Welcome
Congratulations on becoming a Guitar For Everyone (GFE) dealer. This program is a great tool to help you capture guitar lesson revenue that you’d otherwise lose to online instruction sites but it also does much more. Guitar For Everyone can be the foundation of a complete guitar education system for your music store. GFE is the one guitar method that’s equally effective for teaching self-study, private lessons and group classes. Students can find contact information for one of your store’s teachers right from their self-study lesson page and schedule their lessons. Offering both self-study and group classes are a great way for your teachers to build their student rosters, and for you to bring new customers to your store.
Music Industry experts all agree that the future of MI retail lies in music stores becoming the hub of music learning and participation for students.
Student Enrollment
Every beginning and intermediate guitarist is a candidate for a subscription to Guitar For Everyone. The way that they enroll is through a free 30 day all access trial to the 3 graded guitar courses and 1 ukulele course that are offered with the subscription. Students sign up by going to the course information page and then following the link to sign up. Students can get there by scanning the QR code on the Course Access Card or, typing in the URL. Registration for the free 30-day trial requires a Course Access Code and either a credit card or Paypal account to pay for the subscription. There is no charge during the free trial period and students can cancel their subscription at any time.
Student Home Page
The Student Home page is where students access the courses. They login using the user name and password they created while registering. Lessons are accessed by clicking on the course name next to the progress bar in the My Courses box on the Student Home Page. Once inside the course they can learn and practice the skills in each lesson by watching the instructional video and practicing with the accompaniment tracks. Each lesson has a layered learning section with more advanced skills to match the students level of experience. There are tutorial videos in the student home page that explain how to get the best results from the system.
A key feature for the dealer is the ad space located in the sidebar on the right. Dealers can create a banner ad promoting in-store lessons, ensembles, or promotions. Ad dimensions should be 330 pixels wide by 520 pixels tall. Just create your ad as a .png file, email it to Consonus and it will appear on the Student Home Page of all students who have registered with your affiliate code.
Affiliate Code
Your Affiliate Code (also called the Course Access Code) is the key to the GFE system. An Affiliate Code is a unique number assigned to your Affiliate Account. When students enroll in GFE using your code they are automatically connected to your Affiliate Account. Student subscribers need your Affiliate Code in order to register for the free 30 day trial subscription. More importantly, your commissions are calculated by totaling the monthly subscription revenue of all students registered with your code and multiplying by your commission rate.
You can find your access code on the Affiliate Home Page and printed on the Course Access Cards, where it is called the Course Access Code, that you’ll purchase to promote GFE in your store – more on that in a minute.
Course Access Cards
The best way to promote GFE in your store is with Course Access Cards. These cards give subscribers the immediate information they need to know about the program including the URL to register for the free 30 day trial and your dealer Affiliate Code. The cards are custom printed for your store and take from 10 to 15 days to deliver so order them immediately after watching this video. You can order them here or by selecting the menu option Purchase Course Access Cards above. Please note that you must be logged in to order the Course Access Cards.
If your business sells online you’ll want to post the Course Access Code on your website along with a link that visitors can follow to the Course Information Page.
Course Access cards are punched so that you can hang them on instruments, or display them at the point of sale. Make sure that when you and your sales staff ask a new customer about their interest in lessons, that you offer GFE as an option. Remember, with GFE you always have an opportunity to convert self-learners to group and private lesson customers for your store.
Course Workbooks
Whether GFE self-study is your only guitar education product, or you are using it as the foundation for private and group lessons, Consonus Course Workbooks are an additional retail opportunity that can enhance the learning experience for students. A GFE online subscription provides all the video, audio, and written material that students need to learn effectively when viewed on a computer or tablet screen. However because Consonus Course Workbooks contain all of the music and exercises that are performed in the course, many students prefer using a workbook while they practice along with the audio tracks accessed via their smart phone or tablet. Contact your distributor or Consonus Music for more details.
Affiliate Home Page
The Affiliate Home Page is where you’ll go to order Course Access Cards, find your Affiliate Code, and see the activity related to your affiliate account. Some of the information you’ll have access to includes: Commission Rate, Total Revenue, Total Commission, Monthly Revenue, Monthly Commission, and student subscription details for all students registered using your Affiliate Access Code.
