Transcript

[00:00:00] Aubrey Bergauer: Hey everyone. Welcome to season five, episode five of the Offstage Mic. We have such a great episode for you today if you understand and truly embrace what we are talking about today. Your arts organization will be forever changed. This is not hyperbole. The topic we are talking about today literally changed my career.

It changed how I think about audiences forevermore, and the results that came from that were just incredible. And the reason this is so important is because a really big misstep I see. A lot of orchestras, operas, theater companies, any kind of arts organization really make, and honestly, this is exactly the same mistake I used to make.

So no shame in the game, but the exact mistake I used to make when I learned the stuff we're talking about today, and then it changed everything. So that misstep or mistake is [00:01:00] understanding your core audience. We talk a lot about our core audience, but not understanding. The not core audience, everybody else, right?

In other words, arts administrators and arts organizations tend to understand when we say core, your major donors and or board members, for example, which makes complete sense because that is who you, me, we tend to talk to the most, like we know them because we have interactions with them. And what happens is that.

Then you have a pretty clear idea of that one segment of your audience. You know, this super engaged group of people. So this is not bad. This is good in fact. But the other side of that coin is that you definitely don't have that same level of understanding among the other groups of people or the other segments of the audience.

So here's why this [00:02:00] is such a problem and such a big misstep. Because those ultra engaged people that you tend to know the best are actually the smallest fraction of your total audience, the smallest fraction of your total patron base. If you don't believe me, look at your CRM. If you look at your CRM, you will see that at most arts organizations often around.

Eight or 9% of all accounts are actually in this quote unquote engaged category, meaning current donors and subscribers. I'm not even talking major donors. That percentage is way, way smaller. So if only around eight or 9% of your entire base, your entire CRM is actually engaged. For some organizations, that percentage is even smaller, by the way.

But let's try to give the benefit of the doubt here. If it's only eight or 9% in this engaged group, subscribers and donors, that means do the math. 91 or 92% is [00:03:00] in the not engaged. I. Group, the nut, core audience group, everyone else, that group is either a single ticket buyer, a first time buyer, or the most common by far is the totally inactive group, meaning they were once active, they once had some sort of transaction with the organization, ticket, subscription, donation, whatever, gala attendee, some transaction.

Now they are inactive. That's the vast majority.

Now, I know some of you are listening and saying, yeah, Aubrey, but that small group, that eight or 9%, or whatever number it is for your organization, that's small group is where most of the money comes from. I know that's not wrong. That is why we focus on those folks. So again, it's not bad, it's not wrong, but here's the thing.

If you are growing donations and your ticket sales are fine, then keep doing that strategy of only [00:04:00] focusing on or only worrying about your core audience. Like if it's working for you, no problem. But if you were at one of those arts organizations struggling to meet rising costs every year, having to raise more money from fewer people, struggling to balance the budget, if you're in that camp, which is most people listening, then you are missing a big opportunity.

So what does that missed opportunity look like? What do I mean when I say you don't understand the bulk of your audience? This 92% or whatever the number is? So this plays out in a few ways, like the website, for example, when the website isn't approachable for a newcomer, or even just somebody who's a newer attendee who's less familiar with the art form.

It's not approachable because it uses all kinds of vocabulary or musical jargon, or it's written where if you don't have an understanding of composer names or soloist names, even the biggest composer names and soloist names, you really don't know what the program is about. Or the program book is full [00:05:00] of unapproachable music history or music theory more so in the program notes.

Or switching gears to a museum. The object labels, those are the wall placards for the non-US Museum folks listening. The object labels talk about the medium and the brush stroke, like it's everyday language or for any artistic institution, no matter your discipline, when you write a donor solicitation and everyone gets the same ask no matter their donor history like we talked about on the first episode of this season.

So another way to say what I'm describing here is user experience. I. Poor user experience really are the examples I just gave. And the user in this case is your audience member, your customer, it's your new donor, it's your board member, it's your super engaged person. All of those are users, all of those are customers.

And this episode is focusing on that 92% of your users, the 92% of your audience that is not the core, not the ultra engaged [00:06:00] group. I know what some of you are thinking. Aubrey, Aubrey, Aubrey. If we use more familiar language on our website program book object labels, wherever, then we will alienate the core audience.

