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Is it possible for musicians to earn money from their passion? Where can musicians go to learn the skills, they need, to increase their effectiveness?
In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, Bree Noble of Female Entrepreneur Musician shares what the Profitable Musician Summit is all about.
Podcast Highlights:
- 00:34 – Are you investing in your ongoing education?
- 01:30 – Introductions
- 01:39 – What brought you to this point?
- 08:30 – Do you need permission to be a musician?
- 12:51 – What is the Profitable Musician Summit?
- 16:40 – What have you learned from putting on the Profitable Musician Summit?
- 19:46 – What has been the response to the Profitable Musician Summit?
- 21:28 – Is it even possible to be a profitable musician?
- 23:11 – People are stopped by the smallest things
- 24:35 – Make the commitment first, work out the details later
- 25:28 – Making money in music
- 28:14 – What are your thoughts on music entrepreneurship?
- 30:49 – Learning from failures
- 32:05 – What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered as an entrepreneur?
- 34:41 – Getting coaching
- 35:55 – What are some of the biggest successes you’ve experienced as an entrepreneur?
- 37:11 – Hacking book writing
- 38:39 – Are there any books or resources that have helped you on your journey?
- 40:07 – Is there anything else I should have asked?
Transcription:
David Andrew Wiebe: I have a question for you. Are you investing in your ongoing education? I’m not talking about the education that you get in school. I’m talking about the kind that you get through personal development through reading books, through listening to audios and podcasts, watching videos, getting mentorship. Is that something that you’re regularly engaging in?
There’s so much great content out there and if you don’t take advantage of it, and you don’t apply it to your music career, but continue to complain about the fact that you can’t make money from music, then you’re really just shooting yourself in the foot.
I have a special guest on today. And I think you’re going to love this interview. There is a huge opportunity to contribute to your learning, to your knowledge, to your expertise if you take advantage of some of the things mentioned in this episode. I’m not going to say anymore. Here’s my special interview.
Today I’m chatting with music business trainer and mentor Bree Noble. How are you today, Bree?
Bree Noble: I’m doing great.
David Andrew Wiebe: Excellent. It’s great to have you on the show. I’ve had the opportunity to read your bio so I have a pretty good sense of where you’re coming from, but for the sake of our listeners, I would love for you to touch on your story and what brought you to this point of founding an online radio station, starting the Female Entrepreneur Musician Podcast, producing the Profitable Musician Summit and more.
Bree Noble: Oh, man. Okay. I’ll try to keep it brief. You know, I’m a musician at heart of course, and my background is as a musician, a vocalist and a singer songwriter. I grew up performing a lot in high school and every choir I could do and solo competitions. I went to Westmont College to get a degree in music and vocal performance. And somewhere along the way, I got practical. I decided that I also needed a degree in business. So just in case this music thing fell through, which is kind of funny to think about it that way because I wasn’t thinking about, “Oh, I kind of need the business in order to do the music.” It didn’t occur to me, I thought these are two separate things. And you know, this is my fallback plan. Because I looked at it that way, when I got out of school, I really didn’t have any guidance on how to make a career as a musician so I went ahead and went into the world of accounting and finance and ended up kind of marrying those by being a director of finance at a Top 15 Opera Company, which was a really cool experience, but you know, after working in the corporate world, all that time, I just really wanted to share my music, my talent, and just share my song writing with an audience and I didn’t have any idea how to make that happen. I tried all kinds of weird things getting together with certain producers that I thought were going to catapult my career, trying to fit myself into different bands that didn’t really match.
I never really having the confidence to go out there as a soloist because I didn’t know what I was doing, you know? And so, I also thought I needed permission to start working as a musician and starting a business. I thought I needed a record label. I needed a booking agent, somebody to tell me that I was now legit and I could now have a career. We now grant you The Crown of music career, you know. And so, I was stuck for a really long time. But once I left my job at the opera because I had a baby and life was getting super overwhelming. And so, I managed to exit gracefully and be at home, do a little bit of work at the opera on the side, and really had a little more time to kind of delve into how would I start this music career. And at that point, I finally just got fed up basically and said, “If I keep waiting around, by now I’m already 32, life’s going to pass me by.” So that’s when I started realizing, okay, I had all these entrepreneurship classes in school. Why wouldn’t I use all that information that I’ve learned to build a business?
