TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Aubrey Bergauer: Hello, hello. Aubrey here. I'm recording today in San Francisco. Where we are having what is projected to be the wettest day on record for the year. Spring has not sprung here, folks. We are having yet another atmospheric river. That's an actual weather term, which basically means a shit ton of rain. Okay, by the way, this podcast is officially now not safe for work, but I'm going to call that an achievement unlocked.

Anyways, there are flood watches everywhere and it's just a bit bananas. I open the weather app and it's like 90 percent chance of rain for the next every day. So, I think the weather has been kind of bananas everywhere this year, though. I was just in Park City, Utah last week skiing, which on one hand, was so good.

Like, wow, I only want to ski there from now on. And after two amazing days of skiing, a storm came through there as well, dropping more snow on the ground than they already had. That same storm [00:01:00] hit Tahoe here in California, which was so bad that they closed the resorts, in fact, closed the highway even to get there, I think.

And then down in LA, maybe you saw the headlines, it was snowing there. Did anybody see those photos going around of the Hollywood sign and the snow covered mountains, like the Hollywood hills in the background? Again, it's just totally bananas. So, East Coasters, what's going on there? I saw New York City was super warm all winter, then got blasted recently.

What else? What's the weather doing where you are? I think it's been something unusual or unreal just about everywhere, right? Or, if you're in some place where spring has sprung, that sounds lovely. So, all this is the new normal, I guess, right? Climate change, extreme weather events, as they say. Uh, but if you are somewhere where the weather is not bananas and spring has sprung and it is just lovely, will you tell me?

Not a joke, I'd actually like to hear about it. Anyways, welcome to episode 3 of 11 in this season on how the narrative for classical [00:02:00] music is changing. Over the last eight years or so, maybe longer now, depending on the organization, the subscription model has been declining inside the arts, yet thriving, as we know, in other industries.

Consumers get everything on subscriptions these days, right? We have Netflix, we get our toothbrushes mailed to us, to clothes, to dinner meal kits, I mean, on and on and on, right? So, the subscription model is not problematic as a tool, it's growing everywhere else. And, I would say on this topic of subscriptions, the narrative in the field is changing.

If I had to categorize it, I used to think that organizations on this topic of adapting, adopting different strategies on our subscriptions and donations to a recurring revenue is really what this is about. I, if I had to categorize it, I would say organizations used to be. in Calcitrint, but now other ideas are on the table.

We are seeing more [00:03:00] flexible offerings, which our audiences have been telling us they want per different studies in the field. And the change is slow for sure, but there is more of an appetite, I'd say. Because the financial challenges that come with declining subscribers are forcing a lot of us to think if there's a different way to make this work.

Over the last year, I have gone full on nerdy deep dive on this subject, I gotta say. I have become totally obsessed with this question of why are subscriptions thriving everywhere else but on the decline in the arts? And we really just can't say the model is dying, as some folks do in our field, because it's just not.

It's prolific everywhere else. So, that brought me down this thought journey of, well, We must be doing some things differently than everyone else then if it's working for them and it's not for us. So what is it? What are these differences? And what can we learn? Today's conversation explores this very topic.

I cold reached out [00:04:00] to today's guest, Robbie Kelman Baxter, who I'll more properly introduce in just a moment. But for now, know that when I reached out to her, there were four areas in my mind where the arts are doing things differently. Then the broader subscription economy differently than what might be considered a standard practice most everywhere else.

And so I asked Robby if she would come have a conversation with me exploring those areas and get her take on them. So I am really excited to share this conversation with you. Robby Kelman Baxter is an incredible expert. She's worked with all the big subscription brands you and I know, and she is so logical and thoughtful on how her work with those companies can apply to what we do in the arts.

This conversation is definitely for anybody working on subscriptions or memberships at any organization, but it is also for Anybody who's just curious about this same question like I was Anyone who as a consumer [00:05:00] who has subscriptions a bunch of places like so many of us do and is wondering What can we do to make subscriptions more effective like these other brands?

And P. S. some of this definitely applies to the development and fundraising folks too, as I mentioned. A lot of what's working in the membership economy applies to recurring revenue of all types. And that includes recurring gifts, which is a whole other world I've been going full on nerdy deep dive about in recent months.

So, I'm really excited to share this with you. Without further ado, let's hit it. Hey everyone! 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.

In this season, I'm bringing you [00:06:00] conversations with some of my favorite experts from both inside and outside the arts, all to help build the vibrant future we know is possible for our institutions and for ourselves as offstage administrators and leaders. You're listening to The Offstage Mic.