And I used to think that too. I used to be very afraid of this. So your fears are not unfounded. And then I learned the largest part of the audience base is not the core. It's the new people learning. This was a game changer for my entire career because designing for the 8% or whatever that number is for your organization, by designing for that group, you are actually alienating everyone else and everyone else is by far.

The vast majority of our audience, and that's a big reason why we're seeing declines, why we're seeing that inactive number of our database so exceptionally high. So here's another one. Some of you might be thinking this one is either, it [00:07:00] could be unconsciously or subconsciously. Some people think.

Reputation is more important than relevance. Okay, so let me say that again. Reputation of the institution is more important than relevance today. Relevance to the customer. To the user. Like I said, I don't know that a lot of arts administrators, arts managers say that out loud, but that's what it means when you use all those vocabulary words or depend on the soloist reputation or blockbuster programming to sell tickets.

That's what it means when you tell people to donate to keep the art alive or. To keep the organization going. This very like organization centric language. All of that is based on reputation. Now, don't get me wrong, both reputation and relevance are important. So I am not saying your reputation isn't important.

I'm not saying the foundation you have built for your institution is not important to the work you've done over decades and decades. And for some organizations, hundreds of years is not important. That's not what I'm saying. So don't hear that. What I'm saying is that reputation isn't [00:08:00] something you simply have.

It is something you earn by being relevant. So these are not two separate things. These are two very intertwined things. So do you understand the difference for a long time reputation worked for orchestras, opera companies, theaters, museums, all kinds of other brands too, not just the arts. And today leaning on reputation alone of fill in the blank institution, artist, conductor, soloist, composer, any of that.

It isn't enough because reputation isn't something that's fixed. Reputation isn't immutable. Reputation is actually the sum of all of your past relevant actions. Like I said, these two things are very intertwined, so if you continue to focus. More on reputation than relevance. You could end up an organization that was once [00:09:00] long, respected and well respected, but no longer in existence.

This happens. Think of brands like. Kodak, Sears, Blackberry, those are organizations that absolutely leaned on their own reputation over prioritizing relevance. And then we know the story. The world passed them by, they weren't relevant anymore, and then they go the way of the Dodo. So. We should not be ignorant to think that that cannot happen to us.

And in fact, of course, to some arts organizations who've closed their doors, that's already happened. So the question is not will we alienate our core audience, or the question isn't even. What will our core audience think? The question is, how many additional loyal patrons and supporters are we going to gain when we are relevant and accessible in 2025?

That question gets me super excited. I hope it does for you too. So the choice is yours, and that is what we are talking about in this episode today. The choice is rely on a shrinking donor [00:10:00] base and a reputation that is not guaranteed another day. Or look at the huge untapped potential of the bulk of your audience.

We are gonna get into exactly how to do that, and I have an awesome guest here to help me do it. Welcome to season five, episode five. Let's hit it.

I am Aubrey Auer, and welcome to my podcast. I'm known in the arts world for being customer centric, data obsessed, and for growing revenue. The arts are my vehicle to make the change I wanna see in this world, like creating places of belonging, pursuing gender and racial equality. Developing high performing teams and leaders and leveraging technology to elevate our work.

I've been called the Steve Jobs of classical music and the Sheryl Sandberg of the Symphony. I've held offstage roles managing millions of [00:11:00] dollars in revenue at major institutions. Been chief executive of an orchestra where we doubled the size of the audience in nearly quadrupled the donor base, and now I'm here to help you achieve that same kind of success.

In this podcast, we are sorting through data and research inside and outside the art. Applying those findings to our work in arts management and bringing in some extra voices along the way. All to build the vibrant future we know is possible for our institutions and for ourselves as offstage administrators and leaders.

You are listening to the Offstage Mic.

Hi everyone. Aubrey here. I wanna share a quick case study with you. About a year ago, Austin Chamber Music Center knew they needed to work on identifying prospective donors and building relationships with the donors They already had. Plus they went through a leadership transition and knew they needed to fundraise more and fast.

[00:12:00] They came to annual fund toolkit who did a comprehensive analysis of their donor base, then developed a system for the organization to connect with those donors based on their needs and giving styles. They did all of this combining in-person asks with email, social media, and direct mail. By the end of the fiscal year, their year to date, fundraising had doubled compared to the year prior.

And that's just the numbers. They now also have a streamlined process for tracking and maintaining donor relationships going forward. How did they do all this? They did it with annual fund toolkit. Annual fund toolkit is not just another consulting firm. What sets them apart is their laser focus on two critical challenges, improving donor retention and growing the major gifts pipeline.