And you know, even though the stuff I learned in school really didn’t completely apply, it kind of opened my mind to how can I put these things together? And so, it just started basically building from the ground up and going out there and booking myself and touring locally within the state of California. And over time, I built a career where I was actually having people call me and asked me to perform. I felt like that was the real point where I had “succeeded” is that now people were calling me and I didn’t always have to be out there cold calling and stuff.
During that time, I developed a lot of relationships with other musicians. I just felt called to build a platform that promoted female artists because I thought there just isn’t enough out there to promote female artists and there wasn’t enough of a ratio. When you listen to the radio or Sirius XM or anything of female artists, even though there were so many amazing ones out there. So, I started the Women of Substance radio station. It was an online station started out on Live 365 back in 2007. And eventually that became a podcast. We went more professional. We had advertising and all that.
After doing that for seven years, I realized I’m working with all these amazing female artists, but a lot of them… Look, why am I the only one playing their music? Why don’t they have a fan base? Their music is so good. And so, I thought, you know, maybe I could take some of what I learned because I understand where they’re coming from being struggling and not knowing what to do, not knowing how to build it like a business. I could take some of that information and experience that I had and help them. So that’s when I started the Female Entrepreneur Musician Podcast. I started the Female Musician Academy which is a membership for female artists to help them learn to market and grow their career like a business. And along the way, like I’ve met so many amazing other experts in the field. I decided last year that I really wanted to put on an online conference for all the people that really couldn’t go out to conferences like myself really. Because I have younger kids, I didn’t want to travel. I understand that a lot of people are in that position. They just don’t want to spend the money to go to a conference. And so, we decided to put on the Profitable Musician Summit. We had 40 speakers. It was amazing. We decided to do it again because it was so popular. So that’s what’s happening this year in April.
David Andrew Wiebe: Wow, that’s awesome. I mean, there’s so many trails I want to go down there. And your story is very relatable to me. One of the things that you touched on there about being practical. Like I’ve never been terribly practical. I think I’ve only ever spent six months in a traditional job role, only to realize that no matter how hard I worked, I got paid the same minimum wage per hour. That didn’t suit me very well. So, I found out I was pretty unemployable early on. But you know, friends and colleagues have also pointed out, “Hey, you actually do have kind of a practical aspect to what you’re doing because you’re not dependent. Or like 100% dependent on your music to produce an income, you already always have something else going on.” And that’s very true.
Another thing that I wanted to comment on was the whole thing about waiting for others to acknowledge you, which I think is a very common trap for musicians out there looking to create a career. I’ve often said on this podcast, the clouds will part, God will descend, and the angels will come with him and announce in a booming voice, “You were meant to play guitar.” That moment never happens. And even if you go to school, it never happened. So, I love what you shared there.
Bree Noble: No, I know. It doesn’t. I’m actually still kind of surprised all the time, that people still have this attitude, but it is pervasive. And it may never disappear. I mean, I guess people just still think in 2019 that they need a record deal. Or they need some industry decision maker to give them permission. And so, you know, that’s part of my big platform and message. Nobody can give you permission except yourself.
David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah, totally. Seth Godin has a relatively new podcast called Akimbo, and I think he had an episode called Pick yourself. I mean, I think that’s 80% of music entrepreneurship right there. If you get that, then you’re well on your way to achieving way more.
Bree Noble: Well, I have to go listen to that one. I actually subscribed to that podcast. I think I missed that episode.
David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah, it was a great little episode. I really loved it. So, I think you shared a little bit about what prompted you to start the Female Entrepreneur Musician but let’s just take a deeper cut at that. So, what need did you see? What challenge did you see that needed to be filled?
Bree Noble: Well, you know, it’s not like at first people were coming to me and asking. There were some people asking me for advice but I think at first people just saw me as the person that runs a radio station or a podcast. I mostly saw that there was so much talent out there. And I was just, you know, picking this music that was amazing. And then I would go look at their website, because especially when I started doing the podcast, where I would introduce each song and just say a little bit about the musician, and I would go do my research and look at their website and like there would be nothing. Like they didn’t even have a proper bio. I couldn’t even find their website. They were nowhere to be found online. And so, I started to dig deeper. What is going on here? Why did these people have like top notch music and nothing else?
