Get what’s yours.
I sat down with Bree Noble of Female Entrepreneur Musician to talk all things money. She breaks down what it takes to make money from your music!
You’re listening to Episode 57 of the Music-Preneur Mindset Podcast.
Hello! You’re listening to Episode 57: Music-Preneur Spotlight: Bree Noble.
I’m your host, Suz – a mindset coach helping music professionals get clear on their goals and find the time to get it all done while maintaining a healthy work/life balance.
One of the biggest roadblocks almost all music-preneurs face when building a career is overcoming their poor mindset around money.
We are taught to think of musicians as either struggling performers who have to busk on the sidewalk for change or superstars who are taken care of by labels. Neither end of the spectrum is truly accurate and MOST music-preneurs don’t belong to either end.
You can make a healthy living from your music without selling out and without giving up control of your music and brand to a label.
The biggest thing, as you will learn from my conversation with Bree, is putting in the work to shift your mindset. The rest, as she puts it, is the easy part.
Bree is not only a successful musician herself, releasing 3 albums and successfully touring for 7 years, but she is also a former director of finance of an opera company and the founder of Female Entrepreneur Musician. In case that wasn’t enough, she’s also the host of 2 podcasts, both of which hit #1 in New & Noteworthy – Women of Substance and the Female Entrepreneur Musician.
She also has a vlog, a blog, a free community on Facebook, her Female Musician Academy, and the upcoming Profitable Musician Summit that she hosts online at the end of this month, which I’m SO excited about.
She focuses on empowering musicians to go after the careers they want to have and make the money they deserve to make while they do it. The Profitable Musician Summit begins April 22 and runs through May 1 with over 30 industry experts and musicians shining a light on what it takes mentally and physically to make money from your art.
You can register for the Summit for FREE using a link in the show notes – www.therockstaradvocate.com/ep57 – but before you go and do that, listen in on what Bree had to say when it comes to building a sustainable career without the overwhelm…
Suz: All right, well, Bree thank you so much for joining me. I’m really happy to have you on my podcast. I’m a big fan of both of your podcasts, so this is really great, thank you for being here!
Bree: You are welcome! I feel like I’ve been here already because you’ve been on my show and we’ve done dual things together but I’m glad to finally be here.
Suz: Yeah I had a like stop for a second and think. I was like, “Have I had her on yet? I don’t know!” ‘cause we do – we do a lot of things together this year and it’s been a really fun time being that we have so many shared interests and passions when it comes to helping musicians, so…
Bree: Definitely, yeah.
Suz: I first came about you, I guess maybe it was like four years ago… I had a client who submitted to Women of Substance Radio, and they were so thrilled when they got on. And I said, “Oh! Tell me more about this!” and that’s when I first got turned on to all the amazing things that you do.
And I just find your story so interesting, and you have such a good skill set to bring to the table for musicians, and you’re a musician yourself, so it’s such a unique position that you’re in. And I know that you help a lot of musicians identify income streams that they can build to become better either full-time musicians or just fund their hobby, which is also just as valid.
And I love that you provide these resources, as this is obviously a huge part of what it takes to have that music-preneur mindset, but why do you think musicians struggle so much to identify how to make money in this industry and build those incomes?
Bree: Oh, I mean I think it’s a lot of reasons – some of them are just even scared to approach the money because they just don’t feel like they understand business or that they are not good in that area, and they just want someone else to handle it.
And so that’s one of the things. A lot of them just hate even thinking about the money because they just want to focus on the creative side. And I get all of that because although I was an accountant in a former life, as a musician I didn’t want to have to put that hat on either, so I totally understand where people are coming from in that area.
But also there’s just a lot of fear around asking for money, and I think that in this day and age there are so many musicians out there that are willing to do stuff for free that you feel like you don’t have the right to ask for money. And that’s a hard one to get past as a musician.
It’s like once you get that gig, I remember for me, you know, once I got a gig once were they paid me one-thousand dollars to perform I was like floored, but after that it was so much easier to ask for more money, you know what I mean? But it’s that first one, you’ve got to get that first one, and until you do that you just think of yourself as giving yourself away for free and you don’t feel comfortable asking.