This can be your organization too, because this is what annual Fund toolkit does every day. Their founder, Louis Diaz, is one of the most brilliant minds in fundraising I've ever met. The organizations that utilize annual fund toolkit's, advice and assistance are coming out ahead. To read the full [00:13:00] case study, head over to get dot annual fund toolkit.com/acmc.

That's GET dot annual fund toolkit.com/acmc For Austin Chamber Music Center. Trust me, your donors and your mission will. Thank you.

My guest today is Linda Hsieh Logston. I invited Linda on because she has built a unique career at the intersection of performing arts and technology. She was born in Taiwan and classically trained in music. She then moved to New York at age 23 to study music business at NYUI. Diving headfirst into the world of artist management.

She then worked with renowned agencies like IMG artists, Primo Artists, and Park Avenue artists there representing world class talent. These are some of the biggest names in classical music. So many of you listening know these names she worked with and [00:14:00] later her work expanded into the Asian market to bring these international artists to new audiences there.

Then when the pandemic disrupted the entire performing arts industry. Linda really embraced the change, recognizing the power of technology in the arts. She pivoted to tech in 2022 as a UX or UI designer, and that means user experience and user interface. In other words, how a user interacts with the product.

And this is the part I cannot get enough of. Linda has been bringing that work back to classical music and bringing fresh perspectives to the arts industry whenever she can. She did a session on this topic of user experience in the changing the narrative community about a year, maybe even a year and a half ago at this point, and when we were putting together this season of the podcast, I have to say I knew I wanted to bring Linda on to share as much knowledge and expertise as we can pack into this episode as possible.

And just to share or tease what she's working on now, [00:15:00] Linda is really marrying her work in tech with classical music even more, and she is working on what she describes as Artist First software to empower artists and arts organizations to work more efficiently and effectively. Anyone who has worked on booking artists knows this could be so helpful to the whole process because it's a process that can often be quite manual or cumbersome at times.

So I'm ready for it. And when she is not doing all of that, she's learning jazz piano too. Linda, I am so excited to have you here. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I wanna start by asking. How do you define UX design? Like, let's start at the very beginning. How do you define it? 

[00:15:41] Linda Hsieh Logston: Yeah. Um, well, before I talk about UX design, I'd like to talk about what is design.

I think design is a little bit more of a, you know, familiar term for everybody. And I. I'm sure like, you know, you can look around your room, your lights, the chair, you're sitting like, let's talk about your chair. Right? Like [00:16:00] whoever's designing your chair, what kind of questions do they ask? Like, where is this chair being used at the dining table, at the computer?

I. Or outside in the patio because if they didn't ask these questions, they might use a fabric that's only okay for inside and use it outside. And you know, the users will get real upset if they get wet. Right. Um, so asking questions of like, who's gonna use this product and how can I solve their problem when I'm designing an.

A product, a process, an experience is a must. So I think that's the gist of, uh, designing anything. So UX design, UX is a, a abbreviation for user experience. So as you can. Tell from the name of it, right? Like we very much take what user are experiencing into our design process. So, um, you know, we don't just [00:17:00] design inside our room and then make a whole lot of assumptions of like.

This is what they want or this is what I think that they want. We are very much aware that we are just one data point and even our spouse or our friends or just two, three other data points, we want to make sure that we have enough information to inform us that what we're designing is what people are actually using.

And then, so there is a process of user experience design and we call that design thinking. So in short, it's a process that we incorporate. 

[00:17:34] Aubrey Bergauer: Okay. I just have to underscore some things you said already because I love what you were saying about, it's like eliciting problems that the user might have and then coming at how do we solve those problems?

That feels so just helpful to hear in terms of this work. And then the other thing you said that I thought was so great in applicable immediately is not. As the designer, the user experience researcher, you are not deciding for the customer, for the [00:18:00] user what they want already. I'm like, oh, that applies to classical music.

So much. So, okay, go back to the process design thinking. Walk us through that. Define it. What is the process? Explain or give us an example if you would. 

[00:18:13] Linda Hsieh Logston: Yeah. Um, design thinking is a pretty popular term in the tech industry. It just involves five different steps. Empathy, define, ideate, prototype, and test.

