TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Aubrey Bergauer: Hey, everyone. I am coming at you from San Francisco where I am back home after several weeks of travel. And I just have to say my heart is so full in the best way after seeing so many people at these various conferences over the past several weeks. So many people I haven't seen, I realized, in three years. And so many people also I had never met in person before.

[00:00:26] And a lot of you, I met for the first time. I'm so glad you came to say hello. It was more overwhelming in the best way than I ever expected to just see people see humans in the flesh. And it was also, I have to say. A real reminder for me of how much has transpired in the last three years.

[00:00:45] It was sort of, a moment frozen in time last time I saw so many of you all and then fast forward to recently, and for me, that was a really positive experience to have that moment so articulated for me in that way. Three years ago, I was wrapping up my time at the California Symphony, moving on, and then pandemic. And then now here we are and realizing, no, wow. We really have come so far - and during a period where time was, really bizarro for awhile. So, anyways, thank you for that is what I want to say. I'm just so grateful if I saw you spoke with you, gave you a hug, a high five, a handshake, whatever. Know, it really, it was special to me. So thank you.

[00:01:22] Now I'm gearing up for summer. I've got several projects with organizations wanting to get ready for the fall. So pretty excited about that and some fun vacations planned as well to rest and recharge. And right now, of course I am watching my golden state warriors and the NBA finals. And I want to know what Kevin Durant must be thinking right now. Is anybody else wondering this? You know, he's sitting at his home in New Jersey watching all of this.

[00:01:48] Anyways. For today's episode, I am answering the question so many of us are asking these days. Like, wow, this is probably probably the top question I get.

[00:01:59] It is all about audience declines. Will they won't they come back. So let's hit it. Thanks to our sponsor de script for making this podcast possible.

[00:02:11] Aubrey Bergauer: I'm Aubrey Bergauer, and welcome to my podcast. If we haven't met, 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 want to 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.

[00:02:33] In this show, I'm answering your questions on how to build the vibrant future we know is possible, both for our institutions and for ourselves as offstage administrators and leaders. To submit a question, send a voice recording to hello@aubreybergauer.com.

[00:02:49] Denise: This is Denise from central Washington state. My question is, is the slump in attendance at orchestra concerts a function of revving back up from the pandemic, or did the pandemic actually reveal the truth of a growing irrelevancy between orchestras as an art form and our audience? If so, what do you think our next steps should be?

[00:03:13] Aubrey Bergauer: Hey, Denise, this is the question on so many people's minds right now.

[00:03:18] So I want to start by talking about Scott Galloway. He is is a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business. I'm a big fan of his. And he's not the only one to say this, but in his book, Post Corona, he says that the pandemic accelerated trends that were already in existence by 10 years. So in other words, he says, take any point on the trendline pre- pandemic, 20 -18, 19, 2020. Fast forward 10 years. He says that trend now rests on the 20 31 point on the trend line in 2021, as he was writing that, I hope that makes sense. So let's think about that. If that were true, now that was his prediction. Like I said, he's putting a pretty fine point on it. And if that were true, what were the trends for arts organizations already in place? Well, we know, for one, there was a 2.8% decline each year in classical music attendance. That comes straight from the League of American Orchestras. That was a study they released, I think, in partnership with Oliver Wyman or from the Orchestra Facts report. Nonetheless they confirmed for the years, I think, maybe up through 20 14, 15, something like that. And it continued for several years, 2.8% a year decline in classical music attendance. Okay. We also know leading up to the pandemic the trend was that subscription sales were on the decline. We were seeing in many cases, an increase in Choose Your Own. So this is part of the solution. That trend can be part of the solution, but subscriptions, in terms of the traditional way they were sold for a classical series. So not countering with our pops or movie programs or things like that. But we know subscriptions were on the decline, and I think it was 2014 again that was the first year that revenue from single tickets nationwide surpassed revenue from subscription. So that tipping point had already come.