Suz: You know it’s interesting to me and I get that even as starting out as an entrepreneur, you feel like, “Am I going to insult this person with what I’m asking to charge?” Or you know, “What if they think I’m over charging?” Or you know, all that stuff, but with musicians yeah I think there’s a whole other level to it that it’s very complex.
And it’s very, I’ve noticed, very emotionally tied, you know, very emotionally charged, I should say. Do you think it’s tied to how we perceive music as consumers? I mean do you think Napster had anything to do with it and all of that stuff? Or do you think it would have been this way regardless?
Bree: I think that has some to do with it and I think that now it’s so much harder to sell music that it’s seeped into other areas because that’s definitely not the case for really good seasoned musicians as far as live performances – like people are still getting paid for that.
But I think that that mindset has kind of seeped in and then, you know, people that are newer, as is understandable because you have to be able to really hone your skills before you can ask to charge people, but the newer people are coming in and offering these things for free and then you feel like, “Well how can I, when they’re doing this, how can I come in and say that I’m better than them?” But really you know you earn it.
Through sweat equity, you earn it through honing your skills and becoming a good entertainer, and when you have a show that really entertains people you can ask for money for it. But I think that mentality has kind of come in starting with the whole Napster thing and now that the streaming – I hear people say to me like, “I can’t even give my music away,” and that just makes me so sad. Like don’t say that.
You know, because when you’re at your performances and you create a moment for people and they want to take that home they will pay for it and they want to pay for it. They want the chance to thank you for giving them that memory, and you know, don’t take that away from them.
Suz: Yeah, I think, you know, it’s interesting that you say that. I think it’s important to remember like the conditions around what you’re selling and where you’re selling it and under what circumstances you’re selling it because as you said yeah when they’re watching you perform and they leave that performance, that’s a whole different mindset for the consumer rather than scrolling through Facebook and you trying to say, “Hey go download this!”, or, “Go purchases on Bandcamp!”
And all that stuff. There’s, you know, definitely a time and place for different… hitting I guess also, maybe like different types of fans and in different circumstances in the way you frame everything. Would you say there’s like a different approach selling online rather than the way you sell at your shows?
Bree: Oh, definitely! And I think it all comes down to relationship, so you know you can create a certain kind of relationship online but that’s never I think gonna trump the relationship that you can create offline at a show, even if you haven’t spoken directly to the person.
If you’re telling stories, if you’re being authentic up there, if you’re like a bearing your soul to your music on stage and leaving it all on the stage, people are going to feel like you’re talking directly to them and that you have a relationship with them.
And then that can continue to online, but that’s just the most powerful way and that’s why people want to support you because they feel like they’ve … they’re invested in you. But with online, you can, you can create that somewhat through engagement and you can do things like, you know, use messenger bots and have conversations with them over time and but it’s never the same as being local.
So I think that one-two-punch of if they met you online and then you can get them to a show, or if they met you at a show and then you can continue the relationship online, that’s the key to turning someone from just a casual listener to someone that wants to invest in you with, you know, some kind of money whether it’s for a concert ticket or being part of your Patreon or you know crowd funding whatever it is.
Suz: Yeah I think that’s really important. Now I know you being in this… a musician yourself, and I shared your story with our listeners at the beginning of this episode, you had left your job and gone on to be a successful, independent musician. So obviously, I mean, you’ve walked your talk. You know what it’s like to build successful income streams with your music, so why create a radio station to feature other female artists?
I know so many out there are worried about standing out from the competition when, you know, talking about marketing yourself to your fanbase… and there you were highlighting and promoting what some would call your competition, so what sparked that for you?
Do you think of that competition exists on any sort of level or what made you think, “I’m going to promote other female artists and build a radio platform to share music”?
Bree: Well, first of all, I don’t think that we’re competing, you know, I mean even with people that were in my local area, I felt like there was plenty of gigs to go around, and if they were at that venue this month, I could be there next month. And, you know, it didn’t keep me from being able to be there because they were.
