Starting up as a guitar teacher- any advice?

[thedonal]

Hey all,

At the tender age of 46 and after a few years of friends/family suggesting it, I've decided to start offering myself out locally to teach (mostly guitar & bass, with some keys and music tech- synths, recording etc).

I've set up a FB page for it and an intro vid with more to come to keep interest going. Business cards are ordered but I'm really relying on word of mouth initially from friends etc. I've already got 1 guitar student (a friend I'm not charging - I'll get piano support back) and a bass student on the way and much encouragement

For those of you who teach, how did you go about it and how did it build? Do you have any suggestions/tips? Did you at any point do it as a registered business or just a sideline? Were you able to sustain it as a sole job (I rent a flat in the suburbs of London and live alone- it' ain't cheap!!)

I'm not expecting to go self employed for it yet!! But maybe in the long term it would be a preferable pursuit than my experience of the office world....

Any advice will be gratefully received!

 

[Winspear]

I have no advise as I'm not a teacher, but if you're planning on making something out of this - go ahead and get set up as self employed straight away. You'll then be able to classify all guitar expenses as business costs, and write them off as a loss against your employment income.
This means if the tax threshold is 11k, you earn 20k at your job, spend 9k on gear, and earn nothing at all from teaching, you will have a total income of 11k for that year and have all your employment tax refunded to you. Essentially gear becomes ~30% cheaper. You can sustain a loss for three years in a row before being classed as a hobby. And if you're still spending more on gear than you're earning after three years - just don't claim all the expenses, so that you can show a small profit.

 

[thedonal]

Cheers- I'll look into that.

The main other thing I've been advised is having a clear cancellation policy and then also managing block bookings to keep the advance money coming in. This- of course- will be once I've got a student or 3 and word gets about a bit...