how to make over 10k a month as a MUSIC teacher

Teaching an instrument is a tough gig.

Cancellations, no shows, students that don't practice, industry standard rates that are below the value of your expertise, outdated attitudes and standards for both learning and teaching an instrument.

... And did I mention students that simply don't practice?

Nightmare.

It's one thing to sell a pair of sneakers that fits a particular foot size - but when it comes to music coaching, the shoe really has to fit the other foot (you). Your student must work for you as much as you work for them as a teacher.

Finding your ideal student is the first key to a successful music teaching business.

Especially if you're looking for how to make over 10k a month with your music business.

Let's run the cowboy math on that number - we'll imagine for a moment that you're a guitar teacher that charges $100 an hour for guitar lessons.

You're a great teacher, you've got a neat little YouTube channel, your students love you and your trust is well earned.

As a music teacher, you're actually doing pretty well. 

$100 an hour x 30 students a week = $3000

Minus 500 for studio hire, website and advertising = $2500 a week

Once we take out tax (we'll average that out as 30% depending on your locale) = $1750 a week.

So, with 10 hours a week on top of your 30 hours of teaching for admin, creating YouTube videos, blog posts, website stuff, admin and emails, your 'real world' hourly rate is closer to $45 an hour.

Let's be real for a moment - if you doubled your rate, you'd lose more than half of your students and likely half that income in one fell swoop (apparently the saying really ISN'T "foul swoop" like I'd always thought).

... And you really can't work any more hours than you're working either - you're already doing weekend sessions and some nights to cater to your existing student base.

Plus it's fucking exhausting already at 30 students a week - and tough enough to get them all to turn up when they say they're going to turn up, right?

If we're being generous, you're bringing in something like $7000 a month (closer to $6k if you're Aussie like me after Superannuation and GST, but let's not go there).

Everyone seems to be banging on about $10k a month at the minute, so what if we wanted to blow that out of the water and work out how to make over 10k a month, say $20k?

If we're talking about your current hourly rate of $100 (well, $45 an hour in real world terms) - you would have be TEACHING at least 78 hours a week - and don't forget about your ten hours admin and YouTube time - and it's likely you would have to up your advertising budget significantly. So, let's average that out at 80 hours a week so we can double our advertising budget for the week.

You would need to teach 80 hours a week, and do about 15+ hours of admin a week to earn $20k a month - and I think that's actually quite a conservative estimate considering the amount of marketing you would need to do to sustain 50 hours a week of coaching, and off the top of my head this actually comes in just shy of $20k a month if we're doubling our studio costs and advertising to $1k a month.

$100 an hour x 80 - 1000 x 0.7 week = $19,600 a month (let's just forget about GST and Super for now for you Aussies out there - I'm sure there's also an equivalent in EU and USA)

80+ coaching hours a week under your current business model for how to make over 10k a month as a music teacher.

Nearly 100 hours a week once we add in your admin time, videos etc.

It's a pretty depressing statistic, right?

Obviously, you've got a business model problem.

They way you're running your coaching business currently simply can't be scaled over $10k, hell, can't be scaled to $5k a month without running yourself and your students into the ground and seriously impacting your health, seriously impacting the support and results you currently provide to your students - and you'd have to run yourself ragged keeping up to date with all the latest trends on social media and advertising to keep up the ridiculous pace of coaching we're talking about here.

Nope.

Now - you're having trouble with cancellations/no-shows, students that don't practice, and people that aren't really aligned with your specific expertise (ie: you're a rock guitarist, but teaching pop songs) - basically, you're not working with the right students.

That's your first problem.

How much is a guitar lesson worth, really?

$100 is pretty steep if you're just a beginner learning to play chords, right?

$25 is more reasonable.

However, if you specialize in Iron Maiden guitar solos because you were Adrian Smith's guitar tech and understudy that filled in for a handful of shows in the 80's, and your student is specifically taking guitar lessons to prepare for a paid Iron Maiden tribute show coming up in September... $100 an hour to work with you is actually under-selling yourself.

You see, the key to charging 'more' (we'll talk about why that's in parenthesis in a moment) is really to offer your students the result they're looking for.

Not an hour of your time.

The end result.

The key to charging the right amount for your coaching expertise is to flex that expertise with real value. Instead of spending your time teaching the basics, that should be an automated part of your coaching program - say it's something like a beginner's online module that takes them through all the basics. And only THEN do you spend time with them to set a goal and appropriate benchmarks to work towards; there's a second module for that and so forth.

