Ep. 8: Women in music (with Bree Noble of Female Musician Academy)

Bree Noble quit her corporate job as a Director of Finance to pursue music. Bree had a successful 7-year run as a touring singer/songwriter. This includes 3 album releases, several songwriting and artist awards, and an opportunity to sing the National Anthem at Dodger Stadium in front of 60,000 people.

In 2007, she founded an online radio station called Women of Substance Radio, to promote quality female artists in all genres. During its ten years on the air, the station became a highly respected source of promotion for female artists. Also, Bree’s marketing efforts cultivated a large Facebook following and significant listenership.

The weekday podcast of the same name launched in 2014. As a result, it quickly hit number one in all 3 of New & Noteworthy’s categories on iTunes. As a matter of fact, Bree launched a second podcast called the Female Entrepreneur Musician which also also hit number one. On the weekly show, Bree teaches business strategies for musicians. Not to mention, she conducts interviews with successful indie female artists and industry professionals.

Drawing on her career as a musician and entrepreneur, Bree has created several music business online courses to help musicians learn to make a living from their music. Her most popular offering is an online training and mentoring community exclusively for female musicians called the “Female Musician Academy.”

Where to find Bree

Website: femusician.com

Read the full transcript below.

Bree Noble: When your heart is really in helping other people, that’s when you can really grow.

Melissa Guller: After leaving a stable job to pursue her own music career. Bree Noble found success over the next seven years as a touring singer and songwriter, something often thought to be impossible. From there, Bri has since used her combined music and business knowledge to launch a radio station and to hit podcasts before creating her own successful online membership program exclusively for female musicians. Her mission today is to serve and support women who don’t fit into the music industry mold and to empower them to build their own career like a business just as she did. So what does that mean exactly to treat your music career like a business? And how has breeze podcast and online business evolved over time? Let’s find out together as Bree joins us for today’s episode of Everything is Teachable.

Announcer: Welcome to Everything is Teachable, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes to learn how everyday creators have transformed their skills and passions into online courses and businesses. To introduce this week’s episode, here’s your host, Melissa Guller.

Melissa Guller: Hey everyone. I’m Melissa from team Teachable. And today I’m here with Bree Noble from the female musicianship Academy. Bri quit her corporate job as a director of finance to pursue music. She had a successful seven year run as a touring singer and songwriter, including three album releases, several songwriting and artist awards, and an opportunity to sing the national Anthem at Dodgers stadium in front of 60,000 people. Then in 2007 during her time as a touring musician, she founded an online radio station called Women of Substance radio to promote quality female artists in all genres. During its 10 years on the air, the station became a highly respected and sought after source of promotion for female artists and breeze marketing efforts. Cultivated a large Facebook following significant listenership, healthy email list and regular advertising revenue.

Melissa Guller: The weekday podcast of the same name launched in 2014 and it quickly hit number one in new and noteworthy in all three of its categories on iTunes. In 2015 Bree launched a second podcast called the Female Entrepreneur Musician, which also hit number one in new and noteworthy there. She teaches marketing and business strategies for musicians alongside industry professionals and female indie artists. Drawing on her extensive experience as a musician and entrepreneur, Bree has now created several online courses to help musicians learn how to make a living from their music. Her most popular offering is an online training and mentorship community, exclusively female musicians called the Female Musician Academy. Well, Bree, I’m so excited to welcome you to the podcast.

Bree Noble: Thank you. I am excited to be here. I think we should start all the way at the beginning.

Melissa Guller: So how did you first build out your own career as a musician?

Bree Noble: Well, I, as most musicians do, I had been seeing for years and I got really excited about music in high school, was in every possible choir and solo opportunity that I could have. And then I went to college and decided to major in music and I was in this school’s performing ensemble and we toured probably two weekends each month, all over California, which was really great experience. And so I was convinced that I wanted to do music after I left school. But as happens to many of us musicians, my college did not give me any kind of direction on where to start a music career. And so although I had all this great knowledge and I knew all this stuff about music theory and I had a great voice teacher, I had no idea how to make this into a career when I left school.

Bree Noble: And so I was completely floundering in that area. I had been practical along the way and I had become interested in business and accounting. And so I’ve got also a degree in business. So the first thing I did was go out and get a job in the business field because that was, you know, that was easier. I had more of a straight line to like, how can I get into this field? But all the time, you know, it was wanting to do something in music and trying to do things on this side, but really having no way of doing it. In the meantime, I started working at the opera as a director of finance. So that was cool. I got to combine my music and business, but I was sitting around, you know, cutting paychecks for all these artists that were doing amazing things in the opera world.