[00:05:20] So that was a trend in existence already. And we know as a third trend that to to counter all of this, organizations were raising their prices a lot. By a math equation alone that makes a lot of sense. We need to balance our budget. We have increasing expenses every year. Again, this is all leading up to the pandemic. So organizations were raising their prices a lot to counter these declines so that it wasn't hitting our bottom line as bad. Now this price increase was so dramatic though that over the 10 years leading up to the pandemic prices for orchestra tickets rose at twice the rate of the consumer price index. That is true for subscription. Single tickets, I think rose 50% over that time. All to say, prices increased a lot. So those are three trends already in existence, pre pandemic. And now, as we are seeing audience hesitancy to come back, it's possible that, yeah, that would rest on the 2031 point on the trend line.

[00:06:22] So I was very interested in this about a year ago, so much so that I did this exercise. I was using it in talks I was giving, some courses I was teaching in 2021, and I graphed this as an exercise. If I took whatever these trends were: decline of 2.8% a year, for example, and extrapolated that out. What would that look like if that trend had continued on? You know, 2014 through 2019, we knew that was happening. What if that had continued through 2021 and then 10 more years after that through 2031, what would that look like? And then I made a regression line to extrapolate that. I made a video of this, so I will include a link to the video in the show notes for anybody who wants the visual. But. The end result of that exercise, the projection then is that we would see a 42% decline in our audiences when we come back.

[00:07:15] And I say in the video, because then it was 2021 and it was when the vaccines had just begun to roll out and so we hadn't really opened our halls yet. And the way that we have in the latter half of 2021, and of course into 22, where we are now.

[00:07:30] And so I say, then, " will it be that bad? We don't know." "Will we see a sales spike due to pent up demand, perhaps I think so." At least at the time I thought so, but here we are now. And pretty consistently across the board organizations I'm working with are saying, yeah, we're at about 65 to 70% of pre pandemic levels. And sure enough, that's really pacing with that trend exercise. So, to answer your question, that the pandemic reveal the truth of what was already in place. Was it always this way? Always is a strong word, but were those trends already in place? Yes. Are we seeing that bear out now? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Now it's not all doom and gloom though. Because the second half of your question was very action oriented. What should our next steps be?

[00:08:24] Aubrey Bergauer: The good news is that consumer behavior is changeable. It is malleable. It is pliable or plastic. That comes from many behavioral researchers, but specifically, Philip Zimbardo. He is most famous for the Stanford prison experiment. If anybody's familiar with that. But he says human behavior is incredibly plastic.

[00:08:47] And we talk about brain plasticity sometimes in brain research. And what this means is that we can change behavior. This is good news for so many reasons for all of us. But it's also good news for organizations trying to figure out what do we do about getting our audiences back? So we have to know the trends and what consumers are responding to. We just looked at the trends and ticket sales and how that's playing out now, but what other trends are out there?

[00:09:13] That means trends and marketing. That means trends and how we present information and content online. Trends and what consumers are looking for for entertainment, and entertainment doesn't just mean going out to live performances. Right? We know that. So I want to talk through in my mind, the business plan.

[00:09:32] It's a five-part business plan. I wrote about this so I'll put that link in the show notes.

[00:09:38] Here's the business plan. This is what I would do if I was running an organization right now, this is based on the flywheel model. Flywheel has become a popular model in business, the sort of OG original gangster on this was Jim Collins. So for any Jim Collins fans, he, he was the first to coin the term flywheel as a business term. And the idea is that it is about building momentum over time, meaning this is not an overnight fix. And he writes about this in his book, Good to Great. This was a 2001 book, like I said, he was the O G on this, and in the 20 years since that book came out, It's been used in all industries, all sizes, for-profit nonprofit. He even wrote a sort of sequel followup about Good to Great in the Nonprofit Sector. So all this is to say, he wrote about the flywheel a long time ago now. This is not new, but still very relevant. His research to lay this out and where he came up with this is he researched all kinds of companies and looked at what were the companies that were outperforming their peers over time. What did they have in common?