If you listen to this podcast regularly, you've heard me talk about how education programs present a huge opportunity to drive revenue for your organization. Whether you have an education program or offering that's already monetized, or are interested in starting one, I'm excited to introduce you to CourseStorm.

CoreStorm takes care of managing class registrations, collecting payments, and promoting your classes. It includes simple registration forms, built in payment processing, and automated marketing tools. It literally takes just minutes to set up a catalog. CoreStorm also seamlessly integrates with ticketing and donor management platforms like Patron Zapier.

Join arts organizations [00:07:00] already using CourseStorm, like the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, Princeton Academy of Art, Miami Theater Center, and others. The best part though, CoreStorm's pricing is designed for your success. You never get a bill from CoreStorm, you only get payouts. And there's no contract or minimum time using the service required.

How amazing is that? Visit corestorm. com slash Aubrey. That's C O U R S E S T O R M dot com slash Aubrey and set up a sample catalog or request a demo. With class registration and everything else taken care of through CourseStorm, you can focus on what's important. Helping your patrons grow as artists and performers through education.

[00:07:50] Novo Music: Is it just me, or does this sound terrible? 

Wait, I think I heard of someone who might be able to help us. There's this company called Novo Music. They provide across the board audio [00:08:00] solutions, from recording repair, to audio editing, to original music and sound design and beyond.

Well, what are we waiting for? Today on Top Tunes Now that's better. Novo Music. As 

[00:08:18] Aubrey Bergauer: I said, I'm so excited and grateful to bring to you today this conversation with Robbie Kelman Baxter. She is known as the world's leading expert in subscriptions and membership models. Robbie Baxter coined the term membership economy, in fact.

Her clients have included Netflix, heard of it, the National Restaurant Association and the Mail newspapers in the UK, as well as dozens of other Silicon Valley software companies and consumer subscription companies. She is author of the books, The Membership Economy and The Forever Transaction. After I had this conversation with her, I read The Forever Transaction and it is so good in my opinion.

[00:09:00] Seriously, if you work on subscriptions or even on annual fund. I highly, highly recommend that book. She also has a podcast. It is called Subscription Stories, where she interviews people leading subscription campaigns at all kinds of cool businesses. And when she's not writing and not podcasting, Robbie has worked in or with or consulted two clients in more than 20 different industries.

All of this is to say, she knows the trends. She knows what works and we are so lucky she is here today to apply all of her knowledge and the subscription slash membership economy to the arts. Welcome Robby. So great to be here and thank you for inviting me. I mentioned I have four different reasons in my mind, Robby, why the membership economy is struggling in the arts compared to elsewhere.

So let's have your take on all of this. You can tell me I'm wrong. You could tell me there's a different way to look at it. Whatever you want to say truly is helpful to all of us. So reason number one in my mind is what I call The first year cliff. So we [00:10:00] know in the performing arts, only half of first year subscribers, season ticket holders, only half renew their season ticket.

It comes from the league of American orchestras. So that's definitely true for symphony orchestras. It's about that for other disciplines, opera companies, theaters, you know, you name it. So that's alarming. I think arts organizations don't focus enough on the new subscriber in order to keep them happy enough to renew.

We tend to sort of over index on our loyal, long time subscribers, in my mind. What do you think about this? How does this compare to other industries, other brands focusing on the new subscriber, sort of all of that? I 

[00:10:39] Robbie Kellman Baxter: really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you specifically about the arts. Lots of interesting things going on in that space.

Some things are, as you said, unique, but the vast majority of what happens in subscriptions in general, I think, applies in the world of the arts. So, we'll With regard to that one year cliff in every [00:11:00] subscription, the greatest attrition, the greatest churn happens at the end of the first period, period, every single industry that's streaming content, that's meal kits, that's software, that software as a service, that's, Enterprise, B2B, consumer, everything.

Biggest drop off is in the first period because the great advantage of a subscription is you can cancel at any time. So people often join thinking, if I don't like it, I can cancel. And I'm going to make a note, especially in the first period. If I don't like this, if I don't use it, I'll cancel. So you have to go into your subscription business, knowing that that's the case and saying, okay, we're What do I do about that?

So the first thing that you really want to do, and I think most organizations under invest in this is onboarding. This is the least expensive, most powerful lever that you have. And what that means is in those first seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, after somebody joins you. How do you [00:12:00] make them feel welcome, reinforce the wisdom of their decision and ensure that they get as much of the value that they're entitled to as possible.