Bree Noble: And although I didn’t want to be an opera singer, I wanted to go out and share my singer songwriter music with the world. But again, I didn’t really know how to make it happen. And so I had all this FOMO, like I really wanted to learn what these artists are doing and through a lot of trial and error and eventually coming to the understanding or just deciding that I needed to take the reins in my own career because in the music industry is a little bit different when, at least back in the day when I started, people usually think that they need to get a record label or they need to have some manager discover you. Or you know, you hear all these stories about, Oh, you know, this person was just humming to themselves at a gas station and some record exec was there getting gas and suddenly they were discovered.

Bree Noble: You know, so musicians tend to think that that’s what they need to have to have a career. And when I, that wasn’t happening for me, no matter all the bands I was in and all the performing I was trying to do, I just finally said, why do I need that? Why can’t I just start my music career? Just like any small business would, grassroots marketing, doing it all myself and not caring that I don’t have a record label and a booking agent and all that stuff. So that’s when I started really building my music career and it took me like 10 years between graduating college and at that kind of epiphany point to really start building my music career. And so at that point I just started doing what I said, you know, acting like any small business would, getting referrals, building an email list and going out there and doing all the, you know, the brunt work, the hustle that it takes to get it going. And pretty soon I was, you know, touring around California myself doing mini tours. I got a really awesome opportunity to perform at Dodger stadium, which was amazing. I won a few awards along the way and so that’s kind of how my music career got going, but it definitely was not a quick start. That’s for sure.

Melissa Guller: Well, it’s interesting to hear you talk about treating your music career like a business because I mean you said it best, it’s not something you ever taught in school, but I think a lot of people who have any kind of craft, whether it’s music, anything related to maybe video art writing, I mean there certainly aren’t typically classes about how do you make money from this skill? And maybe that’s why so many of us are taught, Oh, there’s no possible way you could make money as a musician.

Bree Noble: Yeah, I mean it’s just, it’s not part of the curriculum. I think it’s getting more of that direction, which is great. You know, I’m seeing a lot of people going to music school now that they’re getting a little more of the practical aspect of it and the business side. But like you said, it’s all about developing your skill. And then, okay, now what do I do with it? And what’s so great about the online world and the things that have developed over the past 10 years is that we do have a way to share those skills with other people, whether it’s, you know, you teach voice or you’re teaching guitar, or you’re like me and you teach business skills to musicians or whatever it is that you do that’s unique to you and you are the expert in, you have the ability to go out and do that.

Melissa Guller: Haha, so true. So you mentioned that now you teach musicians how to, you know, use business skills. Let’s go back to how that started. So you were developing your own career, you were, you know, doing fairly well, it sounds like as a touring singer songwriter. How did you then transition into starting to teach other musicians how to do something similar?

Bree Noble: Well, while I was a touring musician, I started developing this because I really believed in female artists. I believe we needed more exposure. And I felt like whenever I turned on the radio or Sirius XM, mostly what I heard was male artists. So I wanted to develop a way to really promote female artists. And so I came up with this platform called Women of Substance radio and it was started out as an online radio station and has now eventually moved into being a podcast. In fact, we’re almost on our 1000th episode, which is crazy. Congratulations. Thank you. The podcast started in late 2014 and we just highlight female artists that are doing, you know, have amazing music and all kinds of genres. And so I started this thing like as a passion project. And as I was growing it, you know, I thought about it the same way as I would grow a business as well.

Bree Noble: And so I made sure to grow an email list and grow my social media and everything. And so pretty soon I had thousands of female artists on my mailing list and in my community. And I started hearing things from them, like, you know, they were asking me questions about, well, how did you build your music career? How did you get bookings? And then I would see them, you know, sending music to me. And it was so awesome and I wondered why they, their music wasn’t being heard anywhere except on my little tiny online radio station. And they would say things to me like, well, I’m just waiting for a label to pick me up or you know, I really don’t know how to do this marketing stuff. And so the light bulb came on for me in about 2014 that I could really help these artists. And they were all in the same position that I was in, you know, during that 10 years of being frustrated and not knowing what to do and why shouldn’t I share with them what I learned and cut their learning curve down so they didn’t have to deal with all the years of frustration that I did.

Melissa Guller: [inaudible] I heard you say to a lot of them mentioned, you know, just waiting for a label or not knowing how to do marketing. Those are such important business skills, but like we talked about, musicians probably really don’t know and it can really feel, I’m sure very frustrating as a musician to just wait around for something.

Bree Noble: Yeah. Oh absolutely. But you’ve got all this creativity inside of you and you can’t keep it from coming out. You know, you’ve got all these great songs you’ve written, you want to record them, but then okay, I need the money to record them and you’re, you know, constantly dipping into your own savings because of this passion that you have for music. And you know, no matter whether you want to be a professional musician or not, it would be good to be able to pay for this wonderful, you know, passion that you have for music to help bring some money in to offset that. And it’s also great to be able to have a fans that you love your music and you’re getting that, you know, appreciation from them. And a lot of these people were just operating in a vacuum, like they were getting their creativity out, but then nobody was hearing it.