And so I tried, I wanted to try to create this camaraderie between especially female artists that we could all raise each other up. And so that was kind of why I decided to take the station, you know, more public and professional. But actually, truthfully, this is an example of something that was just, I created it first for myself – it was a passion project.
It started as, when I was working in the corporate world I wanted a place where I could listen to my own, like my favorite songs by independent artists while I was at work, without having to bring like an MP three player or something with me. And so I just created it on Live365, and I thought it was really cool.
It was kind of the first like cloud-based anything back in 2000 where I could created it at home and then go to work and listen. Like it seems so silly now because we have Spotify, but it was a big deal, and so I kind of had all these like indie artists I discovered on mp3.com – that was kind of where my music got a lot of traction, was mp3.com, way back in the day.
And so I discovered some really cool artists like Rachel Sage and a bunch of other independent artists that I really liked, and so I put them on a station and I just came up with a name like randomly.
Women of Substance – like that sounded cool.
What I wanted was to say that these were really substantial songs lyric-wise or, you know, with amazing vocalists or with amazing melodies, like something about them made them stand out.
And so that’s where I came up with that. And then it was just kind of on the back burner for awhile. I didn’t use it because Live365 started charging and I’m like, “Oh this was just a hobby. I’ll just leave it there,” and then when I was a touring artist I then started meeting a lot of indie artists like myself, too. And I was like, ‘Hey…’ You know, I kind of remembered that platform – maybe I could add these people to it, you know, and I can even add, you know, a few of my songs, which I was never a big person of promoting myself on my own station, but I did add a few.
And so I started doing that as I met more and more people and was networking with these independent, female artists and it just it caught on. It grew and people, you know, got excited about it, and then I started attracting PR agents and labels and things like that and it wasn’t like an overnight success. It started as a professional or as a thing I was actually promoting in the end of 2007, and so now eleven years later it’s you know we’re on our 900th episode of the podcast It just came out today, actually.
Suz: I know, I saw! It’s amazing.
Bree: And the podcast only started in 2014, so it was an online radio station all this time, and it just you know it just kept catching on. And we started adding commercials to help pay for our costs and you know I started needing to get help, and so I have an assistant. And, you know, it just kind of grew – very organically, on the side as I was an indie artist performing, you know, taking little mini tours and stuff and raising my kids.
Suz: Yeah, I mean, I think two really important things that you mentioned I think you know should be highlighted is #1 I love your view on competition and whether or not it exists, and I feel the same way. I mean some people even mention, you know, “healthy competition” but it’s like, you know, I always like to compare certain things to get like a real perspective on it.
You know, if you look at like detergent, obviously there’s competition. You’re not going to buy fifty different brands of detergent all the time you tend to stick to one and there’s really not a whole lot of difference between the detergents so, you know, there is that competition between those brands to be the one that you purchase at the store.
But music is so subjective and so unique and we digest it as fans, you know, we never like just one R&B artist we usually like many artists if R&B is our genre that we take to, or bluegrass or Electronica or metal, you know, there’s always room at the table if you are putting out a good product and you resonate with your fans, you shouldn’t be worried about competition.
So I love what a community you’ve created among the female music community, I think it’s wonderful.
And I also love that you pointed out the organic growth of Women of Substance Radio and now Podcast that it was, you know, a labor of love and a passion and you grew it and added your team members and added on other resources as it became needed. And I think that’s a great example of how to build a business in this industry – with patience and adding things on as they become needed without feeling like you need everything at once before you can even get started.
Bree: Yeah, absolutely. I think that my 11-year run with this radio station is a great example to artists of how you should build your business like I didn’t go out and decide I’m going to do a $5,000 PR blitz, you know, when we first started in fact, I’ve never done such a thing, you know.
I just – it was a lot of work connecting with people on Facebook and always encouraging the artist to share with their communities and, you know, just utilizing all those avenues just like a musician would and not over investing too early.
It was a very lean, very lean start up, you know, I figured out how I could break even at first, you know, before I went any further with it. And with every step by made I figured out how could I make this breakeven, you know, before I looked at it as an income stream just to make sure that I wasn’t going in the hole, you know. And that’s exactly how musicians should look at it.