[00:10:51] And it wasn't just like, you know, companies that had a couple of good years, it was like, you know, 10 years or more of pretty consistent growth, pretty consistent customer success, those kinds of things. And through that, he came up with this flywheel model. And the flywheel is about keeping our customers connected to us. It's about continuing that momentum over time. He says,

[00:11:16] In building a great company or social sector enterprise." I'm quoting Jim Collins right now from the book he says "there is no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary, lucky break. No miracle moment. Rather," he says, "the process resembles relentlessly pushing a giant heavy flywheel, turn upon turn building momentum until a point of breakthrough and beyond." And I think those words are not just wise, but so applicable to what we are doing right now.

[00:11:49] I know we are tired, but we do have work to do. And pushing a giant heavy flywheel is part of that work. People contact me all the time saying Aubrey, what's the one thing we can do? And the answer is there's not one thing. So there is good news and all of this, I'm going to lay out this five-part solution. But I just want to say upfront, we do have work to do as a sector and not all of our organizations. Now, a lot of this work is different work than our old work meaning we can say goodbye to some of that old work. That's a good thing. It doesn't all have to be new and additional. It can replace some of the old way of doing things.

[00:12:24] But it is, it's a fair body of work. I'm not going to lie about that. So here we go. Five-part flywheel to answer your question. What are the steps we should take the first. Patron experience. I've talked about this for years now, and it is still true today.

[00:12:38] Aubrey Bergauer: And we have to, have to. In order to take the steps we need going forward to get our audiences back to grow audiences beyond just replacing the old ones, we have got to center the experience of newcomers of all backgrounds.

[00:12:55] Now for so long, the question I got when I would talk about the Orchestra X research or centering newcomers, making sure the newcomer experience was welcoming, inclusive, unintimidating. The question I would always get is, "well, what are, what are the long-timers going to say?" Well, two things on that. One, now we're seeing some of those long-timers aren't coming back. So. If we've already lost them. Fine. Not a problem anymore. Weird kind of silver lining to all this. Two though, the ones that are back are incredibly sticky, incredibly loyal. Already, the data was showing -another pre pandemic trend- is that our longtime subscribers, those people who had been with us, you know, five years or more, especially those renewal rates were like 95%. So the ones that are coming back of the long-timers? They are so loyal, so sticky, even a pandemic can't keep them away. We're not going to lose them. So we just don't have to be worried about them. Feel liberated in that everybody, please. So newcomers, they matter; obviously we need new audiences. We will never fill the pipeline for repeat audiences, new subscribers and ultimately donors, if we do not focus on this group of newcomers. Okay. This means it starts on our website. So many people think, Aubrey, what do we need to program what's going on with our repertoire shore shore shore? There was a conversation absolutely. To be had about repertoire and representation and the full spectrum of talent available to ask. Yes. Yes, yes. A hundred percent. Also, they don't ever get to that until they visit our website. The first thing anybody does when they want to know more about our organization is Google us usually. That's the first step. So that means we have got to get our websites in order. Now we have a high price point. Price is not really, I said, prices have raised. That is true.

[00:14:38] I don't think price in itself is the barrier to attendance. So that's good news for us too. I'm not saying everybody has to go run and discount their prices. Instead, we need to make our website an experience that is on par with other experiences and products of that same price point.

[00:14:53] So it's gotta be slick. If we're at a smaller shop, use Squarespace templates or something. I mean, so many tools are available to us now in 2022 that were not available even just a few years ago. Having a good website, I think is the number one thing. It is inexcusable not to have a super slick experience.

[00:15:09] And that goes for mobile too. More and more times it's gotta be mobile first and that's not a new trend either. Okay.

[00:15:16] Why am I saying all of this?

[00:15:17] Aubrey Bergauer: Because customer ease is the number one predictor of customer behavior. That comes from many different sources. My favorite that I've been really excited by recently is from Zoe Chance. She's at the Yale School of Management, and she says from her research, the single best predictor of behavior is how easy it is. More than price she says, more than quality. I mean, God, she could be talking to arts organizations. More than our price, more than the quality of our product.