This way, you're actually using your expertise where needed, instead of doing things like teaching someone how to change guitar strings or tune their guitar - you're quite literally running the Iron Maiden guy through the specific parts you had to learn to play the shows you covered when you were Adrian Smith's guitar tech. Now THAT is worth the price of admission.

Can you see we're really creating a goal's based PROGRAM rather than talking about hourly coaching?

let's face it - hourly coaching sucks for truly reaching your goals.

So why are you offering it to rando's that come your way wanting to learn stuff that really isn't benefitting from your expertise.

The first step is to identify your core audience first - WHO can you serve the most effectively and why?

Create all of your content around the answer to these two questions.

If your idea student is blind piano players, THAT should be what all your content should be centered around. If it's jazz saxophone players who want to make a record, that's what your content should be centered around. If you're a rock guitarist that helps people go out on tour and nail their first show - then that's what your content needs to center around.

From here you need to work out what your students are REALLY looking for from you.

I can bet it's not an hour of your time.

(hint: it's results)

What they're really looking for is to be so exceptional and prepared with their instrument and skills that they can go out there and make a real go of it as a musician.

Even the most casual singer wants to get out there and sing great at Karaoke, blowing the audience away in the process.

So why aren't you working with your students towards these goals? Hourly coaching is more about YOU than it is about THEM - so let's turn the whole thing upside down and focus on what they really want to achieve with the skills you're sharing with them.

This means you really need to create a coaching program that takes from from point A (coming to you with a problem) to point Z (following this through to their ideal goal and results).

Think about it, a 12 week bootcamp program at a Gym costs more than an hour with a personal training obviously, right?

Same deal here. You're creating a program that you're going to walk them through - and it's filled with so much VALUE that it's really a steal, even if the program cost something like $1200 or $2500 - whatever you're helping them with and whatever the value of the program.

Now, let's imagine you've got a 12 week guitar coaching program that has 5 online modules, a bunch of special tools that help them find chord inversions and map out guitar solos, support from you personally and access to a private community of guitarists you're working with that are already out there in the real world making records and touring under your tutelage - exactly what they're looking to do. It's as automated as it can possible be, and time with your personally is only for specifics of your expertise - around three hours over the duration of the program.

This program retails at $2500.

Now, if we're talking $10k a month, we only need one sale a WEEK to make this happen - and remember, the coaching time is split with three hours over 12 weeks, so it's more like one hour of coaching a month than one hour of coaching a week.

If we're considering expenses and taxes, that comes up to 5 sales in a month, and if we up that to six sales in a month (I'm sure you're currently making WAY more than six 'sales' per month of a lesson a piece, right? 10/20/30 a week even - 6 is easy to achieve) we blast past $10k a month even after expenses and taxes.

Scale that up over a couple of months to 8 sales a month and you're really broaching the $15/$20k a month bracket from minimal coaching time - AND your students are going out there and totally kicking ass.

It works, this is how I've run my voice coaching studio for the past five years.

The reviews I get are just crazy, but even cooler than that - I've had my students bring me out to live shows and tours they've done, and even been asked to guest on records they're making - I'm even on the roster for a record label now for any singer they sign that needs to prepare for a tour, and they're beyond extremely happy with the results I provide time and time again using this approach.

And yes, I consistently make $25k+ a month with my voice coaching studio - coming in around $250k a year after expenses and taxes etc.

If you're looking for how to make over 10k a month as a MUSIC teacher, then you absolutely must find your ideal students, speak to them on a primal level in your content, then make them the perfect offer that they simply can't refuse.

Now, working out exactly who your ideal students might be is one thing - but how do you find them, and how DO you speak to them?

The key here is engaging content that is created specifically for your niche.

If you're a jazz saxophone player who was a later age student - then this is likely your niche, and all your content needs to center around this message and perspective.

If you're a rock guitarist who has specialized experience like live touring or making records - then this is your niche, and all your content needs to hinge on this expertise.

Not only are you truly sharing your experience and expertise, you're literally speaking to people looking for the exact thing that you specialize in!

Forget being a rock guitar teacher who is overcharging to teach campfire songs - be the rock guitar teacher that you really are, find your ideal students, create a specialized program around their goals and your expertise - and charge accordingly for the results, expertise and value within the program.

The key to creating consistent, highly engaging, entertaining and educational content is to have a content system that turns one piece of content into 5, 10, 20 pieces of engaging content that can just keep on giving time and time again.

With the Family Tree Content System, I'm still getting new students at least weekly from root content that I released 2, 3, even 5 years ago.

It's the gift that keeps giving.

Hit the link below to learn exactly how I use the Family Tree Content System to create limitless engaging and entertaining content for my ideal and current students.