But as far as the competition thing, I just think it’s – you made such a really good point and when you look at it as a musician you’re seeing it so narrowly, but if you can back away and think about it as a fan like what you were just saying.
Like why would I ever want to miss out on knowing about good music just because I also like other artists in that genre? Right? I don’t want to miss out on any good music! I’m not going to be like, “Oh well, I’m totally loyal to Colbie Caillat. I’m never gonna listen to Sara Bareilles or Ingrid Michaelson because they’re too similar.”
You know? That would never happen. But as a musician, we don’t think that way, and we feel like – we’re a bit paranoid, right? We feel like every everyone around us is… we feel like there’s so few resources, and if other people get them we won’t have them.
Suz: Right.
Bree: And so I’m just a big proponent of trying to explain to musicians, it is just like us, right? We’re having this conversation like in some ways we are competitors, you know, we have a lot of friends, right?
We have a lot of mutual friends in the industry like, you know, let’s say Greg Wilnau, D. Grant Smith, Steve Palfreyman, you know, Angela Mastrogiacomo, like that we’re all friends, and we don’t feel like we’re competing against each other.
We feel like we each have something important to offer, and I think for people that I work with, there are seasons for them. You know, they may say, “Oh, well, right now I really want to learn about PR. I’m gonna go talk to Angela. I really want to learn, you know, go deep with like planning and time-management. I’m gonna go talk to Suz.”
And it’s not like that then they don’t like me, you know?
Suz: Right, yeah!
Bree: So yes, it’s just a totally different mindset but there’s so many, I hear from musicians all the time, especially in live venues that there’s still just so much grabbiness and cliquey-ness and just not being comfortable with other artists in their space, and so I hope we can turn the tide on this. I don’t know how to do it, but we need to be, we need to support each other and be friendly with each other and not be antagonistic toward each other as artists.
Suz: Absolutely and I think you just pointed out, you know, the way that our circle of coaches or music professionals or whatever title you want to put on it, of like our own community leading by example and, you know, like the summits that you put together and that Steve Palfreyman does and all the wonderful events where we come together and showcase like our podcasts where we highlight each other’s work, you know if we can lead by example then hopefully it has a ripple effect and showing people that that doesn’t need to happen.
And like you said before, if you wanted to book a show just because somebody else got it, now maybe they got the date that you wanted, but it doesn’t preclude you then from getting there eventually and playing that show, and if anything, it should give you hope and say, “Okay, somebody like me who plays my type of music got to play that venue, maybe I should reach out to them and ask them who they spoke to,” or tell the venue, “Hey I’m, you know, we have a similar audience and you booked them and you know I’m gonna bring a great show your venue too.” It can work in your favor rather than work against you. As you said it’s all mindset.
Bree: Yeah it is, and and which is perfect for this podcast, of course, but I mean I think we all have our zones of genius or our things that we’re good at and that’s one thing I love about my Academy is that, you know, people can get together and be like, “Oh I’m really good at this” you know? “I’m really good at crowd funding,” and another person can be like, “I’m really good at booking.”
And then they can get together and help each other and give each other ideas, and I just think the power of two or more is so much greater than the power of one.
Suz: Absolutely. And I’m so glad you brought up your Female Musician Academy because that leads very well in to my next question! That, you know, you’ve got, we’ve mentioned, Women of Substance Podcast, which is formally your radio station, you’ve got the FEM Podcast, which I had the honor to be, on you have a vlog, a blog, you create resources for musicians, you have the Female Musician Academy, you host the Profitable Musician Summit online, you run a Facebook group, you have two children…
Seriously like how do you manage it all? Where do you find the inspiration to create these platforms? And like bring us into your world – how have you accumulated all of these things?
Bree: Well when you say it like that, I start to wonder how I do it, but think about it that way on a daily basis! I think it’s just it’s being smart, you know, I’ve figured out ways to compartmentalize things and to streamline things, and of course I have some fantastic people working for me right now.