So I'll dive into each step a little bit more so you understand. So, empathize is, uh, basically user research. You talk to the people who uses your product or who comes to your venue, you talk to them. Understand their journey. How did they get there? You know, start with. Maybe how do they even think about to want to go to an event or want to spend some time with somebody, right?

Because a lot of the time, their experience don't start with your product. They start somewhere else, and then you wanna know where they start. [00:19:00] So maybe that's your future digital marketing strategy, right? So yeah, first step, you understand where they're coming from, what they're ex. Experiencing what's good, what's bad.

Second step is define. So define just means that taking all of what they say. And usually we take a sample size of like 10 people. I think 10 people is a starting number to make information legit, so it's not biased in any way. 

[00:19:29] Aubrey Bergauer: That's helpful. I just wanna interject real fast and say, I think a lot of folks think if we're doing this, this work, this research, we've gotta interview like.

A bazillion people or send out a survey to our whole database and you're like, no, no, no, no, no. Like 10 people is all you really need. So that's hugely helpful. So I just wanted to underscore that. Please continue. 

[00:19:46] Linda Hsieh Logston: Yeah, yeah, of course. If you could get more, get more. But none of us have that much time and resources.

Right? 10 is a good starting place to be. So second step is definition. So define. Basically you take all the bad [00:20:00] experiences that they're talking about, and then you define what problem you wanna solve. You know that there's a problem, that's why you're doing this. So now you're just defining exactly what is that problem.

Make sure that you're not making assumptions. Make sure that you're asking the right. Questions in the first step so you could dive into what people are really experiencing so that you can have a good quality of data points here, and then to help you define the right problem. Third step is ideate.

Ideate is just, um, you take the problem that you wanna solve. And you come up with ideas that to solve them, and there's a lot of ideation exercises, um, that you could just Google and see them. Um, some of the ones that I really like is crazy. Eight Bad Idea Ideation. The idea is just to get your brain juice going and then just spit out a lot of, um, different ideas, and then take the ones that are most, you know, relevant [00:21:00] and actionable, and then start trying it.

So. The next step prototype is to take whatever ideas you came up with and want to invest some resources into, and then you start prototyping it. It's very important to make it really the leanest solution possible. So for example, um, we will talk about like minimal viable products. That's where this comes in, um, when you are trying to redesign your newsletter, right?

You don't need to overhaul the whole thing. Just start with the smallest tweaks, smallest things that you could, you could change, and then. You are hoping to see the most impact. You could just start from there and then see how, uh, it pans out, which takes us to the next. And the last step, which is test.

Test, is just put it out in front of people to see how people react to it, and then take notes, uh, to see if your assumptions are [00:22:00] correct or your hypothesis are correct. If they're reacting, great. Awesome. You made a great guest of what people will like and don't like, and if they don't react right, also awesome because you didn't put in too much resources, so it's very easy for you to iterate.

So in designing a experience iteration is very important, and the idea of taking everything as experiment is also a very key element to help you kickstart on any design projects. 

[00:22:32] Aubrey Bergauer: Okay, everybody, Linda is giving you permission to not have to be a hundred percent perfect on everything you try. Is that like accurate that I'm saying that?

[00:22:41] Linda Hsieh Logston: Oh, 

for 

sure. And you know, like any tech companies out there, Google the Facebook, I. They all test out things. That's why you see beta versions of things. They want early feedbacks. It's because that there are in the company that the team that's working on this product, they already made [00:23:00] up some hypothesis and they want to see how people react to it.

And they will not put in a lot of resources unless they see that people are reacting to it Well, 

[00:23:10] Aubrey Bergauer: okay. I love this because I hear so much. Anytime I have conversations, pretty much anytime I have conversations with arts organizations about testing something, whether it's in this world of like UX research and UX design, or just another conversation altogether, and I'm like, let's test it.

Usually the pushback is, but then we gotta build this whole thing and we have to, you know, make it perfect. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. MVP, like you said, minimum viable product. And I think that is so counterintuitive for so many arts administrators, and I think it's because, tell me what you think about this.

Our whole lives as musicians, we're trained to, what we put on stage is to be as perfect as possible. That's a performance. So then we think on the administrative side, it has to match that. But the truth is. Musicians rehearse and I, I feel like the analogy is [00:24:00] that a lot of this UX iteration and testing is in many ways the equivalent of rehearsing.

I dunno, that's my latest kind of like connection on all this. 