Melissa Guller: Speaking of nobody hearing it, I’ve heard you reference something a couple of times that I know I associate with businesses but not musicians. And that’s an email list. So how did you get the idea to start up an email list and what did that look like in your early days?

Bree Noble: Well, it started basically with my am being a musician. I started my email list right away once I really got into this mindset of running it like a business. And I think it was just from knowing that email is important and just learning that as uh, you know, working for a corporation and knowing that we had a list of people that we sold, you know, tickets to every year for the opera. And, and you know, back then it was probably like a physical mailing list where we mailed out letters. And so I knew that was important. And then when I started the Women of Substance, I had seen what it had done to have my own email list as a musician and how I was getting like these bookings that came because people were on my email list or I was top of mind because they were reading my newsletter. And so that’s just what made me think, Oh, I need to start this email list for Women of Substance because that’s going to help us grow.

Melissa Guller: Mm. And so then I assume you emailed out maybe new episodes or what else did you use that email is for to communicate about?

Bree Noble: I would, you know, let them know when we were doing special series and it takes submissions of music for different, you know, if we’re doing a holiday series or you know, upcoming right now we have one called music with a conscience, which is about social justice music. And so I’m able to let all of them know, Hey, we’re taking submissions for this, we’re doing this special show. And also I’ve let them know, you know, obviously when, when shows were happening. And then I started kind of letting them know about different tools and, and things that I thought would be helpful for them. And it kind of turned into like this weekly newsletter and it evolved over time.

Melissa Guller: Yeah, I’m sure that makes a ton of sense. That as you learn more about what they wanted and what they were responding to, you could evolve. And in your case in particular, not only did you get to provide them with value, like the tools or the content that you are producing, but as you said, they can also submit their own music. So there’s this wonderful almost mutual relationship that you’re building where they get to hear from you and you get to hear from them as well.

Bree Noble: Yeah, absolutely. And I really believe that I’ve built a community. There are people that have been on my list and I’ve been playing their music since 2007 so I’ve seen them through multiple albums and just seeing, you know, the way that their music and their style and all that has evolved. It’s been exciting to just kind of be along for the ride as their, you know, during metamorphosis as an artist. That is really exciting. And I think in the days of internet, whether it’s newsletters or online courses or selling services, sometimes it’s hard to know the individuals who you’re talking to, but it’s so cool to hear you talk about the musicians that you’ve seen grow over time and I love you said community that really feels like all you’ve done is you’ve built a list of very involved and active community members. Yeah, definitely. I mean I know so many of them by name and obviously now as I’m working with them as students in my courses, I definitely know them even better, but before that there was a lot of people that, because I play their music, you know, I know them by name, I know how they sound, I know the quality of their music and it’s just great to then be able to like communicate with them on social media and really know a lot about them.

Bree Noble: What’s cool too is you mentioned, we talked about, you know, they’re waiting around for a label. Well, in the meantime, finally somebody hears them like you may have been the first person to actually pick up. I imagine some of these songs, and I can only imagine how good that must’ve felt for some of these female artists to finally say, you know, there’s my song. Yeah. Oh, I mean, I’ve gotten so many notes that are like, you’re the first person that took a chance on me. Or I remember the first time that I heard my song on your station and how excited I was, and you know, now it’s three years later and I just did a crowd funding campaign and made $50,000. You know what I mean? Like it’s, it’s so cool to be part of the beginnings of some amazing things. Yeah. And I love pointing that out because you just decided, like you said, to do this passion project.

Bree Noble: It was something you felt strongly about. You got it up and running, and now you’re truly making an impact on these other women’s lives. And I think a lot of us may not realize that it could be as simple as starting a project to amplify it, somebody else’s voice. And it could do really huge things for everyone. Yeah. I mean, this was not about me at all. Like I just wanted to, I just love great music by female artists and I just really wanted to shine a light on that. And another thing about how it happened is that it was very much a hobby and a passion project at first. And you know, I had a baby in 2008 so, and I was still touring and all that, so it was very much on the side. But as things progressed and I ended up not working at the opera anymore and I stopped touring as much because I had a baby, I started putting more time into this passion project and over time, you know, we became a commercial station and you know, then we moved to a bigger platform and all this stuff and it grew.

Melissa Guller: And so, you know the thing right now that’s just like this fun passion project you’re doing, whether it’s a blog or a podcast or you know, something like that, you never know where that’s going to go in the future. I think that’s great advice. And also it’s okay if it starts off as something that maybe feels like it’s just yours or just on the side. It doesn’t have to immediately go from zero to 60 and just blast off into being this huge thing. It’s probably not what happens to most people.