My team consists of Beth Matthew, who’s the Community Manager for a Female Indie Musician Community and that the Female Musician Academy and that Female Indie Musician Community, which is our free group is like 3,500 people so she’s got quite a …
But she’s just so she so good with, you know, customer service, and just really caring about musicians because she is a musician, so that’s one important thing is I’ve added someone on my team that really gets the people that we work with.
She is a female indie musician. She joined the academy before she ever started working for me, you know, so she has the exact same struggles and frustrations, and she’s out there in the world dealing with them just like everybody else. So, that’s been one major thing as having her part of my team and just handling all those details that I can’t possibly handle.
You know, I don’t know – scheduling is a big thing. You know, you and I both are very big on goal setting and time management and scheduling and stuff, and, you know, for me this year, I have one homeschooling daughter, so my Mondays and Fridays she’s home with me, which has made things interesting.
But I just, I think organizing my week in a way that’s not fragmented has made the biggest difference. Saying, you know, these days are my days for meetings and I don’t have meetings on other days, so I can focus on content.
So, for me, it’s videos or podcasts, for musicians, if they’re doing this, for them it’s, you know, writing days or recording days and, you know, then there’s other days that you say, “Okay I’m to do all my errands and all my administrative duties on these days, so they don’t distract me on these days when I need to really focus on a particular thing.”
And I think that’s the biggest thing for me is that my Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are days where I can completely focus, you know, once I get into recording the interviews for the Summit coming up soon those are gonna be my days when I do the interviews because I’m not distracted by anything else.
Suz: I agree. I mean we’ve talked about this in the past, I mean, learning how to draw boundaries around my time and batching certain types of tasks together on certain days was a complete game-changer for my productivity and I 100% agree with everything you just said, for sure.
When it comes to building all of this stuff, and as you said before, I mean none of it happened overnight, it wasn’t like all of these things came in all at once, and you just woke up one day were like, “I’m gonna do two podcasts, and I’m going to do this…” You know, obviously things folded into the journey.
What is your biggest, you know, I know that you’re a big cheerleader for female musicians obviously, you have a really great skill set at teaching others about income streams and being profitable, but what is it that really keeps you going and motivated to do so much to help other musicians? Like what is the thing that just like lights that fire under you?
Bree: You know I did this brand archetype test recently, and what I discovered is that my two biggest motivators or the things that I want to be known for are being an advocate and being a connector.
And once I realized I was like, “Yes! That’s actually really what I love.” Like, I love, the reason I love Women of Substance is because I love promoting other artists that create great music. Nobody loves promoting themselves, right?
But I love promoting other people because it’s so much easier than promoting yourself, and you and be completely honest about it if you love their music and completely excited about it.
So, you know, the reason I have that platform is that I actually really love exposing the world to great music, so that’s one thing that motivates me. And then as far as being a connector, like that’s one reason I created the Academy.
I don’t want any musician to feel isolated and alone and want to give up. And I was talking to one of my private students that’s in the Academy today, and she’s like, you know, she has another woman in the academy that’s one of her accountability partners and she’s like, “You know what, we have saved each other like multiple times. We have almost given up and without that relationship we would have.” And then she told me about another person I connected her with and she’s like, “This person has been such a gift to me. I feel like it was your gift to me to introduce me to her.”
I was like, “Wow! That’s what motivates me!”
Getting people to help each other and giving them the tools to be the most successful that they can, and again like amplifying that by just learning from me and from others because we can only learn so much in our own limited experience.
Suz: Yeah, teamwork makes the dream work.
Bree: Yup!
Suz: I love that, you know, that person is able to say like that was your gift simply by putting two people together that give so much value back and forth to each other. And you had a part in that, and that’s really powerful.
Bree: Yeah it was, just totally made my day today and it just solidified what I learned in that test is that I just really love doing that. That’s one reason that I have a Facebook group that’s free. It’s because I wanted to make sure that there was nobody out there that felt alone and didn’t have the support that they needed to even get started.
I realize some people are not ready for the Academy, but if they don’t have that support in the beginning and that confidence to know that they can do this, they’ll never get there, right?
And so that group grew out of something that happened to me when I was a struggling musician, and I had a group… little master mind group like that of about ten women and that is really what catapulted my career because I just… I was at that point where I didn’t know what to do, you know?