So what that means is you're really choreographing that experience and you want to look at your customers that have stayed for a while. So your second, third, fourth year subscribers, look at them and compare them to the people that are leaving and say, what are the differences? Thank you so much. And a lot of times it's a difference in experience, like the ones that stay for a long time might have been brought in by somebody who's already a fan.

That's very common. And so you say, well, how do I replicate that with my other new members? Well, maybe I give them a, I don't want to say a mentor, but a buddy, somebody to welcome them, somebody that has tickets for the same night. Who says hello, that kind of thing makes a huge difference and figuring out what are those little elements in the world of streaming content.

We know that in most cases, if I pay for a streaming subscription, let's say on my [00:13:00] phone, right? Let's say like the NBA has leaked past. If I get leaked past on my phone, it's okay to watch a basketball game like this, but if I can connect it to my smart TV and watch it on a big screen. I'm way more likely to get value and I'm way more likely to stay.

If I sign up for Netflix, because I want to watch a rom com, I might stay for a while. I might find other rom coms that I like, but if they can get me to enjoy a documentary, a drama, a crime series, I'm much more likely to stay. So those are the two things that they're very focused on when you join is get them to a smart TV and get them to a second type of content.

So in the world of the arts. What are the elements that increase the likelihood that someone's going to stay for the second period? 

[00:13:42] Aubrey Bergauer: Super helpful. Reason number two, I think we are seeing subscription model in the arts struggle compared to other industries, is what I call behavioral repetition. We don't talk a lot in the arts about Behavioral segmentation.

We do a lot of demographic segmentation. We do some [00:14:00] psychographic segmentation. If you like Beethoven, maybe you'll also like Brahms, or if you like Harry Potter, maybe you'll also like the whatever next movie in concert, you know. So we don't often think of behavioral segmentation and behavioral proclivities.

So just to lay that out there for all of us. So what I try to think about as an analogy is, I don't know if everybody remembers this, but back in the day, Starbucks used to give you a discount. If you'd come in the morning, they'd give you a discount to come back that same day. They're trying to elicit the same kind of behavior soon.

And, um, I always think that's interesting because in the arts, we don't do it that way. As soon as somebody comes once often, what's the next step? Solicitation, telefunding, calling, or the next step is will you subscribe? You've come once. Don't you want an 18 week package now? Anyways, we are our patrons.

Our customers to make pretty big leaps in engagement. And in my mind, what are the most successful subscription companies doing in terms of that next behavioral step, [00:15:00] just like sort of picking up right where you left off. 

[00:15:04] Robbie Kellman Baxter: So it's a journey as, as you've said, I know this is a big point that you like to make, and I think it's really important.

And I would just want to point out that it is relevant in every subscription. An analogy is it's like asking someone out on a date, maybe even a blind date for coffee. And then saying, wow, this coffee. It's really nice. And they say, yeah, I'm enjoying it too. And you say, great. Do you want to get married?

[00:15:24] Aubrey Bergauer: I've totally heard this parallel. Yes. So please keep going. Yes. 

[00:15:28] Robbie Kellman Baxter: So there's a couple of things here. So the main point is there's a lot that happens between that first coffee date and the marriage proposal. And what a lot of companies have heard, this is like a common analogy, but what a lot of organizations do then is they say, okay.

Well, I'll wait till the second, you know, so then they're like, so now we're going out to dinner. Do you want to marry me now? And then on the third date they say, do you want to marry me now? Now we're going for a walk. Do you want to marry me now? Now you're visiting my parents. Do you want to marry me now?

And it's the same question. So you want to ask different questions along the way. So it might [00:16:00] be, tell me about your family. Tell me about your hobbies. Tell me what kind of life you want to have. And so in this world, what you're saying is, okay, so you came to one event. Did you enjoy it? How could we have made it better for you?

Would you enjoy going to something else? What brought you here? There's a couple things here. One of them is you want to get really curious on, um, where this symphony event fits in their life. So it may be that it fits in their life because they love Brahms, but it may be that it fits in their life because they're saying, I need to be more cultured or I need to try more new things, or I need to get out in my new city, or I need to have an opportunity to wear this awesome dress I bought.

And so the better you can understand where it fits in their life and what brought them to You have a better sense of what to do for them. So that's a product thing. I think a lot of companies over index on product. So in the world of symphonies, it's, Oh, nobody's coming to Brahms. Let's do Beethoven.