I started to find out that people tended to think that you know, the whole build it and they will come kind of idea that if they go spend a lot of money and record this amazing album in Nashville, then it will attract the right people and suddenly they’ll be selling tons of music and be touring around the world or something. Obviously, we know that that’s not how it works. I was finding all these people that had this amazing music and then discovering after talking to them that this is what had happened to them. And they had been convinced that that would be what would happen if they recorded their album. But now you know, after going to Nashville and all this amazing experience, they went home and everything was the same, except they had a giant pile of boxes of CDs in their garage and didn’t have any clue what to do. And so, I wanted to help them.
David Andrew Wiebe: Oh, absolutely. I know exactly what you mean. It’s the same thing for me. Even in Calgary, which is a city of about a million and a half people, which is fairly large, but it really is kind of the middle of nowhere where I live, and even here, there is such incredible talent. And people do leave here for fairly expected reasons. If you’re going to make a career in Canada, you probably want to be in Vancouver or Toronto, or potentially Montreal if you’re into jazz. The opportunity isn’t here in a way than it potentially could be. But like you say, if you had the right mindset, or if you knew what to do with those CDs that are sitting in your basement, you could still make a go of it, especially now that we have the internet.
Bree Noble: Yes, for sure.
David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah. So, I’d love to ask more about the Profitable Musicians Summit, which I understand you have coming up on April 22 is it?
Bree Noble: Yeah. So, it’s a 10-day online event. It starts on April 22nd. We have a live opening party, which is always fun because we have surprise guests and lots of giveaways from our summit speakers. And so, it’s a really fun interactive online live event. And then, we go into nine days of sessions, which are pre-recorded, but we release them a few every day. So anywhere from three to five on a day.
People can register for the summit totally for free. We have the summit sessions open for 48 hours so they can go and choose the ones that they want to see and be able to view those for 48 hours. And so, they can figure out which ones they really are excited about. Hopefully, they’re excited about all of them. They’re going to be amazing, but they may have particular topics that they want to learn about. We try to organize each day around, you know, kind of a theme. So maybe some days will be a little more relevant for you than others. But really, there’s so much information to be had from speakers that you can see on the main stage at conferences. Like the DIY Musician Conference or the ASCAP Expo or any of the really big music con, you know, even South by Southwest, any of the big music conferences. These are speakers that normally get paid to speak on these stages and we have them where you can watch them in your own living room, or on the go, or whatever, during the 48-hour period that their interview is open.
So, it’s, I just think, a really great opportunity. We also offer kind of a connection opportunity within our private community during the summit for not only the artist to communicate and talk about the sessions, but also the speakers come in there and they answer questions and that people are able to connect with the speaker. So that’s a really cool part of it, too. It’s almost like being there, you know, being in a room together.
David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah. I love the idea for a variety of reasons. I’ve looked at the speaker list and I’ve gone, “Oh, I know him. I know her. I’ve interviewed these two.” So, it’s funny how this is kind of a small niche in a way, right? There’s a few experts out there and a few different topics but it really comes down to that there’s only so many of us to even know.
Bree Noble: It’s true. It’s true. I have brought in a few people for this particular summit because it’s focused on profitability. Some people from the finance niche that are used to working with creatives. And so, you know, people that normally talk about saving money or taxes or things like that but they work with creatives. So that’s kind of cool because It’s not all just the same people that that we know.
David Andrew Wiebe: No, I love that too, because I will invite guests on my podcast like people who I’ve read their books, or I’ve listened to their podcast. I had my coach James Schramko on my show and he’s primarily in internet marketing. He had a lot of amazing value to share on that episode of the podcast because his son is in music. But I think it’s great to bring a little bit of that outside perspective as well. And it’s totally valid when we’re talking about music entrepreneurship, right.
Bree Noble: Oh, absolutely. I have to go listen to that one. I love James Schramko.
David Andrew Wiebe: Oh, yeah. Another thing about the Profitable Musician Summit, you know, I’m currently working on a community project called Your Music Matters, and I’m looking to equip musicians with the marketing skills they need to increase revenue from music and have a better-quality career overall. So, based on what you’ve learned from working on the Profitable Musician Summit, what advice would you have for me?
Bree Noble: Oh, my goodness, so like for your project?
David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah.