I wanted it so bad but I didn’t know the steps and these people were a little bit ahead of me, and I could watch them and I could ask questions. And that’s what I wanted to make sure that that no artist missed out on.
Suz: Yeah, it’s so important and that’s why it’s important to get rid of that feeling of competition, you know, rather than sitting on Instagram looking at what everybody else… what you feel they have and you don’t have yet, finding that community and just saying like, “Okay, how did you crack that code?”
Or, “What did you do to get out of this situation or grow this piece of your career?” And then you in turn do that for other people, and it’s a beautiful thing and as you said it gets you there faster. You know, it gets you going, and you see more progress in just a different, more powerful way, and I think that’s great.
And the community you’ve been able to build to help other musicians, especially female musicians in this industry, is just is awesome, and I’m a big fan. I’m just a really big fan of what you.
Bree: Thank you!
Suz: And, you know, the fact of being an advocate and a connector, all those amazing things you created that I’ve listed, you know it’s not a motley crew of things. It’s not like… you don’t look at that list and be like, “Hmm, why did she create those things?”
When you know you’re why it makes complete perfect sense as to why you would create these things. They all go hand in hand. They’re all connected with that intention.
Bree: Yeah, I see that now definitely, and I think the other motivator is that I don’t want the world to miss out on any great music that musicians can create, and that’s why I’m so focused on let’s get you guys some income. Because if you don’t get any income, you’re not going to be motivated to keep creating.
You’re not going to have the resources to keep creating. It’s not necessarily about the money for money’s sake, although we do need that in order to survive, but, you know, some people just want to perpetuate their art as a side hobby and they still need money to do that.
So that’s why I’m so keen on income streams and finding ones that you might not have thought of, you know, just the obvious ones. And so that’s kind of one reason I started the Profitable Musician Summit and I’m continuing it because people really appreciated learning about all those income streams, and this year we’re gonna be talking about income streams plus how can we decrease our expenses and you know not overspend, so we’re really increasing our profit overall.
Suz: What do you think musicians get most hung up with as they go through this journey like from when they realize, “Okay, I need to start taking this more serious here. I need to start approaching this in a different way, in a more in a more serious way and think about it as a career.” What do you think they get hung up on the most and what what do you usually say to them about that?
Bree: Well, I think you’ll agree with me that most of them have nothing to do with practical things. It
has all to do with the mindset, you know?
Suz: Yeah.
Bree: We can figure out the practical things but the mindset is what completely stops you in your tracks, so I’d say the first thing is overwhelm. That’s the biggest one that I deal with which is why, and I’m sure you agree with this, why we need to plan and goal-set and all that stuff because otherwise you’ll just be spinning around like a crazy person.
You know this shiny object! And this shiny object! And squirrel over here! And, you know, it’s so easy to do that with the internet, right? The internet is right the ultimate distraction when it comes to just too much information, so I think that’s what I see. And it’s hard because as a teacher I want to teach everything, right?
Suz: Right.
Bree: But less is more because if you teach them everything they’ll either do a little of everything and never complete it or just feel so overwhelmed that they don’t even know which thing to start with.
You know, coming up with a framework has been the biggest thing for me to help musicians know, “Okay I’m at this stage… I should do this. Now I’m at this stage, I can do this. You know, at this early stage, I can’t do this thing because it’s not gonna work for me it’s gonna be two expensive, and it’s not going to yield what I want.”
So, this is all kind of one big thing – fear, lack of confidence, imposter syndrome, comparing yourself to other people – like all that stuff just messes with your mind.
I see many times musicians that are just completely paralyzed in like… especially in booking because of those things. They’re just constantly like, “What are they gonna think of me is I ask for money?”
Or, you know, “How can I compare to this other artist?” Or you know, you look at what other artists are doing, “I can’t possibly do that, you know, I’m not as good as them!” Or whatever.