Bree Noble: Totally, totally. I mean if you look between 2000 end of 2007 is when I started Women of Substance and not until beginning or middle of 2015 is when I released my first course. So that’s a long time of building up to that. Right.

Melissa Guller: I imagine that’s probably reassuring for listeners to hear because I think it’s easy to look at people who are really in full blown production or full time mode and they have a fully developed website or business, but that’s not how they started. So if you are just getting started, know that it’s okay if you’re starting small or only putting in the hours that you can and if it’s something that’s not earning you money yet, you never know. Like you said, how things could evolve.

Bree Noble: Yeah, I mean, I would say Women of Substance didn’t earn me any money for five years. I did work out a way that it was always breaking even, you know? So as, as soon as I’d upgrade, I figured out, you know, this is, I cannot, I can offer advertising so that’s going to offset this cost, you know? So if you can make your passion project break even for the first several years, then you can look forward to building an even bigger and actually making some income from it.

Melissa Guller: Yeah, that’s great advice. Let’s talk about that moment. So you were breaking even, you started working towards when you started to, you know, really turn it into a business. So how did you start earning actual income

Bree Noble: from the Women of Substance? I started with ads and on the, on the radio station it was actual advertising that came in, you know, every three songs or something. And it was a lot of, just for the artists that we had, they wanted to advertise their new albums. And then, you know, once I moved over to the podcast in 2014 it was sponsorships and I would sell packages and I still do four, you know, five episodes or one episode or 10 episodes and they would get little 62nd commercial and they’d get a banner out on our website and all that stuff. And so that was the first way that I monetized when I was breaking even, I was just charging a little bit of money to cover my time for reviewing the people’s music that were submitting their music. And so that was how I basically paid to, to have the thing up and running.

Melissa Guller: Hmm. I mean that makes sense because it is exposure effectively that they would be getting if you chose the music. So it makes sense to charge for that. Right from there. I mean was that enough to be earning money or this is all still at the break even point?

Bree Noble: Once I was doing the ads, I mean just earning some money. Of course I was putting a lot of time in, you know, I was, I was devoting a lot of my time to running it. And it wasn’t until 20 when I decided to launch the Female Musician Academy that I started really making money where I could say, okay, this is now a career and not just the side project.

Melissa Guller: Where did you get the idea to start the Academy?

Bree Noble: Basically from the fact that I was getting all these questions and I knew that I had been where they are now. And so I started out by doing a podcast. I started my podcast in April, 2015 and it was called the Female Entrepreneur Musician. And you know, the whole premise was, Hey, you know, you musicians are entrepreneurs or you need to learn to become entrepreneurs if you want to have a sustainable career as a musician, whether it’s as a hobby artist or as a full time artist or part time. And so I started the podcast and a few months later I launched the Academy and it was all kind of this, just this progression of how can I help these people that I know need help? Cause I was one of them.

Melissa Guller: That’s so powerful to be able to create a course from knowledge that for you was so hard earned over you know, years. And then you notice people emailing you, you said about those different problems. And so those are really good. I think little like signposts that the knowledge that you have is something that people would be really happy to pay you for.

Bree Noble: Yeah, absolutely. And one thing that I did that I would recommend to anyone, I’m, if you’ve, if you’ve got a situation like I did where I had built up an audience, I had an email list and I had a social media fall in, I was able to basically create my course and sell it with nothing inside. So like a beta. I just set up a page on Teachable and called it the Female Musician Academy and you know, emailed my list and say said, Hey, this is what I’m doing. You know, I want to be able to help you be a better marketer and be a better business person and make more money from your music. And you know, if you join right now, there’s nothing in here yet, but I want to find out exactly what it is that you need, that you think that you need help with. And you know, I’ll be doing live calls as well. And because I built a relationship with them over all those years, the people that joined or you know, some of them, I’ve been playing their music for eight, nine years. So we had developed kind of a relationship.

Melissa Guller: So I just want to reiterate this because I think this is so incredible that you were able to do this. You were upfront, you said, I’m going to sell you this online course. There’s nothing in here yet, but if you join me, we will work together. You said you did live calls and that’s how the content was created?

Bree Noble: Yeah, I did a survey when they joined to find out what things they were having trouble with and then I did live calls like once a month at first [inaudible] and

Melissa Guller: roughly how many students did you have at this point? It started with 18 students. That’s a good size. That’s about a regular kind of classroom size worth of people.

Bree Noble: Yeah, it was good and I was able to do that just by emailing because I had developed a relationship with them. You know, if you don’t have a big email list, I don’t recommend just doing an email launch, but because I had developed a relationship with them over time, you know, and they felt like they knew me, it was much easier to explain to them what it was going to be and that you know, they were willing to trust me.

