Sailboats, Dudes, & Bangin' Bars
Plus, announcing my new creative business coaching program
Introducing my new coaching program!
Project Passion Fruit is the go-to marketing toolkit for creative women to learn how to grow their business online.
Whether you’re a small business owner passionate about photography, design, yoga, real estate, or something else, this program teaches you the foundational marketing skills needed to promote and grow your businesses.
It is a step-by-step process covering all aspects of marketing and self-promotion so you can connect with your dream audience and sell out your products, services, and launches.
Over three-quarters of customers check out a business’s online presence before visiting in person. It’s crucial to make a great impression online, whether you’re a service provider or a brick-and-mortar store.
Apply now for my Fall intake - space is super limited!
Tattletale Saints performing at the ultimate listening venue, The Ryman, Nashville TN.
What do t-shirts with sailboats, dudes, and a bangin’ bar scene all have in common?
No, I don’t mean Florida ;)
One of my favorite business concepts is, “if you’re talking to everybody, you’re talking to nobody”.
You probably know in your gut what that means - kind of.
But how does it practically impact every day decisions in your music or creative business?
Knowing the audience or customer you’re trying to reach is vital, but it’s almost more important to know who you’re not talking to.
And it makes the daily decisions you make in your business so much easier!
Sailboats
Every week, we get people wandering into Blue Pine Door County and — after taking a lap — they tell me we should have t-shirts with sailboats on them.
Our store is on Lake Michigan, and boating is a huge part of the local culture. So it seems like a massive oversight that we have no design with a sailboat right?
Nope.
Our business brand statement is “Not your average Door County clothing store: Door County and State Parks apparel and mementos with a fresh twist”.
There are dozens of other stores in our town doing graphics of sailboats, anchors, and paddles on their tees.
If our ideal customer is into the rainbows, unicorns, bigfoot, typography-based designs, and stylized icons we create, and they see an anchor or sailboat design in the window, they’re going to assume we’re just another typical store selling the same as everyone else.
By trying to have something for everyone, we’d actually be telling our ideal customer who is looking for something fresh and unique to turn around an walk away.
Bangin’ Bars
When you’re an independent band, people are always telling you they have a local venue or festival you’d be just perfect for.
It comes from a good place.
They like you, they like their venue. They assume that means it’s a great match.
My duo Tattletale Saints is an Americana band and our concerts are built around Cy’s acclaimed songs and our skill as instrumentalists.
A bar gig could pay great and have a massive built in crowd, but it’s still not a good fit for us because we know who our ideal audience isn’t.
People enjoy us in a quiet concert environment. Where they can hear the subtleties of the lyrics and enjoy the interaction between guitar and bass.
Our audience isn’t a standing room of people drinking and wanting high-energy entertainment. Even if we gave the performance of a lifetime, what we do will never be what those people want.
We used to accept any gig that came our way, thinking that if it was known to be a “good gig” for someone, it must be a good gig for us too.
Knowing what isn’t our ideal show makes it super easy to turn down a gig suggestion, even when it looks fantastic on paper.
Dudes
There are a lot of male musicians.
I play with some fantastic ones, I’ve dated quite a few (lol) and I’m all about them succeeding in life and music.
So why do I say “I coach female musicians”. Doesn’t that mean I’m cutting out half of my potential clients? Isn’t that leaving money on the table when I could just say “I coach musicians” and women would still feel welcomed?
For most of my 20-year career, I’ve been the only woman on stage, the only woman in the recording studio, the only woman in industry meetings.
If we want to change that, female musicians must do everything possible to uplift, support, inspire, educate, and encourage each other.
Empowering female musicians through teaching, supporting, and community-building is how I’m striving for this change.
Do I coach guys sometimes? Sure.
But I want female musicians to know that this program is built for them. That I know where they come from, what they’ve been through, and that my number one goal is to help and encourage them to succeed in an industry we all know is still incredibly male-centric.
I specify “female musicians” because I want them to know I’m prioritizing them.
By making it clear that I’m not talking to male musicians, I make the message more potent for the women I am talking to.
The statement “if you’re talking to everybody, you’re talking to nobody” means positively excluding the people who aren’t your ideal customer, so the people you’re trying to reach know unequivocally that you’re speaking to them.
The exclusion part is of this statement obvious.
The positive part simply means you do it confidently and without reservation, because you’ve taken the time to know exactly who you’re trying to exclude and why.
So what do t-shirts with sailboats, dudes, and a bangin’ bar scene all have in common?
They’re all things I’m more than happy to say “thanks, but no thanks” to in my businesses.
Who are you trying to positively exclude in your audience or business? Need some help figuring it out? Drop your info in the comments section.