[00:24:09] Linda Hsieh Logston: I love the connection you make. I think it's very much like rehearsal or, or even like open rehearsal. Oh yes. Open rehearsal. Yeah. Yeah. Because you put what you have in front of people like comedy, like. People who talks stand up, they have to try out their jokes to see if it works.

And if it doesn't work, they have to think about why it doesn't work or if they should just drop it or if it's the wrong audience. And this is where you could really get creative. And to me, this is the fun part. 

[00:24:39] Aubrey Bergauer: So then where or when does leadership come into this? Like if somebody's hearing all this and they're like, I wanna start this at my organization.

When do you suggest going up the chain and getting buy-in from above? 

[00:24:50] Linda Hsieh Logston: Yeah. Um, so of the five steps, I mean, they could join as early as possible. Like we all say, like you need to communicate with [00:25:00] your leadership as early as possible so they can voice their opinions. Um, as you're going through this, but I would say like for an organization that doesn't already have this, um, mindset built in user research to identify what the problems are.

And then once you have the problem, pretty much nailed down, go to your leadership. And then present a few ideas that, uh, you come up with. And then they're, they're gonna ask, how much is this gonna cost? How long is this gonna take? Right? So this is when you come in with your, uh, MVP, you can say, this is not gonna take too much.

We're just gonna try it out for two weeks, put it out in front of people and then we're gonna see how the data reacts. I would say like once you come up with all of these things, go to your leadership and present to them, because it's very hard for them to say no. If you know we have a problem, we have a solution and it doesn't take too much to solve, sure.

Let's [00:26:00] try it. Right. 

[00:26:00] Aubrey Bergauer: That's great advice. Okay, so. I wanna give a real world example of how this plays out. What example can we give on this? 

[00:26:08] Linda Hsieh Logston: Yeah. Um, this actually recently happened to me, so, but it, it kind of requires a role play. So would you role play with me? Tell me what to do. Let's do it. Okay. I'm gonna send you a script.

And just a little context, I got this call, so it's a phone conversation. This happened to me in real life. It's, uh, from a performing arts center. I'm not going to name the name, but, um. Yeah, I got this call a few weeks ago and then they're trying to have me donate. I wrote down our conversation, so a lot of these are really word by word.

Would you like to do it with me? 

[00:26:48] Aubrey Bergauer: So I'm the role of the tele fund. Sure. Okay. Uh, hi, uh, this is Aubrey from, uh, the Performing Arts Center, and I'm calling for Linda. Has [00:27:00] has hase. Uh, it's 

[00:27:01] Linda Hsieh Logston: she, this is she. Oh, great. Is this a good time to talk? Um, sure. I can talk for a few minutes, but I'm at work actually. 

[00:27:10] Aubrey Bergauer: Oh, okay.

Great. Well, first I just wanna thank you for your support for, um, supporting the performing arts center back in 2018 that really helped us expand our program. For the children and our program for the children is so awesome because we serve thousands of children every year in all of the schools, and we bring them to our performances and it's really wonderful.

So would you like to make another donation to continue your support for our program as a donor? You can join us at rehearsals. You can come to the wine receptions that we always have. Yeah. 

[00:27:45] Linda Hsieh Logston: Oh, that sounds great. But I moved outta New York about. Six years ago. I live in California now. Oh, 

[00:27:52] Aubrey Bergauer: uh, I see. Well, um, do you still wanna donate the same amount to support the program of helping more than 500 children [00:28:00] access music education?

[00:28:01] Linda Hsieh Logston: I really need to know, like, you know, since I donated. Until now. What's changed? So is there a better way or like a website that I could look into what this program is and you know what impact I have made? 

[00:28:17] Aubrey Bergauer: Yes. We have some information on our website. You can definitely go look it up. 

[00:28:21] Linda Hsieh Logston: Great. Then I prefer to look that up myself before I.

Decide whether I wanna continue the donation. 

[00:28:27] Aubrey Bergauer: Okay. Then um, is there a time I can call you back to check in and help you make the donation? Uh, sure. What about, uh, Friday at 9:00 AM before I start work. That's perfect. That will be my Friday at noon, so I will call you then. Thanks Linda. Bye Bye. Also, I just wanna say the script literally told me to butcher her last name 'cause that's what the caller in real life did.

So Linda told me to do it. 

[00:28:50] Linda Hsieh Logston: I did have a very hard to pronounce last name, so not your fault. Okay. Tell 

[00:28:55] Aubrey Bergauer: me what is going through your head. Say more? 