Bree Noble: I mean being organized, I’m still never as organized as I want to be but there’s so many moving pieces when it comes to putting on something like this. I mean, we’ve got affiliates that are promoting, we’ve got speakers that need to be notified about when their things are going live. I had to set up all the interviews with everybody and make sure everybody you know, had questions in advance. There’s just so many moving pieces that you really need to use, I think, some kind of productivity software. I personally like to use Asana.
David Andrew Wiebe: I love Asana.
Bree Noble: Just to keep track of what it is that you need to do and when it’s due. There’s a lot of different deadlines involved. So, I guess that would be my biggest advice. I don’t know if you’re working with anybody or you’re just doing it on your own but I work with a partner, Steve Palfreeman, from the Music Launch Hub for this event. We have a shared Asana so we’re able to kind of assign things to each other or pass things along, which is kind of nice. But we also met probably every two weeks throughout the process. And then, now we’re meeting every single week just to make sure that everything is ready to go and everything’s moving along correctly as we open up the summit for registration and as we go live.
David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah, that’s great tip. One thing that I have been doing is I’ve been starting to engage the community looking for social media influencers or having conversations and sitting down, who should I talk to, what feedback tips or ideas do you have for me, all those kinds of things. So, I do find it slow moving at times or sometimes it can be challenging to find the commitment level you need from others to work. That’s the challenge of the community project anyway, it’s not for profit. And so, really setting it up in a way that that it seems like an opportunity for others to be involved. I think that’s potentially the biggest challenge.
Bree Noble: Yeah. And I think you’re right. You know, always remembering when you’re talking to somebody about it, ask them if they know anybody that might be interested. I mean, that’s how I found some of the speakers for this, that I wouldn’t have known about or thought of, is just asking the speakers that I had, is there anybody that you think we need to have on here? Like there must have.
David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah, absolutely. That’s something that I continue to do. I’ve gotten some really cool recommendations and waiting to hear back from many of them too. So yeah, I’m going to keep at that. And so, what sort of reaction have you had to the Profitable Musician Summit?
Bree Noble: Oh, last year’s summit was… it was so fantastic. We had thousands of people attend. People just really loved it. I’ve heard through the year about how people are still implementing things that they learned. I think it also introduced people to some other influencers in the music industry that maybe they didn’t know. And sometimes it’s not always about how much somebody knows, sometimes it’s about their personality and whether you mesh. If you watch someone session and you’re like, “Wow! I really feel like we’re on the same wavelength.” Then maybe you eventually want to take one of their courses or ask them to be your coach or whatever. Not everyone is for everyone, you know what I mean? So, having kind of this gamut of like 33 people that you can watch and connect with on some level and be like, “Yeah, I think this person might be the one that could really help me move the needle in my business.” I realize I’m not always that person for everyone. So, it’s nice to be able to introduce my community and all the people that come into my community during the summit to the gamut of amazing coaches and people that helped musicians.
David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah, it’s really great to have different teachers. That definitely sets you up for success in the sense that someone will relate to another one more so than the other. So, I love that. The whole framing for the whole thing is, is it even possible to be a profitable musician, which I kind of like, but I’m wondering if that’s like a comment that you’ve had from others or if it’s just kind of a general branding statement.
Bree Noble: I mean, I do think that there is a lot of skepticism out there. Yeah. And there’s a lot of people suffering from the myth of the starving artist kind of thing, or I guess it’s not a myth if you subscribe to it. The fact that so many people just think that that’s what it has to be in order for you to be a musician. Like you just basically have to give up your life for your art. It’s almost like being a martyr. I just want musicians to like actually ask that question in their head, like, “Am I really thinking this? Am I thinking that is it even possible? If I am, then how can I turn that around so I can actually use the stuff that I’m learning here?” Because I think and I wrote an article about this for Soundfly that’s talking about, you know, like, before you come to the summit, there’s just one thing that you have to deal with or you’re not going to learn anything, you’re not going to actually take action. And that’s if you’ve got some kind of limiting beliefs around money. Or if you’ve got, you know, what I call money blocks, right?
Because there’s no way that you can open yourself up to receive and actually follow through on any of this stuff if it’s always in the back of your mind. Like you’re thinking, “Well, that might work for someone else, but that won’t work for me.” Or, “Yeah, they’re just saying that because they think that we’re going to believe them but we know differently.”