[00:15:48] Our product is exceptionally high quality. This is good. We're proud of that, but more than that, what matters? Is ease. She says it also matters more than comfort, desire or satisfaction. The easier something is to do. She says the more people are likely to do it, full stop. So when we fix the experience to make it easier for people to exhibit the behavior we want to see, meaning buy tickets, or arriving, feeling welcome, being able to find their seat, being unintimidated, understanding the words they see in the program book. When we make that easy to do, I guarantee you, we will start to see changes in our sales and in our audiences. Fix the experience.

[00:16:27] Part two of this five-part flywheel is retention. Another topic I had been focused on for many years now.

[00:16:33] Aubrey Bergauer: And the statistic I like to share on this is that a 2% increase in customer retention. Has the same result. As decreasing costs by 10%, that comes from nice set metrics. They do a lot of benchmarking for customer. Satisfaction customer happiness. If anybody's familiar with net promoter score, they do a lot of benchmarking for that. Anyways, across all industries, all brands, all sectors, they say a 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing costs. 10%. That's huge for us. If we can just get those newcomers to come back a second time.

[00:17:08] Those first year subscribers to renew. That's subscription. By 2%. It's the same as decreasing our expenses by 10%. So in a world where too many organizations try to cut. Cut. Cut. Cut. Cut. And we all know our budgets are so lean. There's nothing really there left to cut anymore. Just a 2% uptick in retention really can make a difference. Okay.

[00:17:28] So I've talked so much about retention before I won't get into it too much here, but my long haul model is. Really what worked at the California Symphony. I now know this is called behavioral segmentation. Getting patrons to repeat the same behavior. You came once. We just want you to come back again, versus you came once. Will you make a donation?

[00:17:48] That's not good. Just repeat the same behavior. For anybody, their past behavior is the biggest predictor of future behavior. That's true. For ticket buyers.

[00:17:59] It's true when we're hiring. For positions, the best kind of questions we can ask or behavioral questions. Tell me about a time when you did X, Y, Z in a previous role. And how did that play out for you? That's the biggest predictor, biggest and best predictor of if they will be able to do X, Y, Z in your organization going forward.

[00:18:17] So anyways, across the board, Past behavior is the biggest predictor of future behavior. That's why behavioral segmentation is so important. That's the basis of my entire Long Haul Model. I can link that in the show notes too.

[00:18:28] It's all about retention, getting these people to come back, take that same step that they took before. And. There's a whole step in there too about what if they viewed our content online at, during the pandemic? How do we get them to then take the next step, which is either watch us online again, or visit us in person. So a lot to be said there.

[00:18:46] Part three of five of this five point business plan. I would lay out for any organization is representation. This is a topic that is still at the forefront still should be at the forefront. And I want to be clear in saying that representation. Is not a complete answer or a complete solution to the systems of oppression and racism that need to be dismantled in classical music. I'm not an EDI expert. I don't claim to be. But my opinion, my personal opinion is that if we can work toward greater representation, onstage and on our staffs and on our boards, then that to me is the baseline minimum immediate action that must be taken, but also has the highest impact. In a good way for our organizations. So that means we have to unlearn old practices for recruiting and hiring and learn the new best practices. I just gave you one: behavioral interview questions. That's that's part of the research on this. There's a whole bunch more we can get into. So if anybody else has questions, please send it in. I'll put it in a future podcast.

[00:19:58] But the idea is that it's not just program some different composers and call it good. That's part of what we need to do. But let's talk about the Black Orchestral Network. They just have launched their campaign to really not just draw attention, but change and action surrounding the problem of still we have one to 2% of professional orchestral members are Black. We have way more than one to 2% of talented Black orchestral musicians in our industry. We have way more than that graduating from top conservatory programs each year. It's not a pipeline problem is what I'm trying to say. That's what the data says. So I just highlight that as another example of we've got to address this. On stage, who's sitting in these chairs.

[00:20:43] I mentioned staff and let me touch on board real fast, too. For every white man, we recruit to our board we must also be recruiting a woman and a person of color. That's my opinion on this. I think we have got to intentionally be recruiting these people and the, the talent is out there. I want to say that again and again, this isn't about plugging holes or filling quotas. It's about saying the talent is there. And if I live in a community that looks like, you know, X percent Black and white percent Latin X and z percent Asian. Then I want to make sure I have that representation on my staff, on my board, on my stage, period. It's just about being representative of the full spectrum of talent where we reside.