Melissa Guller: Yeah. That trust, I think that really gets to the heart of why a lot of us buy online courses. Sure, we might need to learn a skill, but I think ultimately we’re buying the knowledge from a specific person. Somebody that we know that we like, that we trust or that we’ve followed for some amount of time. I mean, especially today, I know there are so many email newsletters I’ve unsubscribed from because I don’t find them to be valuable anymore. So now I know if I’m letting somebody keep coming back into my inbox or if I keep listening to their podcast, it’s somebody who I really value and who I respect and I want to hear more from.

Bree Noble: Yeah, absolutely. And that was kind of my idea with the podcast to have, you know, anyone that maybe hadn’t been on my email list for so long, they would get a chance to know, you know, where I’m coming from and a little bit about my story and why I would be a good fit to help them.

Melissa Guller: [inaudible] what smart to about this approach, and I don’t think enough people talk about this, but the way that you build your content by doing that survey and then creating the content month after month that helped you, I’m sure, figure out what people actually wanted to learn instead of what you may have guessed that they could want to learn. Oh yeah, for sure.

Bree Noble: Because you know, we always think we know what they need and we may know what they need ultimately, but first we have to give them what they want in order to get them to what they need. So like, you know, they think they think their problem is this. We know it’s actually, you know, maybe it’s something a little bit different from that, but you need to help them with what their problem is, what they think it is in order for them to buy into, okay, now I’ll go a little step further with you and do this other thing, even though I don’t think I need it. You know what I mean?

Melissa Guller: [inaudible] I think I’ve often heard, I’m going to misquote this like classic sales story of people who have like a dusty floor and their vacuum doesn’t fix it and they keep saying things like, Oh, I need a better vacuum. But really what they need is to figure out how to get a cleaner floor so it might not be a vacuum at all. Right? And so as teachers and as creators, I think it’s on us to listen and hear. This is the problem that people are telling us that they have. And of course you want to address it, but they might be asking you for the wrong solution. Right?

Bree Noble: Right. Absolutely. I mean a lot of times it’s, you know, I need more money from my music, but what they really need, in my opinion, is more fans because fans create money and, but they’re not focusing. All they’re thinking about is I need more money. I need to make more income. I need to sell more, you know, online downloads. I need to make more from Spotify. I need to make more when I book myself. But that will all come if you build your fan base and really nurtured them.

Melissa Guller: [inaudible] I think this is probably true for use actions and really any creators, but if your focus is only on earning yourself an income, I’m guessing you won’t be as successful as you could be if you focused in set on how could I create something that other people enjoy or how could I serve others? How could I make great music? How could I appeal to my fans and keep them coming back for more? Or how could I release my art, my writing, my development, whatever it is into the world.

Bree Noble: Yeah, no, that’s absolutely true. And again, I’ll probably butcher the quote, but um, one of my favorite quotes is the, one of the Zig Ziglar said about, you know, if you help other people get what they want, you’ll get what you want.

Melissa Guller: [inaudible] I mean not even comes back to the way that you built Women of Substance, right? You were focusing on spotlighting other people. You weren’t doing it because you wanted people to know you know your name. Right. And it paid off because then that’s how trust is built. I think people see through people who just want to promote themselves. I think it becomes very easy and people can, people aren’t dumb, you know, they can see from a mile away.

Bree Noble: Yeah, no, there was this, there was this um, I marketing idea going around like when I started my station that people would say like, Oh, you know, musicians should start their own radio station and they put other people on there. But really the whole point of it is to put your own music on there and you know, alongside these other people and promote your own music. And I saw a few people trying that but it didn’t last because they didn’t have it in them. It was all about promoting their music and when it didn’t work right away they give up. Whereas for me, I really did want to promote other artist’s music. In fact, I really didn’t like putting my own on there. I did sometimes. But when your heart is really in helping other people, that’s when you can really grow

Melissa Guller: [inaudible] and if people can tell your heart is in the right place, when it does come time for you to promote something that’s yours, like your first online course, then I think people will be more inclined to join because they already know and like and trust you. Oh absolutely. So you had your first iteration, you had the 18 students, they went through, you did your live calls. How did things grow from there?

Bree Noble: You know, a multitude of ways of getting new students. I did everything from three part video series webinars, um, more email launches, challenges. Like I’ve done everything and it’s grown, you know, slowly over time. But it is, it’s now a membership. So I, you know, I’m able to combine a bunch of courses that I have into one. And I did create like a course that I sold called the Indian music profit plan that was outside of the Academy and it did well. But I’ve decided because what I love is community and I love helping artists along and watching them grow. I decided what I really loved was a membership, and so I took all the courses that I created over time and combined them into one membership called the Female Musician Academy, which was what it was originally. I just kind of morphed it into a membership and you know, I’ve just been mostly using webinars to get new members, and right now we have about 180 members, so

Melissa Guller: I know have 10 Xed our first launch. That’s such a great point about maybe the difference between having one online course or even having multiple online courses and then having a membership like yours where there are course elements, if I remember correctly. Right?