David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been attending a series of seminars since last summer so I’m kind of looking at the world from a fresh set of eyes. And you know, one of the things that I see whether it’s like YouTube personalities or other musicians is they often seem stopped by like, the easiest or the simplest of things really. They seem upset or even get panic attacks because of these things. Not to belittle any of it. It’s just amazing to me what people are stopped by sometimes.
Bree Noble: Yeah. Oh, and so many times it’s subconscious.
David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah.
Bree Noble: You know, part of the article that I wrote is like, if you grew up with your parents always telling you that money doesn’t grow on trees, it’s a limited resource, money is the root of all evil, like things like that. Then you might even be believing those things subconsciously. And they might be so ingrained in your belief system that you can’t actually take action on all the stuff we teach during the summit. And you might not even realize why. So you know, just analyzing the way that you think about money and the way that you feel when people talk about it will help you be able to eventually get past those, but it takes time because, you know, these beliefs have been forged in your psyche for years and years. Right?
David Andrew Wiebe: I think one of the things that I’ve been learning is make the commitment first and you can work the rest out later. I would love to say I’ve always been that way. I’ve definitely shrunk down much smaller than that in the past, but as much as possible that’s how I look at things now. It’s like, “Okay, am I going?” Yeah, I’m going. I went to Vancouver earlier this year. That was a trip that I was punning to go on but it was just a few days in the middle of the week, I still had work to do. And I was there for, you know, the graduation of a friend who was finishing a seminar herself. I just said I would be there so I was there. From past me, that’s kind of unimaginable.
Bree Noble: Yeah, sometimes you just have to totally commit, like you said, and figure out the rest later because if you wait till you figured it out, it’ll probably have passed you by unfortunately.
David Andrew Wiebe: And still on this topic of money. I think it’s so funny that so many musicians talk about how hard it is to make money in music. I have a blog post titled 24 ways I’ve made money in music, and that number has just consistently gone up over time. Originally, it was actually 15 ways I’ve made money in music.
Bree Noble: Yeah. One of our speakers this year is Randy Cherco. He’s from the make money with music books. They have blog posts, they have just tons of things. And they’ve literally come up with like over 300 income streams for musicians. Yeah. Most people think there’s three. So, last year’s summit, we actually focused only on different income streams. And we had 33 different income streams that we focused on, which I think really opened a lot of people’s eyes to the way that you can kind of build your portfolio of income streams. As a musician, you’re not just only performing live or recording, selling music. There are so many other things you can do. And s yeah, Randy, during his session, he just covers as many as he can, but there’s still so many that are in their book or in their newsletters and things like that. So, this is the kind of mind-expanding topics that we try to cover on these summits.
David Andrew Wiebe: You know, I’m not surprised at all. They are just so many different ways of making money, especially online these days. That has really blown the doors wide open in terms of what’s possible. So, that’s cool though. And I think that’s encouraging for a lot of musicians to see.
Bree Noble: Yeah. And I mean, to your point about putting entrepreneurship and musicianship together, and you know, what you do with this show, there are so many income streams that are similar to what entrepreneurs do. I mean, I obviously in my business, I have a bunch of different income streams, not just one. And so, as musicians start to think like entrepreneurs, they can start to pull in those income stream ideas that entrepreneurs are using. I mean, I know that Randy in his talk talks about things like affiliate income, and I think most musicians don’t think about that.
David Andrew Wiebe: Oh, yeah, no. Affiliate is something I’ve been talking about for quite a while now. I think Episode 42 of the podcast, the New Music Industry Podcast. I think it’s when I first talked about it. So, I totally believe in that. And you’re right, whether it’s advertising or affiliate income or product income, but most musicians just get stuck at live performance or recorded music.
On that note too, what are your thoughts on the space that we’re in? I’ve received some criticism and even veiled opposition from friends and musicians who seem to have some trouble with the fusion of music and business. They’ll say things like, musicians are so tired of entrepreneurs yelling at them on Facebook and stuff like that. And yet, I think it’s one of the most important movements that’s catching momentum right now. So, what are your thoughts? And have you encountered any resistance for musicians yourself?
Bree Noble: That’s actually really interesting. I have never heard anyone being opposed to it. Most of the time, either they just say to me, like, “I just don’t feel like I can digest this right now. I’m too much in the creative space.” or the one I usually get is like, “I don’t want to have to think about this. I’ll just hire someone to do that part.” And I’m like, “No, not really.” But I’ve never gotten any, like, “I’m tired of entrepreneurs yelling at me on Facebook.” I’ve never heard of that. So, that’s pretty interesting.