[00:28:57] Linda Hsieh Logston: Yeah, so, um, first [00:29:00] I think they caught me at a bad time, but I. I am a person who loves arts and really wanna help arts. So in a way, I'm a great candidate to be a donor, so I gave them my time.

The fact that they told me, Hey, this is the program. We help thousands of children, and can you give us more money? Right? In a way, I think that's not very nice. My hard earned money, and even though that I wanna make an impact. I wanna know how I'm making an an impact, what impact I've already made, and how are you planning to use my money?

Right? I want to know all of these things before I give out. I. My money. So for these tele funders to kind of just like, this is our program, this is our, our cost, give us your money. I don't think that's very considerate. And the fact that I asked for more information and I want to digest them on my own term, I am assuming that there's a place with a [00:30:00] very complete or comprehensive information about.

What this program is about, and I went onto the website. I don't see it. I don't see how things are progressing. I don't see who's being helped. I just get a very generalized, Hey, we're helping children. Right? And I think there's a lot of, uh, crowdfunding platforms or doing a lot better work. Than this. Like they're showing you how much money we raised who is donating so you could see other people who's also helping the cause, and then what's being changed, like those things are communicated through a screen or or a PDF file or anything like that.

But this organization did not show me any of that. I just feel like this experience could be a lot better. And for somebody like me who cares a about the arts a lot and who's willing to donate money, they did not get my money, which is a pity.

[00:30:59] Aubrey Bergauer: [00:31:00] Alright, now we're gonna take a quick break up next, Linda will walk us through applying the five steps of UX design to make this fundraising call more effective.

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So then the goal of the organization. And I agree with this is still eventually to get the person to donate, right? Like we need that, that's so critical to our mission. So then, given that that's still the goal, what do you recommend? Like, can we take this example and can we go through the five steps like you lead through?

Like what would it look like to. UX research or UX design? This? 

[00:33:43] Linda Hsieh Logston: Yeah, sure. If we're going through the UX design, we are looking at this experience as, uh, more holistically. So it might change more than just the call, but yeah, we could go through it. First step is empathize, [00:34:00] right? So, well, we're making these calls and we're not getting donation, so what's wrong there?

Right? This is probably where, we'll we're gonna start. What I'll do is I'll probably call up 10 people perhaps, and then made it very clear that, hey, we are doing like a donor, uh, profile research, something like that to let them know we're not trying to get you. Uh, to donate, but we're just trying to understand more.

Right? And then. In this, uh, research call, it could probably go from what do you do? What's your age, how many concerts do you go to and do you donate? And then a very important questions in there is like, why do you donate? And you can start with like, when's the last time you donate? What costs did you donate to?

And what made you want to donate. From there, you can start to understand why people donate and what information is important to them in order for them to give their money away. So the next time when [00:35:00] you're planning. Information to share with your donors. You know, what's important to them and you know what to share with them, right?

And then you know it's gonna be effective because they told you that's what they needed. This stuff is all about collecting information from your donors. Ask some open-ended questions that's not necessarily related to your, your own organization, but just like. Try to come from a perspective of understanding who they are, what they do, and what makes them want to support a cause.

Second step is define. So define is when you take all the notes that you got from your calls and then put them into sticky notes. So basically a process from pages and pages of missing notes and turn them into sticky notes. This is something you can work with and from the sticky notes, you want to start grouping them into similar themes.

So like say all of these people said that they [00:36:00] didn't have enough information for them to donate again, then you want to group all of these together and give them a theme after this exercise. You'll end up with a wall of different problem statements per se. You'll see like, oh, they don't like this, so they didn't donate or they didn't see this, so they didn't donate.

So you'll have a whole list of these things.

The third step iste, I would say between define and ideate. You'll need to choose which problem you want to ideate first. How do you choose, um, which one to work on first is by choosing the one problem that you see. If we solve this one will have, will make the most impact. So there's a few different ways you could do this, but the easiest one is if we solve this one, we could get more money.

Right? So you [00:37:00] choose the problem that's. Has the most direct relationship to how much money you're gonna get. So choose that problem, and then you go into ideation. Ideation. You can choose two to three different exercises. And in this example, you probably get like every time the telephone calls me, it's at a bad time.