Bree Noble: Yes. My membership has courses inside of it. So I kind of take them through a path of what I think they should be doing and in what order and depending on where they are when they come in, I recommend certain things. So you know, if they’re like at what I call stage two, then I’ll be like, Oh, I really recommend you go through this house concerts course because I think that will really help expand, you know, your bookings right now based upon the stage you’re in. So it’s kind of like a hybrid of everybody’s doing the same things and everybody’s doing different things depending on what level they’re at right now. And based upon that level, I can recommend certain courses that are in the membership bundle.

Melissa Guller: That makes a ton of sense. It’s almost like you’ve created some content that is evergreen that can be used in different orders, but then because it’s a membership and you also have a direct relationship with these people, you can help them personalize it to wherever they are right now.

Bree Noble: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, that’s been a game changer I think as I’ve evolved is just trying to meet people where they are. Because with the membership, everybody comes in at a different place. And I think that’s true with online courses too. You know, some people come in and they have a certain base knowledge and some people are just totally green and they’re learning everything from scratch. And so, you know, we can, we can usually in courses we can handle that in maybe if we’re doing some accompanying live calls or if we’re, you know, we have a Facebook group or a community of some kind that goes along with it. We can try to meet them at where they’re at and suggest you know, what they should be doing inside the course if they already are at a certain level.

Melissa Guller: [inaudible] and you mentioned, uh, having a Facebook group as well. I’m sure that’s so valuable to hear what students are saying about the courses or what they’re finding really helpful maybe where they’re getting stuck. I mean that’s something that can really personal relationships in a back and forth in an online course, which is maybe a misconception people have. It’s not just put content in the world and let people go at it on their own.

Bree Noble: Yeah, it’s been really helpful for in so many ways. I mean, first of all, it gives a place, every Wednesday we have people talk about their wins and it gives people a place to be able to say, you know, Hey, I’ve made this progress and I’m excited about it. Or this thing happened and people are able to celebrate with each other and then, you know, be inspired by what the other people are doing to, you know, maybe they haven’t been inside the course for a while and, and they’ve gotten off track and they see somebody else do this, you know, talk about this when and they’re like, Oh my gosh, I need to get back in there. I want to, I want to have that win. And the other thing is that I find that no matter how clear you are on where things are and what people should do inside of a course, a lot of times people just don’t know like how to find things and what they should be doing next. And so a Facebook group allows people to ask those kinds of questions and a lot of times, you know, my community manager or even like other members can answer the questions. It doesn’t have to be me. You know, they’d be like, where do I find this? And someone else will say, Oh, it’s right here. And so just having that place where people can get reoriented I think is important. Even in, you know, on a, in a course that doesn’t even have like live calls or anything.

Melissa Guller: Yeah, that’s a great point. Even if it is just like you’re saying, a standard online course, having a place where people who have been through that experience can connect with each other. And it does still create a small community element. But I’m imagining a lot of the women who are in your Academy, maybe they don’t know a lot of other female musicians and their lives. And so I can only imagine that having a place like this where other people are going through the same struggles or have the same questions as them, it must be such a, a relief, an inspiration, like you said, holding people accountable in a way they couldn’t get depending on where they’re living in the world.

Bree Noble: Oh, it absolutely is. I think that’s the magic and that’s why I’ve kept it to females only because a lot of times females are operating in a vacuum, they’re isolated and they don’t see a lot of other people like them out there in the world doing what they want to do. And so it’s giving them that inspiration. And then also like on our live calls, or even on our Facebook group, we have something called true talk Tuesday. And I encourage people to come in and talk about what they’re struggling with and maybe some, you know, emotions or limiting beliefs. And I find, you know, there’s nothing like inherently about the other gender that causes this. But I think just having it limited to females allows people to be a lot more open and feel like it’s a safe place where they can share these kinds of things.

Bree Noble: And especially on our live calls, you know, had people like balling on live calls before because they did some, you know, they did something at a show and it didn’t work and you know, they were, they needed some co constellation and you know, have other people in the group say, Oh my gosh, I tried something like that and you know, it, I get it. Like it didn’t work like I wanted it to do but it’s okay cause then I did this and you know, it’s going to be okay. And that’s why I love having just females. So I know I’m like, like super niche. Like I’m niche upon niche, but I actually love it that way. You know, if I had been bigger, I might have like 600 members right now. But I just love the way that everybody supports each other in there. And that’s why I’ve kept it female only.

