.

If your way of doing things works cool, just saying you'd be lucky to be that way up here. You really should try the £60 per hour rate.....your clearly selling yourself short!

Its working alright at the moment! Haha.

Phil_aka_Pip

close2u said:

All good info so far ...

Good links for free web sites? And any advice on creating one?

What is a good way to build a separate 'business' account on facebook, twitter etc? What are the best ways of getting those social media pages circulated, connected to networks locally etc?

What do people tend to do in terms of resources? Do you offer tailor-made paper print-outs? Hand-written notes? Reference to online freebies?

Do you charge supplementary for visiting students at their homes?

Do you run separate business bank, email etc accounts?

1. I made up lesson plans for basic intro stuff, for theory and technique stuff, and diagrams for chords, scales, and arpeggios. Diagrams left as well as right handed. All relatively easy using courier new in a word document. I tried to make the general purpose plans fit a 1 or a half hour lesson (depending if it was adult or child). No biggie if you don't get through it all, just carry on where you left off. I'd print a few off at a time and keep them in a folder in the music room so I could just hand it out when needed. When not doing my own stuff, we were doing Rockschool Grades.
2. I quickly learned that visiting students at home was a waste of my time, and if I were to charge for it, the prices would put people off. So I only offered lessons at my place. I justified it by saying I had all the teaching resources needed at my place and couldn't bring them with me. These included pre-recorded material (used as teaching pieces or just as examples of theory in use), the means of playing these recording back from a variety of sources, books and other sheet music from my library, FX units and other guitarists' toys.
3. No, I didn't run a separate bank account. For some of the period in which I was teaching, I wasn't relying on just the teaching income, I had a p/t job as well. I don't think it would have been worth it financially to open a separate bank account and pay the charges on it. I had a very good spreadsheet and indexing method for income and spending related paperwork so relating business money in/out of my bank account was easy. I didn't have a separate email account either.

HTH

aord43

Lestratcaster said:

I used Wix.com to create my website. Its quite user friendly, literally drag and drop, and type. The annual domain isn't too bad either.

I have a Fb page for my tuition, separate from my personal page. I use Instagram and Twitter also as they're great ways to show potential clients your work. All social media accounts are linked to my website.

I always do tailor made print outs, depending on what they're learning, obviously you can re-use if say 3 students are doing the same sorta thing. Can't stand scruffy hand-written notes from tutors! All song charts and tabs are done by myself.

I charge a good amount to travel to people as there's not just fuel costs you're covering, its sitting in traffic and travel time, set up time either side of the lesson (I travel with all my own equipment). So its not just 1 hour they're paying for it can be 2 hours if you include travel time, that could have gone to someone else.

Haven't got a business bank account yet, and still use gmail for my email contact, but looking at getting my own domain website info@<mysitename> as it looks more professional.

Definitely this.  I am always astounded at tradesmen and even small companies have email addresses with the name of their ISP in it, or even their web page is just facebook or some generic shared name.  It just looks cheap and amateurish.
Domain names are really cheap and for email you can either redirect it to another or use a provider's services to keep a mailbox for that domain.   Hosting can be a little bit more expensive but it's so much more professional as @Lestratcaster ;
 said.

Phil_aka_Pip

siraxeman said:

You once a month'ers are no good to us! 

  I wonder how many of his other students are having just monthly lessons? (not that you'd really know that).

Cost is one reason for it but the other is the amount of time they can put in for practice. If they don't practice every day, and when they do its for half an hour, then the progress rate is slow, and doesn't justify weekly lessons. Most people used to come to me every other week for precisely that reason.

EDIT: Just because I learned my shit by putting in 5 hours a day doesn't mean other people can.

Modellista

Anyone done the RSL qualifications?  Diploma Level 4 and 6?  I'm making tentative steps getting into the tuition game and was wondering if qualifications give you a professional advantage.

Lestratcaster

Phil_aka_Pip said:

siraxeman said:

You once a month'ers are no good to us! 

  I wonder how many of his other students are having just monthly lessons? (not that you'd really know that).

Cost is one reason for it but the other is the amount of time they can put in for practice. If they don't practice every day, and when they do its for half an hour, then the progress rate is slow, and doesn't justify weekly lessons. Most people used to come to me every other week for precisely that reason.

EDIT: Just because I learned my shit by putting in 5 hours a day doesn't mean other people can.

All my learners that took fortnightly lessons have since quit. Why? Because the gap is too long between the lessons, they've forgotten what they're meant to do/not motivated to practice.