Yeah, most of the time, what I get is like, trepidation. You know what I mean? Like, they know that they need to learn it, they know it’s going to make them a better musician overall, because they’re actually going to have a business but they don’t know how and that’s obviously why they’re coming to me. And they’ve got a lot of, again, like limiting beliefs about it. Like, you know, creatives can’t be business people and you know, “I’m right brained. So therefore, I can’t do that other stuff.” That kinds of limiting beliefs. So, I just try to talk to them from where they’re at because I understand it.
Before I married the two, my music business was totally music and creative focused. I didn’t know how to put the business side together. And so, I was like a split personality almost. And so, I understand where they’re coming from. And that’s why I talk about things like, we are scattered creatives and that’s okay. T hat’s one reason why we make such great music and we have such amazing ideas. We just have to learn how to harness it, and how to create a systems and strategies for working within that so we’re not like shutting our creative side down, but we’re able to actually let in the other stuff and devote a certain percentage of our mind and our time to the business stuff.
David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah, I found that is totally possible. I guess it goes back to my reason for getting into this whole space of music entrepreneurship to begin with, which has its roots in 2011, when I began learning about business, and I joined a couple of network marketing companies and I was never successful in them, and I didn’t stick around in them. That wasn’t my path, I guess, but what I learned from listening to the CDs and reading the books and going to the conferences and events and learning from my mentors, really stuck with me to where those skills translated very well into being a musician. Having realized that, I wanted to share that with the world. That’s why I do what I do.
Bree Noble: Isn’t that funny? I think a lot of us have that experience of being in network marketing and being like, “No, this is not for me, but I did learn a lot.” I have the same kind of experience.
David Andrew Wiebe: Exactly. I’ve actually talked to some other people in the music industry who said, “Oh, no, I did incredibly well in network marketing. And now I’m doing this.” And I said, “Oh, wow. You’re just amazing at whatever you do.” This is nice to have but a few general questions, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered as an entrepreneur?
Bree Noble: I would say, scaling my business. I would say that, as an entrepreneur, you often get to this place where it’s like, if I don’t… Number one, get some help, I’m going to go insane. So, needing to hire somebody and not really being able to have the income yet to hire somebody at the level that is going to make them happy but hoping that they’ll understand that they can grow with you. And luckily, I found somebody that’s been willing to do that. I could only hire her for five hours a week or something when we first started. But I knew that I needed that if I was ever going to grow to the next level. And then, trying to decide, if you really want to go to like the next, next level, do you want to get an investor or do you want to try to self fund it? I’ve actually self funded myself the whole way. I think people don’t understand what kind of a limb you’re putting yourself out on. They see that like, oh, you’re bringing in… your business is growing but they don’t understand that it’s a bit leveraged. I know that the plan makes total sense and that it will get me to the next level and it won’t be leveraged anymore and we’ll grow and all that but I think a lot of people on the outside don’t see that. Especially musicians, I think when they spend a lot of money on an album, they think they’re the only ones that have gone out on this limb and like put all their life savings into an album or something. They don’t know that entrepreneurs like myself are doing that too.
David Andrew Wiebe: I so get that. Not being able to hire who you want to be able to hire, that could come from cashflow problems that could have come from not having quite the revenue you’d like to have to be able to do it. My business, for the most part, has not been built on debt either. Same thing I went through probably last year was considering, “Should I get an investor? Should I sell the coin collection? Am I going to start selling some of my instruments? How is this thing going to keep going?”
Bree Noble: Well, I think investing in yourself is investing in your business. For example, getting coaches. Like you said you have James Schramko as your mentor. We need to have those people that are ahead of us so we can make sure that we’re making sound decisions and get advice from people that have been there already so we don’t make mistakes we don’t need to make. Those can be costly. And so, to me, that’s absolutely worth it but it’s not cheap, because every level that you move up, the coaching you need is more expensive. And so, I’d say, for musicians, I get it often from people that maybe haven’t educated themselves in this area. Some pushback on, I can’t afford to invest in your membership, or you as a coach, or anyone as a coach, because I’m not making the money yet. I’m like, “Yes, it’s kind of a catch 22 situation.
David Andrew Wiebe: It is, isn’t it?