Melissa Guller: Yeah. Well I was going to ask about that actually. So you have chosen just to focus on females. I’m sure anybody else could focus on people by really any demographic, whether it’s their age, their profession, where they live in the world, their gender, there’s, there are so many ways. And have you ever been afraid that limiting to females has limited the growth of your business?

Bree Noble: Oh, I’m not going to lie. I’ve totally been afraid of that. But I’ve also constantly, you know, I’m evaluating it for me and like what makes me feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing in the world and I just feel like I’m supposed to be here to support females. And so no matter if you know, maybe I could be making more sales, but that wouldn’t matter to me because it would dilute the effect and the community that I’m creating.

Melissa Guller: It may also be true that people are joining because it’s only women. So who’s to say that you’re not making more sales because you’ve chosen this specific niche and that’s what somebody is looking for?

Bree Noble: Yeah, I mean I think that that’s definitely true. Um, that we are definitely making some sales because it’s specifically for women. I also think that, you know, I certainly could be out offering these courses separately to other demographics and you know, I may do that someday. I do have, you know, I do another thing I have for the past two years called the profitable musician summit and that is not limited to females. And so I am serving those demographics. But you know, for my main offering I’ve just felt really strongly that this is where I’m supposed to be. [inaudible]

Melissa Guller: I think that that gut feel is so important. And I know I asked kind of the leading question because I think this is something a lot of creators worry about is is this audience too small? Is this too niche? And I think what it comes down to as you feel that this is the right move for you and therefore it is the right move for you. And I love hearing how you’ve found maybe other projects, kind of related ways where if you wanted to expand the audience, maybe you could, maybe it makes sense to have a portfolio of different offerings. But also I would say like go with your gut. If you want to serve one audience, you will be able to find people.

Bree Noble: Yeah, and I mean there are certainly plenty of, there’s probably about 20% of my lists are male and I’m all, they’re always saying like, is it okay if I’m on your list? You know, so I definitely want to serve them and you know, one way that I serve them as I now have a book on Amazon. So that’s one way that they can get some of the information in the Academy in a different format where they, you know, it’s for them. Yeah,

Melissa Guller: true that there are men. I mean, yeah, I think a lot of the knowledge is so good that even if, let’s say you have an ideal customer in mind and you’re really talking to, for you specifically, that woman, your voice and your passion for what you do will still inspire other people and they will probably still buy from you as well.

Bree Noble: Yes. Yeah. You know, I definitely, I love being able to help them and some of these, these guys on my list are just amazing and so supportive and positive and all that stuff. So I’m definitely attracting the right people, whether they’re male or female. And you know, for that I just have several different like affiliate offerings that I can, other ways that I can help them that maybe aren’t my core offer, but you know, I can still give them something that I think is really gonna be helpful to them.

Melissa Guller: [inaudible] very cool. Well, I’m curious, are there any other maybe misconceptions people have about your work or even your business that we haven’t touched on yet?

Bree Noble: I don’t know. I think that

Bree Noble: when, when you run an online course or a community, a lot of times people think, I have to be doing all of this myself. And most of us are doing all of it ourselves in the beginning. But I think the thing that I see is that the reason people can’t grow is because they keep trying to do it all themselves. And the first thing that I did when I got those 18 beta members is I hired help. And I said, even if I don’t pay myself right now, I want to use this money to hire help because that’s the only way I’m going to be able to build out what I need to put in here so I can eventually charge more and more for it and get more and more students. And so I think in the beginning it’s really important to reinvest in your business, especially by, by getting help.

Bree Noble: Because if you start working, you know, 1214 hour days, you’re going to burn out before the time that you get to the place where you feel like you’ve succeeded. And I think for me it was always I believe in this thing and it may not be growing as fast as I want, but I believe that if I never give up, I’ll get to where I want to be. But if you burn out before that, you won’t make it. So I think that my biggest advice to people is when you first start get some help because you won’t make it to the finish line if you don’t have help. Yeah, no, that’s great advice. And I think really important to point out, I think especially in the world of online business, there are growing numbers of businesses that are represented by somebodies name and face the person who maybe started that business.

Bree Noble: But at this point, if they’ve been doing this for, you know, three, five or even 10 years, they almost definitely have a team behind them. They’re not just doing it alone. Yeah. And as you grow, I mean I have a community manager. I just recently hired a second coach for the Academy who specializes in a little bit of different areas than I do to make it more role. Well rounded. And to tick a few things off my plate, not feel like I’m always the one that’s supporting everybody and you know, just to, to make it feel like a, a really great offer that you’re getting these two coaches, you know, so I could never have done all of this myself for sure. And to your point, you did start off of course, you know, project of one and then it makes sense that as you’ve evolved, you’ve noticed those moments where it makes sense to bring in a little help here, bring in a second coach there.