I would rather schedule a time where I could. Actually talk to them and understand better so I can donate with more intention. Right? Maybe this is what you get from a lot of the people you interviewed in order to solve this problem. You can probably, I. Come up with different ideas as if like maybe, we'll, the first call is scheduling a time to talk to them, or we can do a different type of solicitating, like maybe use a calendar invite.

There's a lot of different ideas. Like I said, [00:38:00] bad ideas are ideas. It's good to get the bad ideas out there, so you know that this idea. We've thought about it and we know it's bad, so let's not pursue it anymore, right? Um, so this is what I like about ideating is just to get your brain juice out there. No idea is bad idea.

Now that we have ideated, we can start prototyping. So prototyping. It could be just a script, improved list of questions and then support them on why you're asking these questions. So in my example, it could be, first explain a cause. My venue is raising money to, uh, support children to learn music. And this mission is very important because in our town, um, it's very hard to access early education and music.

And looking at your profession, an art administrator, [00:39:00] I'm assuming that you know, some music, like when do you start learning music? Is it earlier in your life or later in your life? And say, if this person learned music earlier in their life, I can say, yeah. So you see the importance of having access to music or art early in their life.

Life and then how it's gonna make an impact in their life. Right? The next thing on my script, I will probably ask them like, how is our cause resonating with your own experience and can we count on you on supporting us? Monetarily or not monetarily, right? And then they'll probably tell you their life story making connection with you.

And then once they share their experience with you, you could use that tidbit and say like, Hey, so I see why this thing is important to you and this is how we're gonna make a difference. By using your money. And then so you know that you're talking to their mind space and then you're talking to what they're caring about.

And I'll quantify [00:40:00] what certain amount of money can buy. So can you donate $100? This is about two lessons for a student. So two lessons we could already get them started and get even, get them interested and that's very important to a start of a musical journey. I. Sort of give this script a little bit more thought, a little bit more of a empathy to who you're talking to is gonna make a lot of difference.

[00:40:26] Aubrey Bergauer: Mm-hmm. Well, then I have to finish this with an arts organization. Was hearing something like this and thinking, oh yeah, we could do a version of this with our tele funding scripts. The the, the MVP version of this would be what, like make your next five calls using this process maybe and this like building connection type script and just see.

Do people stay on the phone longer? Do people end up obviously donating at a higher percentage like that? Right. Am I getting this right? Like that's how you test it? Okay, great. Of our very small sample size, we're seeing indication that it's working. Okay. Let's try a slightly bigger sample [00:41:00] size, right? Is that.

What you would recommend. 

[00:41:02] Linda Hsieh Logston: Exactly. So you would go and define your measure of success. What, how do you see success in this script? More people donated. More people wanna talk to you on the phone for a longer time. More people ask questions, you know, they're more engaged in your cause. Um, then all of these things could be an indication that this script is working better than what you had before.

[00:41:25] Aubrey Bergauer: Thank you for doing that. That was super fun. So a barrier I see is that arts organizations are afraid to stop what they are doing. They're afraid to change their phone call script, for example. They're afraid to write their website copy differently. They're afraid to take down the modal popup, asking people to join the email list.

You know, just afraid to stop, you know? Because what if we have something to lose, I guess is the thought. What's your response to that? How do you combat that? 

[00:41:51] Linda Hsieh Logston: I know it's, uh, hard to break out of habit, but yeah, I think it's a culture thing. If you're a leader in an organization and you [00:42:00] want your organization to improve, you gotta, you know, solve problems.

I. I think that the tech industry has, um, kind of nailed this process. Like a lot of the time the product has a user going on and then you're changing things in the meantime, right? What I've seen being practiced in my previous job is. We literally block out five days. So one week to do something we call a hackathon.

And a hackathon just means that you see a problem, you have an idea to solve the problem, then you use this five days to build out the prototype. Basically, I would be interested to see if an arts organization could sort of try this out. Um, from my experience, a lot of arts administrators, there's so many things to do.

Um, they see they're creative people, right? A lot of them has arts background, but they're [00:43:00] sort of, kind of in this grind of just like issuing contracts, making sure artist is here, and then making sure the refreshment is there. Like it's a lot of, um. Urgent but not so creative things, but incorporating a few days of like, Hey, what problem do you see?

How do you see it being solved? Let's potentially try it if the solution is, uh, doable. Right. I think this is something I'm interested to see if there's any arts organization could try and once there's a proposed. Solution you have to think about like you're gonna lose some, but you're gonna earn some With this new approach, you're gonna have some new learning.

