Good money for just “selling” turns

How much do ski instructors make? It mostly depends on where they teach and what they do in the ski school. If you want to earn lots of money "selling" turns, don't work in North America or in the Southern Hemisphere. Go to the Alps and zero-in on France. Not only is that country – like the USA – the larger producer of skier days (about 60 million annually for both,) but ski instructing is still considered a very honorable career in which professionals are self-employed and can make up to 30,000 Euros ($40,000) in one short winter season; of course they have to pay the full equivalent of Fica and other French taxes that are meant to elegantly separate these fine skiers from a large share of their earnings, but it remains a pretty cool job.

The reasons for their success is that they are extremely well trained, incredibly motivated, they offer a just balance between fun and technique, the fact that their profession is organized like a McDonald franchise and, like no one else, they continue to sell their services amazingly well. Want to earn more? Become a ski school director; your peers will vote for you if you know how to sweet-talk them into it, appear trustworthy enough and you'll earn 160% of what the average top ten instructors are making; at that stage, your extra responsibilities will require that you attend to the ski school business year-round, refrain from dipping your hands into the “cookie-jar,” but that doesn't prevent you from laying bricks, running a restaurant, or just sipping Pastis all spring, summer and fall, waiting for the next snow to fly...