[00:21:23] All right. I want to get to the other steps in this flywheel, in this business plan. But first we are going to pause for a second and hear from our sponsor. It's a brand I personally choose to work with that I know arts organizations can benefit from.

[00:21:36] Aubrey Bergauer: So I've been creating content for a while now. First as manager of audience development at the Seattle Opera, then later as the head of marketing at the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival, and now as an individual creator and working with organizations on their content strategies too. And I'm not being dramatic when I say that the program that was a total game changer for me is Descript. I learned about Descript earlier this year when I was invited to join the LinkedIn Creator Accelerator Program. And I loved it so much because I'm not an editor yet Descript makes editing as easy as editing a Google doc. I'm not even kidding.

[00:22:15] Now I use Descript for all of my videos, audio content, Instagram reels, and even recording this right now. I recommend Descript for any individual or marketing team, and I'll drop the link in the show notes for you. Thank you to Descript for supporting the business side of the arts. I'm really grateful.

[00:22:32] Okay. Part four of five. Recurring revenue and streaming. Here is another big bucket of questions I get asked all the time. What do we do about streaming Aubrey? Streaming is expensive. We know that. Streaming is something we developed a competency in. So that's the other side of that coin. So. What do we do?

[00:22:54] This is sort of a two-parter, this step here, but recurring revenue means subscriptions. It also means donations. I am more and more. I bought into the research on the subscription membership economy. We know subscriptions are prolific and every other B to C business business to consumer business organization.

[00:23:18] And it's not just Netflix. It's, you know, dollar shave club or stitch fix or on and on and on so many things in our lives right now are on subscriptions or memberships. So that model is. Succeeding elsewhere. And a big reason of that is because they offer an opt out model.

[00:23:38] Arts organizations, by comparison, wipe the slate clean for everybody. At the end of the year, we say. Would you like to subscribe again? Would you like to renew your donation again? So that's one thing. There are a couple other reasons why the subscription model is working elsewhere, but not for us, but that's a big one. So a lot to say on that, but that's the idea of recurring revenue. This is true on donations too. We are seeing some excellent examples at nonprofits who really are doing well with the monthly membership for these lower level annual fund donors.

[00:24:09] Non-major donors, charity water is the one I talk about all the time. There are others. Somebody you should talk to on this is Louis Diez. Real quick, he just left a role as head of the annual fund in higher ed. But previous to that had worked at a major symphony orchestra and fundraising. And to hear him talk about what he did with monthly giving at the institution in higher ed is incredible. I mean, the graph is just boom, boom, boom. Up, up, up. And he's such a wealth of information on how do we do this? So follow him online. LinkedIn, he's got a great platform there if you want somebody who knows the art knows this idea of monthly recurring giving.

[00:24:48] But I also want to talk about streaming's role. So why am I talking about subscriptions and streaming's role? In the same category here. Same step. The reason is because.

[00:24:58] They go hand in hand.

[00:25:00] What we have tended to do as organizations. This is a big generalization, but.

[00:25:05] What we have tended to do is look at streaming. As a separate product category. Can we sell a streaming subscription? How do we monetize? I understand because it's so dang expensive that our minds go to, how do we pay for this? So that that makes sense in terms of the math of it all.

[00:25:24] However, the strategy of it all and where the data and research shows streaming is successful is not as its own product. Of all of the streaming giants. Only Netflix is the one who. Said not in their original mission, but pretty early on said, you know, streaming is central to the core of what we do.

[00:25:44] Others adopted it later. So even HBO. Streaming not core to their mission. But let's look at some other examples that are more similar to what we do.

[00:25:55] And these would be companies that have an analog or in-person product and use streaming to drive loyalty and connection and momentum.

[00:26:04] (promo clip) Let's make this make sense. Take Apple for example. Apple sells hardware, apple sell software. Apple absolutely wants us to buy more iPhones and apple watches and Mac books and all that kind of stuff. That's the core of their business. That's their core central product line. Why do they have streaming? Because if I'm watching The Morning Show, I am more likely to buy apple products the next time I need a new phone or a new watch or whatever.