Even though that you lose some donors, of course. Try the small donors, right? Like don't try it with the big donors. Like there's a lot of wisdom to that, right? I think by just being transparent with, we're trying to improve and then we're trying to get your involvement to help us. Become [00:44:00] a better venue or a better organization.

I think that says a lot to your, your patrons, right? Like they're gonna be amazed and they're gonna be like so willing to be involved in the betterment of this. Community who would want a better place? 

[00:44:17] Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah. Oh, I love that. It is like, this is the point. How do we generate more revenue to fund our art and our mission?

[00:44:23] Linda Hsieh Logston: Yeah, and it's, it's about like looking into the process of how you get money and how you're leaving money on the table. Right. If you see that you're leaving money on the table, why wouldn't you try to get that money? Exactly. 

[00:44:36] Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah. So, okay, for the person listening to this, who is interested in this work?

Definitely. Anybody who has read my Orchestra X research project, where do they begin? 

[00:44:46] Linda Hsieh Logston: I would just say like, start small. Um, if you see like something is a potentially a problem, I. Try to understand it, try to talk to people, like have conversation with [00:45:00] people, right? I'm a big fan of asking questions, asking the right questions.

You can just reveal so many different things. And I often see there's a barrier between arts administrators and the audience. Like there's a, an invisible wall in the middle of them. Um, but. Really just talk to them and then see what's making their experience good or bad. And there you can find some problems for you to start improving.

And I think because it's a, it's a very creative process actually. So yeah, start asking questions and don't feel like you need permission to do that. 'cause everybody has something to give in the arts. 

[00:45:45] Aubrey Bergauer: Okay, last question. I want you to dream a little. So you have worked. Both in classical music and in UX design.

What is your dream for applying UX design to an orchestra or to an arts [00:46:00] organization? 

[00:46:00] Linda Hsieh Logston: I love doing things like this, so, you know, I live in the Bay Area and there's a lot of startups here, incubators. My biggest dream is to put together something like a think tank or incubator to help people who wants to.

Create some kind of tools or software, hardware in the arts, performing arts space. I think that would be super cool. And I think this industry needs different ways to work more efficiently, informatively and needs ways to uplevel. I think a lot of people don't have the time or opportunity to do that.

That would be my biggest strength. 

[00:46:39] Aubrey Bergauer: Oh, I love it. As a fellow Bay Area person. That is such a Bay Area answer in the best way, though. I really like. Oh, I just love talking to you, Linda. Where can people find you online if they wanna connect with you? I'm on LinkedIn. Probably there. Alright. Linda, thank you so much for being here and just sharing your expertise and wisdom and just the way you connect both worlds, [00:47:00] UX design and classical music and performing arts in general is just.

I dunno, fills me up. Makes me excited. I could talk all day. So thank you so much. 

[00:47:09] Linda Hsieh Logston: Thank you Aubrey, and for everything that you do. 

[00:47:13] Aubrey Bergauer: Okay. Off stagers, speaking of user experience, growing your audience, expanding your donor base and opportunities before you to do that. I have one final free resource this season to give you, before I go quiet for a few months, I am hosting a free audience growth masterclass, where I will be sharing four steps to building your audiences and revenue.

I will be sharing the exact steps you can take, including this topic today on knowing your audience as clearly as I possibly can in order to give you the path forward to growing your revenue. Go to my website now, www.aubreyauer.com/masterclass to save your seat. It's literally free for everyone. So invite others at your organization who you want to hear the research and teaching on these topics too.[00:48:00] 

And I promise you it will be packed with value from the very beginning. It's my audience Growth Masterclass. It's totally free. Four steps to Building your Audiences and Revenue, and it's coming up very soon. Aubrey bergauer.com/masterclass.

That's all for today, folks. Thanks so much for listening. If you like what you heard here, hit that button to follow and subscribe to this podcast. And if you've learned something or gotten value from this, please take two seconds to leave a quick one tap rating or review in return to all of you. One more time.

Thanks again. See you next time on the Offstage Mic. The Offstage mic is produced by me, Aubrey Bergauer and Erin Allen. The show is edited by Novo Music, an audio production company of all women, audio engineers and musicians. Our theme music is by Alex Grohl. Additional podcast support this season comes from Kelle Stedman, other members of the changing the [00:49:00] narrative team and social media brand management, like classical content.

This is a production of changing the narrative.

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