And you know when you’re first starting out, yeah you’re not as good as them. You have to prove yourself, you have to pay your dues, but once you have done that, just having the confidence to know that I do deserve to be paid, I put in years to hone my craft, you know, maybe you’ve gone to school like me, I got a degree in vocal performance like, you know, I spent years, you know, passing my piano proficiency exam and doing my junior and senior recital and practicing two hours a day, you know, that all should be worth something. Just like doctors do that, and then they get paid a lot later after they put in all their hard work.
So we need to not feel guilty in knowing that we have put in the work to deserve to be paid, but it’s not an easy thing to deal with these these mindset issues. And sometimes they’ve just been ingrained. You know, if you’ve had family or friends tell you that music is a stupid decision and you’re crazy and you can never make money from music that just gets drilled into your head. And even though you think that you’ve gotten over that, that’s still lurking in the background.
Suz: Mhm, absolutely.
Bree: You know, sometimes it just takes a lot of hard work emotionally to overcome those things, and I’ve seen people they’ve been stuck and stuck and stuck and then all of a sudden they breakthrough somehow. And only they know how they did it because it was such a personal thing, but once that happened like the flood gates open and they just started booking like a mad person!
But for a year they were just stuck, you know? So you guys need to know that it’s not all about knowing the right tactics, it’s about conquering those internal demons to give you the strength to go out there and then follow the tactics.
I can tell you from my perspective there are things now that are hard for me to do… they’re a different level. I mean, for example, asking people to sponsor my Summit, right? I’ll just come out here and admit this, like it’s intimidating, right?
You know, it’s at a higher level, you’re asking for more money, and you’re thinking like, “Do I have the right to ask for this? Who am I?” You know, all those things are going on in your head.
Suz: Absolutely.
Bree: And so you never grow out of that. You never grow out of it. I mean maybe you… you know, I know you put on a live event every year, and there’s probably some of that going on like, “Oh my gosh, like can I really do this? Like this is a huge undertaking, you know, do I really understand?”
Suz: Oh 100%! I’m in complete agreement with you about sponsorships too because this second year people were like, “Well who’s sponsoring?” And I was like, “Nobody” and they’re like, “Why?” And I was like, “Because I didn’t ask.”
Bree: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Suz: You know and that’s something that I would like to overcome for next year, but yeah you talk yourself out of it or you come up with a million different excuses as to why it’s not a good idea rather than just trying.
You never fully crack the code. You get better at, I would say, realizing the negative talk sooner, being able to rely on certain tools, and systems, and routines to get yourself out of the negative talk, but it doesn’t mean that it never happens again.
Like once you figure out how to get yourself out of the negative talk it’s not like you don’t ever fall back into, it’s just, as you said, different circumstances, different stakes – just different stakes.
Bree: Yeah, that’s a really good thing you said about realizing it earlier because our mind can like rationalize our way out of everything.
Suz: Oh, for sure!
Bree: Like oh, you know, my mind can somehow be like, “Oh well I can’t possibly ask any people today because I need to send them a video, and I don’t have time to, you know, do my hair and do my make-up, so I can’t do it today. I’ll do it tomorrow!”
You know what I mean? So we’ll make up reasons and once you realize like, “No you had plenty of time to do that, you’re just using that as an excuse.”
Suz: Yep! Yes indeed. And I think we should leave it there on that powerful note. It’s time for my lightning round. If you could choose one super power what would it be?
Bree: It would be making more time out of no time. I feel like time is constantly ticking against me.
Suz: I want like that Zack Morris like time out button where we can just call time out and then everybody freezes.
Bree: Okay, that would be awesome! I can get so much done and then turn it back on and they’d be like, “Wow how did you do that?”
Suz: Yea you’d be like, “Both my podcast my blog my vlog everything is done and you’re unaware of any time that has passed.” If time travel were possible what’s one lesson you’d like to go back and tell yourself?
Bree: I think I would like to tell myself that whatever you’re doing today that doesn’t mean you’re going to have to do it forever. That you can change and people will be, the world will be okay with it.
Like you have control over your own destiny because sometimes I feel like, “Well if I’m doing this podcast now I have to do it for the rest of my life.” It’s like no you don’t you can stop at any time and people would understand.
Suz: That’s really great I think I’m still learning that but I think it’s a really great lesson.