Bree Noble: If you know that you’re a person that when you invest in coaching, you do the work, and you make progress, then the ROI is there and it makes absolute sense to make the investment because it’s a sound investment.
David Andrew Wiebe: That’s a really great point. I love that. And, on the flip side of it, what are some of the biggest successes you’ve experienced as an entrepreneur?
Bree Noble: I would say, I mean, some little ones that I would just really love is like, for example, when my podcast won most creative podcast in the podcast paradise awards. I don’t know. It’s not even that big of a deal but just being able to say that I have an award-winning podcast, that’s pretty cool. Because when you put a lot of work into a podcast, as you know, we don’t get a lot of return from it, at least not immediate. So that was nice. This last year… this is only three months into the year. But in January, I released my first book, which was really exciting. I know for you you’ve released a lot of books. But for me, this is my first book. I’ve been wanting to do it for probably two to three years. And finally, actually executing and getting it done when you have to sit down and actually do the writing. It’s a little bit daunting but once you finally get it done, you just feel so accomplished. So, that was a big one for me.
David Andrew Wiebe: Oh, yeah. I mean, writing a book is no small deal for sure. And I’ve had books of varying lengths.
I’ve had people ask me, is there any way to speed up the process? And I guess that’s kind of the problem that I’ve been trying to solve in the last year or so is like, does every book have to take two and a half years? I think the answer is no. But if you are planning to write a 60,000, word plus book with dense content and a message that you want to share with the world, I don’t think there’s a workaround, if you want to reuse the content you’ve already created and your blog posts and edit it and make it better and update it. Yeah, I think that’s the one way you can kind of hack it.
Bree Noble: That’s exactly. I mean, I didn’t… I pulled a few things. So, I have one main like cornerstone content blog post that I used as the framework work for the book but it needed to be built out a lot, a lot, a lot. So, you know, it was just nice to not start with a blank page. And then I did pull in a few other blog posts that I had or I transcribed and then edited some podcasts that I did on particular subjects that went really well with what I was talking about in the book. So that was nice. It still took a couple of months to actually do all the writing but at least I wasn’t starting from scratch.
David Andrew Wiebe: That’s great. And it’s the musicians profit path?
Bree Noble: That’s right.
David Andrew Wiebe: Excellent. So, everybody, check that out. And while we’re on the topic of books, are there any books or other resources that have helped you on your journey?
Bree Noble: I would say one of the big ones is the E-myth, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. We actually have one of the sessions in the summit is based on the E-myth. She kind of marries that with how to do that as a musician, how to think about your business as a musician in the way that you can create systems and kind of, you can’t really reproduce it. It’s not like you have a franchise. In the book, they talk about a pie making shop, and how she sets up systems so she can have more pie making shops, or she can have the other people actually doing the work so she can be doing the big picture stuff. As a musician, you can’t quite look at it that way. So, we kind of get into how to apply the E-myth to musicians.
David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah, I guess as long as you’re the creative force, you’re always going to be at the center of it. It’s just a matter of what do you actually need to have your hands in?
Bree Noble: Yes, it’s all about what can only you do? Only you can write songs. Only you can do interviews. Only you can perform live. But there’s lots of other things that you do that other people can do.
David Andrew Wiebe: Working in your genius zone so to speak.
Bree Noble: Yes.
David Andrew Wiebe: That’s awesome. Well, this has been amazing conversation. I really enjoyed it. So, thank you so much for your time and generosity, Bree. Is there anything else I should have asked?
Bree Noble: No, other than just to let them know how to go to join us for the summit. I would love to have all of you guys listening join us for the summit. We’ve got things that are helpful for every… At every stage of the music career, and also like every level. Like if you only want to do music as a hobby or a passion project, I still say why wouldn’t you want to self finance it instead of having to put in a bunch of your own money. So that’s what the Profitable Musician Summit is about. Whether you’re full time and want to make more money, you’re part time and you want to go full time or you’re just a hobbyist or you enjoy doing it on the side but you just don’t want to have to pour all your own money into it. Why not make it a self-sustaining thing? So, you can just register for your free ticket at ProfitableMusicianSummit.com. I cannot wait to see you guys inside the summit.
David Andrew Wiebe: Awesome. And people can also find you at FEMusician.com, right?
Bree Noble: Yes, absolutely.
David Andrew Wiebe: Fantastic. Thanks again, Bree.
Bree Noble: Thank you.
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