[00:26:31] Streaming keeps us connected to the brand. Amazon. Streaming not their core product. Amazon has been excellent at using streaming as a way to drive loyalty and connection to the flywheel. Scott Galloway, to quote him again, says you something along the lines of, because you watched Fleabag, you're more likely to buy your next toaster at Amazon over Target or Williams-Sonoma or wherever.

[00:26:53] Streaming keeps us connected to the brand. Disney, same thing. Disney has the parks. Disney wants you to go to the movie theater, but Disney also is happy for you to watch all their stuff online because when that next Star Wars movie comes out, you better believe you are at the box office to see it on the big screen, right?

[00:27:08] So streaming is an entry point to the organization for people not yet connected. And it is a driver of brand affinity and loyalty for everyone else. These tech companies are not guessing at this strategy. They are investing billions of dollars because the data supports it. So, what does this mean for us? Because it goes right back to, well, it's very expensive to be doing this.

[00:27:34] We don't have the same production value as these companies. Of course, some of us have very high production value on our streams, but we pay a pretty penny to make that happen. So, okay.

[00:27:42] It means we're not going to make a profit off streaming. It means streaming is a path for adding value. Streaming is a path for an entry point for these newcomers we so desperately need. So. This is really an inversion of the strategy most orchestras have employed, especially the ones who tried to charge for their streaming product. If you're charging for streaming, that's like the pinnacle of engagement. It's only the most loyal most bought in, like, our top subscribers, most engaged owners, right? Like those are the types of people who are paying for our streaming product when, when the organizations are trying to monetize it.

[00:28:18] So instead, all of this is saying we have to flip that. Streaming needs to be offered for free. And I know that is a very hard pill to swallow because it costs so much. So how do we deal with that? It doesn't mean we stream everything. It doesn't mean we go bankrupt streaming. It means stream a little bit. It means put the overture online, put the first 10 minutes of the concert, put the first movement of the concerto, maybe. Give people a taste, because the end goal is that we want them to come see us in person. This model works for other genres. I listened to Gwen Stefani on Spotify, and I could not wait to go see her when she came to LA .Bonus that she performed at the LA Phil. Okay. So, this works for other artists. This can totally work for us too. Again, we don't have to break the bank by streaming everything, but it needs to be part of the strategy. Here's the other thing. And I am getting more and more bullish on this conversation.

[00:29:15] I hope musicians are listening to this because we cannot fully employ this strategy without a change in our union agreements, and we need musicians to say, I see the strategy. And. I want to make more money. I want all of us to make more money. Everybody listening wants that. But also to see that it's not an overnight short-term game. Right now, the model with the union agreements is that we pay the money upfront to musicians. It's very expensive. So even in addition to all the production equipment and cameras and editing and all of that. Anybody who works at union orchestra knows it's very expensive to way the model in agreement is set up to pay our musicians for even just the capture. So if we're not making money on it, but we can agree that the strategy is we want to make more money later, but this is what we have to do upfront to feed that pipeline.

[00:30:08] We really need to work with our musicians and build the trust. This takes a lot of trust to say, I'm going to try this strategy. I know this is a change. But I believe with everything in me that the model now is not working and that this is the model that we need to pursue, because it's not new because it's been demonstrated by so many other businesses now. And even aside from those tech giants, Digital content is the name of the game. No matter what business, no matter if they're e-commerce no matter what sector, no matter what the product. So, adding value for our customers. Making that entry point through our digital offerings is so important.

[00:30:47] And I will say one last thing on this, because it must be said: organizations, that means on us, we have the responsibility to do something with those viewers, meaning to just blast it out on YouTube and hope people watch and hope they buy a ticket as a result is not sufficient. This is what I mean.