Bree: I think when we’re people that are consistent and committed people we feel like we can never make a change and like that’s that’s a good thing and a bad thing.
Suz: I completely agree! So, if you could invite three musicians living or dead your house for dinner who would they be?
Bree: I’d say you like Bob Dylan probably. Joni Mitchell and Sarah McLachlan. That’s a really random combination of people.
Suz: I might have to stop by and try to sneak in dessert and be like, “Oh here look I’ve come with dessert, let me join your table.”
Bree: I wanted to pick really good songwriters.
Suz: I’m sure they’d want to meet each other, too! I’m sure Sarah McLachlan would like to be at the table. Alright so then the last one, since this is an actionable podcast, what action would you like our listeners to take when they finish listening to this episode?
Bree: If you haven’t made any goals yet for the year, sit down with a pen and paper and just write out everything that you would want to do for the next year, just like a total brain dump. And then pick five that make sense for the next ninety days.
And if you’ve already done that, I just want you to go back and just really look at those goals and commit to those goals and just think them through for the next ninety days done just like write them down and then forget. And this is coming from someone that just did this exercise for myself.
And I was just thinking today like I need to look at those every day, because otherwise they’re just going to be something that I wrote on a paper and it’s not, I’m not gonna really internalize those.
Suz: Absolutely! I actually for the first time put my goals as my desktop image at the beginning of last year and it was so much more effective than I’ve been in the past. So I’m going to continue to do that for 2019.
Again I want to thank you so much for your insight and for your honesty and transparency with our listeners. There’s so much to be learned and all of the wonderful resources that you offer are all in the show notes so I encourage all of our listeners to go check them out.
The links to the Female Musician Academy, both podcasts, The Women of Substance Podcast and the FEM Podcast and all the other great resources that you have and I also encourage all of you to attend the Profitable Musician Summit.
Information on that will also be in the show notes and do a Bree said because she knows what she’s talking about so go reflect on those goals. And Bree, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. For those of you that don’t know, we’re actually recording this over the holiday break and I really appreciate Bree making the time to sit and chat with me.
Bree: I couldn’t think of anything more fun to do over the holidays than talk about this stuff. It’s what gets me excited to keep doing what I do so it’s been super fun!
Suz: Awesome well thanks so much and we’ll see you all on the next episode! Bree: You’re welcome!
I literally could talk to Bree all day, I love connecting with like-minded people! Well I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did.
One thing I can’t stress enough, if you’re looking to start making real money from your music, is to go register for Bree’s Profitable Musician Summit. It’s free, it’s jam-packed with great information and you can pick and choose which topics best suit your needs.
As Bree said, accomplishing your goals comes down to drawing boundaries around your time and honoring those boundaries. So make sure you’ve carved out some time each week to develop your business skills.
Just a little time each day or a chunk of time once or twice a week can make an incredible difference.
Head on over to www.therockstaradvocate.com/ep57 and register for the free Summit and check out all of the other great rocksources Bree has for you!
As always, I thank you for listening and I’m here if you have any questions. Email me at anytime: suz@therockstaradvocate.com
Until next time, Rockstar! Have a wonderful week and I hope to see you back here next week so we can get grounded to get rising! Take care.
Key Highlights
- Why musicians struggle to make money
- Selling Online vs. Selling at Shows
- Competition – does it exist in music?
- How she balances so many projects
- Musicians’ biggest hangups around money
- Bree’s special power
- The lesson she’d go back and tell herself
- The 3 musicians she’d have over for dinner
- Her actionable for you this week
Links/Rocksources
- Theme music brought to you by DC-based Indie/Pop band Sub-Radio
- More podcast episodes can be found here
- You can download a copy of the episode’s transcript here
- Learn more about Bree & Female Musician Academy here
- Check out Bree’s podcast Women of Substance here
- Listen to our other episode together on her podcast Female Entrepreneur Musician here
- Watch & subscribe to her vlog here & her blog here
- Join her community on Facebook here
- REGISTER FOR THE PROFITABLE MUSICIAN SUMMIT here 🙂
The Profitable Musician Summit
REGISTER FOR FREE HERE
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