Bree Noble: It’s probably something that happens gradually over time for most people. It is, it is. And it evolves. I mean, you know, when I was doing my podcast, I had a podcast editor, I had a VA that did a lot of stuff with my website. And then, you know, at one point I just decided I want to spend my time on something else. I’ve created a ton of content. And so I stopped doing my podcast and then at that point, you know, I no longer have an editor and I no longer have that VA. and then I’m putting my resources into something else. So it’s, it’s always an evolving process and I think the way that I’ve been able to do this for as long as I have is that I have been okay with pivoting sometimes and and changing things up and I’m one of those like steady Eddy kind of people that like I’m so much into consistency that sometimes I like beat it into the ground. And so I’ve learned over the time, over time that it doesn’t matter if you keep consistent, if your heart isn’t in it, you know, so you always have to reevaluate what you’re doing and if you have the right team for where you’re at at that moment. I think that’s really great advice. And also like you said in the phase where you had a podcast editor, a different VA, it’s okay that that

Melissa Guller: phase didn’t continue forever. Maybe it was serving you for the years that it was happening and then you found there was a natural pivot point and it’s okay to stop doing something.

Bree Noble: Yeah, it is. It isn’t. It’s okay to, you know, when you’re expanding and your brand is expanding, you don’t need to be the face of everything. I’m actually just now moving into someone on my team doing the announcing for the podcast, which I’ve, it’s always been me, right? So there’s always like this feeling in the back of my mind, like, you know, Women of Substance is me, how can I do this? You know, but it doesn’t have to be me. Why can’t she be the announcer for Women of Substance? It doesn’t say the Bree Noble show, you know, so built, build your brand such that you can start bringing people into different roles. So you don’t have to do all of it because as it grows, you can’t possibly do all of it. So if you don’t make it in such a way where you can slide people into those slots, you’re going to be in a world of hurt because you can’t, you know, there’s not enough hours in the day to do all of it yourself.

Melissa Guller: [inaudible] so, so smart. Well before we do go, I know we’ve started hinting at this, but what is up next for you?

Bree Noble: You know, I’m just excited about growing my Academy to be even bigger and better having added this new coach and bringing new members in all the time. I’m excited to see, you know, where we grow to. I’m for me, I’m wanting to get out there more as my kids have gotten older. The the one that was a baby when I started Women of Substances now 10. So I’m, I’m able to get out there more and be on more speak on more life stages, which I’m really excited about because I’m able to help a different segment of the market. I think some people just don’t hang out online, but you know, if I meet them in person then sometimes they come over to my online world and I may have never met them otherwise. So I’m just looking forward to kind of expanding the um, the reach of what I do even more.

Melissa Guller: [inaudible]. Well it sounds very exciting and if people do want to follow up or connect with you, where’s the best place for them to go?

Bree Noble: Definitely the best place to go is a femme musician.com that’s my main site. That’s F as in female. He is an entrepreneur, musician.com you can check out all of my podcasts episodes there and all the free resources and if you want to find out more about what we do in the Academy, you can go to musicians profit path.com that’s kind of my flow of the five stages of music career growth, so check that out@musiciansprofitpath.com

Melissa Guller: perfect. And we’ll put links to everything in the show notes as well in case people want to check them out later. Before we go, any final words of wisdom or inspiration for anybody listening today?

Bree Noble: I think, you know, for the people that are listening to this podcast, I just hope you, you, you take from my story that you can start with something that’s a passion project and you can grow it at your own pace and you never know well at where it will be 10 years from now. And maybe, you know, maybe for you it’ll be two, three years, five years. For me it was 10 years because that’s where I was, you know, with having young kids and I wasn’t pushing myself to grow it bigger and bigger, but just, you know, do something that you love, do it on the side and you never know where that will will, will it go. Because if it’s something that you love and you feel passionate about, likely there are other people out there that feel passionate about it too and want to learn more about it and can probably learn from you.

Melissa Guller: Great advice. Well, thank you so much again for joining us. It’s been such a pleasure getting to learn more about you and everything that your podcasting and music background and business have all come together to be.

Bree Noble: You are welcome and I have to say I am probably one of the Teachable OGs. I started my my course on Teachable in June, 2015 maybe it was may of 2015 I put up my sales page and I’ve just absolutely loved watching Teachable grow as well. I’ve kind of been growing alongside you guys.

Melissa Guller: Thanks so much for joining us this week. You can learn more about Bree, the Female Musician Academy and Teachable in the show notes at teachable.com/eit8. Before you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they’re released and if you’re enjoying the podcast, we hope you’ll leave us a five star review. On behalf of Team Teachable, we hope you enjoyed this episode about treating your music career like a business with Bree Noble. We’ll see you in the next episode of Everything is Teachable.