Guitar Ninjas

Why I do Free Trial Sessions for prospective guitar students

When browsing guitar teacher groups on Facebook I see a lot of people arguing over whether you should do paid trials or free trials.

The argument from the paid trials camp is usually along the lines of “You’ve invested so much time and money into your (guitar AND teaching) skills so you need to value your time and put a price on it”

While I agree with that sentiment and believe everyone should charge what they’re worth, I want to offer a different perspective…

Every new client I take on I hope to have a 5-10 year relationship with.

The least I can do is offer 30 minutes of my time to get to know them, answer any questions they may have about my program and make sure we are the right fit for each other in a free consultation session.

This allows me to pre-screen clients and make sure I want to work with them instead of just having a purely transactional relationship.

But there is more to it than that…

If you do paid trials then a good portion of the people who view your website are going to eliminate themselves based off of your pricing before they even inquire with you.

Now, that can be a good thing if you only want to work with people who can afford your rates

But you’re actually shooting yourself in the foot!

You see, if you are charging $50 per lesson then anyone who can’t afford or doesn’t want to pay $50 won’t make an inquiry with you…

But anyone who will happily pay you $80 per lesson just got a $30 discount!

I bet you that at least 10-30% of your current clients would happily pay you more, and they only reason they don’t is because you never asked for it!

When I offer a free trial, I get to walk my students through my studio and show off the wonderful facilities we have, I give them a terrific lesson so that they can experience how high quality our lessons are, and I can answer every question they have so that they are confident in my expertise as a teacher.

This results in me standing head and shoulders above every other guitar teacher in my area.

So while they might have only had a budget for $30 per lesson, they’re happy to stretch it to $50 because they’re no longer comparing apples to apples on price. Instead, they’re making an informed decision and can see a noticeable difference in the quality of my program vs every other guitar teacher they’ve inquired with.

And when it comes time to choose a program, I have multiple programs at multiple price points so that people with a lower budget can get a program that suits them, and people who have more money to spend can pick a more involved program at a higher price.

And because they came into a FREE trial session with me, have just experienced a wonderful lesson and are now in a highly emotional state I can influence them to take a higher package while their motivation to take lessons it at it’s peak and they want to reciprocate the value I've added.

The main point is that you’re far better off offering free sessions simply to get more people through the door.

The more people who do free trials, the more people you can sign up.

And even if they don’t sign up, you’re still improving your teaching skills, presentation skills and sales skills

So you either win or you learn!

I detail my entire Student Acquisition System in my Six Figure Guitar Teacher Program - if you want help getting more students to take lessons with you get in touch!

www.SixFigureGuitarTeacher.com

Cheers,

Michael

If you're looking for some creative guitar teaching resources to use in your own lessons then head to the brand new Free Resources Page on our website

Free Guitar Teacher Resources Do you teach guitar? Find more students, teach better guitar lessons and help your students have more fun with these free guitar teacher resources & downloads

All Guitar Ninjas students receive two books upon signup.

1) A Method book matching one of the 9 levels of Guitar Ninjas: white, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, red, brown and black

2) A Workbook containing all of the reference material, scale diagrams, chord charts and theory matching their level.

Here is Kira who signed up for lessons with us yesterday with her brand new White Belt Book and Guitar Workbook 1!

Wowee! We had a triple level-up in today's session!

Congratulations to Giuseppe, Bella and Krishna on completing the white belt book and receiving their yellow books!

One of the keys to teaching younger students is to make lessons fun, interactive and engaging for them.

When the student is having fun, time flies by and they love every minute of it!

You can see us having a little too much fun in our Little Ninjas class today, a special group for students in the 5-7-year-old age group!

A big congratulations to Tony who has just earned his Green Belt and a new copy of the Blue Belt Book!

Tony started learning with us at the start of 2021 in one of the small gaps between lockdowns and has done a tremendous job going through the first 4 levels of Guitar Ninjas while being stuck in online lessons for 8 months of the year!

Good Job Tony!

Congratulations Natasha on completing your White Belt Grading!

Natasha came to us with the dream of one day playing guitar and after 6 weeks of lessons not only has she levelled up, she can now play three songs start to finish!

Good job Natasha 🙂

Check out the whole Guitar Ninjas series ready for print-on-demand with Amazon services.

Guitar Ninjas Core Method: White, Yellow, Orange, Green, Blue, Purple, Red, Brown, Black

Reference Books: The Guitar Players's Workbook & Advancing Guitar Players Workbook

Little Ninjas: A Comprehensive Method for Young Guitar Players aged 5-8 years old!