5 things I've learned from my "Muggle job"
Hi Friends! Its been a couple of weeks since I’ve managed a new post. Apologies for the wait, but I was determined to spend my first week sans “Muggle job” resting (or at least without a daily to-do list). Now that I’m a week removed, I thought I’d share a few things I’ve learned (or maybe been reminded of) that have been helpful to me as a singer.
There are a TON of skills we use (or should be using) as singers that easily are applicable to work outside of the musical realm.
No really…we singers have to be organized, we have to plan out projects and hold ourselves and others accountable for getting tasks done (in the business world, they call this being a project manager), we often handle our own accounting and marketing. Social media management anyone?
As teachers, we are responsible for guiding each individual student through their learning and growth process, making adjustments as necessary. We are responsible for this during the period of time these students are studying with us. I’ve learned in recent months that this is spectacularly close to being a product manager. The long-term planning we do as performing singers also applies here. The decisions we make about what rep to sing, which companies to audition for, how we want our careers to unfold….this is the very sort of creative planning a product manager does.
As singers, we can make use of the planning processes that are used in the business world.
Not long after I started the tech job, the company I was working for hired a business coach to take us through the process of creating a 5-year plan for the business. We started by defining our mission as a company, our core values, our ideal client (demographics and psychographics). It was only after we’d done all of that that we started coming up with longterm goals and a plan to get us there. We mapped out revenue goals, client goals, and internal goals (like being able to attend certain conferences, and to have the resources to take everyone on a planning/team building retreat). As we were setting these goals, we were constantly looking back to our mission and our core values to make sure those goals fit into the initial groundwork we’d already laid out. We also made a plan to reach the goals we set with specific markers we needed to meet along the way.
For example, in order to meet 5-year revenue goal we set, we determined the amount of growth we would need in 3 years, and in 1 year. For us, it meant that we determined the number of clients we would need at any given time at a certain amount of revenue. Then we figured out how to get those clients. This lead to things like a marketing plan, a client onboarding plan, a plan for what additional employees would need to be hired, and when.
As singers, WE CAN DO THIS TOO! There is no reason we can’t decide on our own mission statement, core values (lifestyle values, musical values….the sky is the limit), or ideal clients. Most of us have this already in the form of a wishlist of organizations we’d like to perform with, but it can help to determine whether those organizations fit within our mission and core values. We can set 5-year goals and then figure out how to get there. This can give clarity and direction to our every day activities and keep us moving forward when things feel stalled out.
We can track our tasks like a development team.
All those tasks that come from creating a 5-year plan can be tracked. Tech companies use software like Jira or Azure to do this, but it can be done in a simple spreadsheet, or in a notebook if that’s your preference. A large project like building an app (or the completion of a 5-year plan) creates a huge number of tasks. A development team will take the large-scale plan and break it down into small, manageable tasks called a backlog. Think of it as the master to-do list. Tasks are then pulled from the backlog to create a manageable list of tasks that can be completed in, say, a two week period. As tasks are completed, the backlog shrinks. This turns the large, overwhelming project into something that can be completed through daily tasks.
Singers can totally do this too! This concepts simply helps you create daily movement toward your long term goals.
REMINDER: your audience includes non-musicians!
Classical music (and opera especially) has gotten a bad rap. Somewhere along the way, it developed a reputation for being boring, stuffy, and exclusive (and not in a good way). It doesn’t matter how or why this happened. What matters is that we, as classical musicians, show the general public that classical music is not, in fact, stuffy, boring, or exclusive. One of the best ways I’ve found to do this? TALK ABOUT CLASSICAL MUSIC. To non-musicians. In a fun and accessible way.
If you work in music 24/7 (and there’s nothing wrong with this if you do…I’m returning to this gratefully), it’s easy to end up with an insulated view of how the general public perceives classical music, and to only end up talking to the type of people who are already regular concert goers. But guess what?? That doesn’t help you build your audience. Typically if you are working in a non-musical job, you have access to a lot of people who are not musicians. Talking about the thing that you are passionate about is the best way to develop an audience.
I’m incredibly grateful to have had the experiences from the past year.
Seriously. I was hired to be the executive assistant, but the beauty of working for a startup is that it’s nearly impossible to fall through the cracks. My CEO pushed me to learn new things and to find the role that fit me best, knowing that I likely wouldn’t be there forever. As a result, I moved through marketing, project management, and product management. I fully recognize this would not have been the case at most companies, particularly considering that I had no formal experience doing anything except as an executive assistant. Now, I get to try my hand at being an advisor (an interesting new challenge and one that will allow me to stay involved with the company without a daily commitment). All the while, my work family has surrounded me with encouragement and respect. How could I possibly not be grateful?
I’m declaring the next few weeks to be a planning period! Lessons will start for my adjunct job and the new teaching job the last week of August. I’ll still be practicing (you’ll see it on my to-do list), but I want to have my own 5-year plan mapped out by the time lessons start. Here’s my to-do list for the week:
Identify my mission, core values, and ideal client.
Make a good dent in The Naked Voice (my reading fell by the wayside as I was preparing my concert…oops…consider this my recommitment) and write discussion questions for each chapter.
I have an audition on the 29th, and I need to decide what to sing, and practice said pieces!
I’ll be learning Ernest Chausson’s “Chanson Perpétuelle” this week.
Brainstorm rep for students
What’s on your to-do list this week??