You stand more chance of progressing by doing weekly lessons and getting little practice in rather than fortnightly/monthly and practicing often (albeit incorrectly). The fact I can't see what they're doing at home is a big factor. At least if they haven't practiced and come weekly they're spending an hour with me actually working on stuff I can give them feedback on. Funnily enough they make a bit more progress as they are doing "focused" practice more often.

Now pretty much all my learners are weekly and its all going well. I try to discourage people from fortnightly as the gap is too long for me.

Lestratcaster

aord43 said:

Lestratcaster said:

I used Wix.com to create my website. Its quite user friendly, literally drag and drop, and type. The annual domain isn't too bad either.

I have a Fb page for my tuition, separate from my personal page. I use Instagram and Twitter also as they're great ways to show potential clients your work. All social media accounts are linked to my website.

I always do tailor made print outs, depending on what they're learning, obviously you can re-use if say 3 students are doing the same sorta thing. Can't stand scruffy hand-written notes from tutors! All song charts and tabs are done by myself.

I charge a good amount to travel to people as there's not just fuel costs you're covering, its sitting in traffic and travel time, set up time either side of the lesson (I travel with all my own equipment). So its not just 1 hour they're paying for it can be 2 hours if you include travel time, that could have gone to someone else.

Haven't got a business bank account yet, and still use gmail for my email contact, but looking at getting my own domain website info@<mysitename> as it looks more professional.

Definitely this.  I am always astounded at tradesmen and even small companies have email addresses with the name of their ISP in it, or even their web page is just facebook or some generic shared name.  It just looks cheap and amateurish.
Domain names are really cheap and for email you can either redirect it to another or use a provider's services to keep a mailbox for that domain.   Hosting can be a little bit more expensive but it's so much more professional as @Lestratcaster ;
 said.

I will be setting up a personalised mailbox soon just I have printed about 50 or so business cards with my gmail address on!!

Lestratcaster

Phil_aka_Pip said:

close2u said:

All good info so far ...

Good links for free web sites? And any advice on creating one?

What is a good way to build a separate 'business' account on facebook, twitter etc? What are the best ways of getting those social media pages circulated, connected to networks locally etc?

What do people tend to do in terms of resources? Do you offer tailor-made paper print-outs? Hand-written notes? Reference to online freebies?

Do you charge supplementary for visiting students at their homes?

Do you run separate business bank, email etc accounts?

1. I made up lesson plans for basic intro stuff, for theory and technique stuff, and diagrams for chords, scales, and arpeggios. Diagrams left as well as right handed. All relatively easy using courier new in a word document. I tried to make the general purpose plans fit a 1 or a half hour lesson (depending if it was adult or child). No biggie if you don't get through it all, just carry on where you left off. I'd print a few off at a time and keep them in a folder in the music room so I could just hand it out when needed. When not doing my own stuff, we were doing Rockschool Grades.
2. I quickly learned that visiting students at home was a waste of my time, and if I were to charge for it, the prices would put people off. So I only offered lessons at my place. I justified it by saying I had all the teaching resources needed at my place and couldn't bring them with me. These included pre-recorded material (used as teaching pieces or just as examples of theory in use), the means of playing these recording back from a variety of sources, books and other sheet music from my library, FX units and other guitarists' toys.
3. No, I didn't run a separate bank account. For some of the period in which I was teaching, I wasn't relying on just the teaching income, I had a p/t job as well. I don't think it would have been worth it financially to open a separate bank account and pay the charges on it. I had a very good spreadsheet and indexing method for income and spending related paperwork so relating business money in/out of my bank account was easy. I didn't have a separate email account either.

HTH

I only do 1 home visit and I still feel I've undercharged. The place is a good 35 minutes drive and I added £28 onto the monthly lesson fee (£7 per visit). Like Phil said, I should be slapping a more hefty charge on there to deter them or at least make it more worth my while going there. Otherwise I'll be driving to X, Y, Z that are miles from each other and not really making any money.

The parent of the child I did the visit for earlier tried to insist I shouldn't bring so much equipment, but I don't expect many people I do visits for to have good sounding speakers, a music stand and a drum machine. I don't mind taking it with me as I know what I'm working with works.

Placidcasual79

daveyh said:

Funkfingers said:

Register with the police for a CRB Disclosure.

Just a small point, it's called a DBS now. You can also register with their update service for a small annual subscription, saves having to get new ones for different employers/purposes

This - its an online service and will automatically renew - its well worth it otherwise the DBS just expires and they don't give you notice.