Affiliate Commissions
As a Guitar for Everyone Affiliate Dealer you’ll receive a monthly commission on the subscription revenue collected from students who registered using your Affiliate Access Code. The commissions are paid through a direct payment to your bank account. The payment is made by the 10th day of the current month for commissions calculated on your account’s previous month’s activity. Since the first 30 days of a student’s subscription are free, and may be cancelled at any time, commissions will start accruing once the student has been enrolled for at least 31 days.
Banner Ads
One of the best ways to keep in contact with your Guitar for Everyone customers is by adding a banner ad for your store to the student home page in the Guitar for Everyone learning portal. Your banner ad is seen only by students who registered using the course access code provided by you. Banner ads are great to promote your store’s products, private lessons and group classes. You can change your ads as frequently as you’d like, and the ad can be linked to any page on your website. You access the Dealer Ad Upload tab in your Affiliate Home Page. There you’ll find detailed instructions on creating and uploading your ad
Store Lesson Program
It’s no secret that onsite music instruction has always been a successful strategy to bring new customers through your store for accessory and instrument sales. However for most retailers their education program is limited to renting studio space to a few teachers. That’s unfortunate because there’s a much larger opportunity in actively marketing your store as a community hub for music education.
By expanding your lesson offerings to include group guitar lessons and guitar ensembles you’ll generate new sources of income, attract more customers than you thought possible, and create a large stream of students for your private lesson studio. How you can do this? Well you’re halfway there just by becoming a GFE dealer.
You may not realize this, but GFE contains the same curriculum as Consonus Music’s Guitar Fundamentals courseware and learning management system used in secondary school guitar classes throughout the country. With the emphasis on class instruction and guitar ensemble performance it’s easy to start offering group lessons right in your store. Blended learning was originally designed as a way to improve group instruction by making lesson retention and home practice more effective. Many students prefer learning in a class, and the opportunity to play with other musicians is the goal for most guitarists. Don’t forget, group lessons are also a great source of new private lesson students. Guitar ensembles are a unique way for students of any level to be able to play together in a group.
Consonus ensemble arrangements are typically composed with 4 individual guitar parts that can be shared by any number of guitarists.
There’s also a downloadable mp3 accompaniment part and a bass parts course workbook that contains bass parts written in both standard notation and tablature for each ensemble in the course.
Teachers can even designate sections for more advanced students to practice their soloing skills. GFE includes ensembles in styles ranging from blues and rock to jazz, reggae, and more.
Ensemble parts are learned and practiced at home in the GFE lessons with accompaniment tracks on the online lesson site. This helps students come into group sessions ready to perform their parts.
Ensembles aren’t only for student’s taking group classes. Many private lesson teachers use GFE as the core method for their lessons. Students practice ensemble parts to improve reading and group playing skills.
Theses teachers can reduce their workload and boost the fun for their students by combining one lesson a month for each of their students into a group ensemble session rehearsal. For a private music teacher it’s like recovering 25% of your time without losing lesson income. Guitar ensembles are fun for students, improve their musicianship, and provide the basis for great performances.
Think about hosting ensemble concerts for your students at your store to perform for family and friends. It’s a great way to keep them motivated and recruit even more students for your store’s lesson programs.
So how does it work? Students still register for GFE , only they’ll check the box in their student home page and connect to a group or private lesson teacher who is associated with your store. The email link to communicate directly with the teacher, along with the teachers profile and class codes, are displayed right in the student home page. Once the student has arranged with the teacher to study with them, the student will use the class code to connect with that teachers class.
GFE comes with management tools designed for teachers with functions to organize their students into different groups, send private and group messages, and manage a group calendar. There are other tools that can help teachers assess student progress in watching the course videos and even collect and monitor student practice logs.
One of the real benefits of GFE’s online study approach is that when students need to take a break from lessons due to vacations or other interests they can still continue to study and maintain contact with their teacher via their GFE subscription.
Registering Your Teachers
Best of all, the teachers in your store get unlimited free access to a teacher’s account for GFE. All they have to do is register for this account via a separate registration page for teachers (https://cmiguitar.com/affiliate-teacher-registration), and select your store as their organization. There’s also another video that you can direct your teacher’s to explain the benefits of using GFE as their core teaching method, and how to build their teaching studio with group classes.
Conclusion
When used as a complete system GFE really offers a guitar education option for every potential student that comes to your music store, a new source of revenue, and a way to establish your store as a center for music