[00:31:04] There is work to be done before us. We must be using the tracking cookies available to us. There is absolutely a way. It's not very difficult, but a lot of our marketers I'm learning, to be blunt, don't know how to do this. Some do that's good. Find them, hire them. We have got to be better at tracking these people. They watched it on YouTube. So how do we show them an ad to buy a ticket? They saw the stream on Facebook or Instagram. How do we start showing them ads to come buy a ticket? Or embed the stream on the website, put the tracking cookie there. Or put the email. Not paywall, but email gate up so that people put in their email to get free access to the stream. Whatever it is, we have got to be better. Like the funnel exists, but the funnel doesn't run itself is what I'm trying to say. So organizations, that part is on us. We have got to be better at, I say it's a strategy. We got to execute on that strategy. So anyways, there we go.

[00:31:53] A lot to say about that piece, but that is how streaming connects with recurring revenue. And then when they come to the concert hall, they have a great experience. And then we've got a retention plan to get them to come back again. You get all of that together and hopefully now this idea of a flywheel is making more sense.

[00:32:09] All right. Final piece. Here we go. Part five of five on next steps. And this could be added later, I guess I'll say that. I said none of the this has that happen overnight, right? But part five for the business plan I put together is vertical integration.

[00:32:23] And this is another business idea that has been around for awhile. The dictionary defines vertical integration as the combination in one company of two or more stages of production normally operated by separate companies. Okay. This term was developed in the eighties by two Harvard professors. But it's actually been in practice for more than a hundred years. So a very old school example is Carnegie Steel. So long before the term even existed. Carnegie ran the mills that made the steel, of course, but he eventually also ran and owned the mines where the iron ore was extracted. He eventually ran coal mines where the energy source was extracted. He eventually ran the ships and the trains that transported the iron door and the coal to the bills of the factories. And that is vertical integration, things that are normally outsourced to different vendors, we bring in house. Okay. So what does this have to do with classical music of when an organization can do? This is where I get very excited because whereas I just got finished ranting that streaming can not make us money. This is what can make us money. So think about what parts of classical music are normally outsourced elsewhere.

[00:33:48] So things like studying with musicians. Usually studying with musicians, especially musicians at the caliber of those in our orchestra happen either through a conservatory or university program, if the musician teaches there, or if they run private lessons on their own, that type of thing. And there is some revenue to be made there for the musician, you know, one time, one person at a time. This is one-on-one instruction. But where I get very excited is there are some musicians who have been very entrepreneurial, who brought that in house. I did a whole episode on education and how we monetize that. And so if you haven't listened to that podcast episode, that's what I'm talking about here. We can do adult education, not just musical instruction, we can do arts administration.

[00:34:34] So again, a whole episode talking about this, please go back and listen to it because that's what I'm talking about about this vertical integration piece and a way that we use our streaming competency we developed to charge and make money because the market is there. So please, if you have any interest in that, definitely go back and listen to this episode cause it's like a 20 minute dive on this piece alone. But there you go. Five steps that we can take. They don't have to be done all overnight. But to your question, Denise, yes, there are steps we can take. Yes. Behavior is changeable, is malleable, is plastic. So definitely a lot to be done for us. There is no single defining action that makes a company successful. It goes right back to jim Collins. but we absolutely can build plans that look different than the way our organization was run in the past that buck those trends so that we build the thriving and sustainable future we deserve and we absolutely can achieve. Thanks so much for this question, Denise.

[00:35:40] That's all for today, folks. Thanks so much for listening, and keep up with more content like this by following me on LinkedIn or Instagram @AubreyBergauer. And Definitely hit that follow button to subscribe to this podcast. And I have one more favor to ask: if you liked what you heard here, will you please leave a review and rating? I've learned it really does make a huge difference, and I'd be so grateful for your help and support in that. Thanks again. See you next time on The Offstage Mic.

[00:36:07] (music fade in…can rolls production credits over music) The Offstage Mic was produced by me, Aubrey Bergauer, and made possible by Descript. I used to Descript to record, edit, set audio levels, and make the trailer as well as the video teasers on social media. I couldn't have done it without them. And I recommend any marketing team or individual creator should definitely use this tool too. Thanks again to Descript for making this project and many others I've done possible. This is a production of Changing the Narrative.