Right. And it may be any number of other things. It [00:17:00] may be the time of day that you're offering the event. It may be the price point. It may be how welcome you make them feel. It may have nothing to do with the musical choice. Just to point out that this is the same in other places. I think, you know, a lot of engineers say, but our product is better than the product that our competitor makes, but the competitor has better customer service.

The competitor has a cleaner message. The competitor has a better return policy, has nothing to do with the quality of engineering, but a lot of times the company is driven by the engineers. In the world of news, same thing, most news organizations are driven by the editorial team, and it's not that editorial isn't important, but there are other reasons that people read one paper or another, besides the quality of the editorial.

So, I think that's really important. Important. And then your point about segmentation. So I'm going to just go on one more minute. The point about segmentation, you want to segment by quality of customer and you want to get [00:18:00] really clear on who's your best customer. Usually your best customer is the one with the greatest lifetime value.

Sometimes lifetime value, meaning how much do they spend over their lifetime with you? So you acquire me, I come to one event. If two people come to the same event and one of them comes to four more events and the other one doesn't. That first one is more valuable in your world that might also include their philanthropic activity.

It might include their volunteer activity. It might be the word of mouth that they have about, you know, who else they bring in, but you want to say, what does the best customer look like? Who are they? Right? What are the criteria at the simplest level? It's the ones that spend the most money, but there's other ways of doing it.

And how can we spend more money, more time, more focus on acquiring, engaging, and optimizing the experience for that group versus the other three quadrants. And so step one, divide by quadrants, even if it's just by lifetime customer value, that's a great place to start. And then how can I spend a little bit more of my time and [00:19:00] money?

Understanding and supporting people that look like group one, rather than treating all four segments as equal. 

[00:19:07] Aubrey Bergauer: Oh, so much. Oh my gosh. So many gems in there. Thank you. I want to underscore what you were saying about over focusing on the product. I say all the time, you know, what we do at arts organizations, our product is so good.

The quality is so good. So continuing to tinker with the product, especially as something like a professional symphony orchestra or opera company. It's just tweaking at that point. But so I love what you said. And the UX research I've done with several clients. Now we've learned that same thing. It's all these other facets of the experience.

I always say everything tangential to the product, like you were saying is really often what is keeping them away or keeping them from coming back. So just so appreciate everything you were saying there. Switching gears a little bit here. Reason number three of four, I think the arts are struggling with the subscription model is how we handle renewals.

So. And this is true for donations to [00:20:00] subscriptions, as well as memberships in the form of donations. We, instead of I'll say what other industries do, we all know this. It's a month to month, usually for so many other subscriptions. We're a part of, and so many times we cancel after the first month or whatever that first period is, as you said.

In the arts, we don't make the opt out. We opt out everybody for them. Exactly. We wipe the slate clean and say, would you like your subscription? Would you like to re you donated last year? Would you please renew that donation again this year? Is there any other way we can do this? Is there a way that we should go to month to month?

There's pros and cons of that in fundraising for sure. I mean, I would just love to hear you speak on this question for a while. 

[00:20:45] Robbie Kellman Baxter: Yeah. So I think opt out is the industry standard across industries. I'm seeing it increasingly in nonprofits. I haven't seen it as much in the arts, but I am seeing it in other kinds of, you know, philanthropic organizations.

Where they [00:21:00] ask you, like I'm, I'm trying to think now, I think I sponsor three different nonprofits where I just pay them at whatever it is, 20 bucks a month or whatever they asked for. So I do think that opting, you know, thinking about, is it possible legally to have opt out instead of opt in? Um, what I've heard from many arts organizations.

Is that people prefer it? It's easier, right? And the important thing that you want to remember is, I mean, the reason that people hate opt out, if they hate it, is they feel like they're spending money when they didn't intend to. So if you're nervous about hurting the relationship or denigrating the trust that you've established, what you want to do is say, We have an opt out program.

You let them know up front. You explain why you're doing it. And if somebody says, and you can decide how long you want to wait in month two, three, four, whatever month they say, Oh, I had no idea. I forgot. I didn't realize I was giving money. I want my money back for the first year. Let's say you just give them their money back.

You just say, you know, yes, this is a new system. We [00:22:00] understand that you may not have been aware of it, We hope you still love us and we hope you stay, but if you want your money back, here's your money back. And that brings me to a really important point about subscription is when people want to leave, let them leave, but invest your retention dollars in that onboarding experience.

Like by the time somebody is telling you they want to leave, they've decided. It's not a hundred percent to that. You can sometimes. Keep them often by solving the problem that they have, right? You know, I came to your event and I couldn't find parking and it was terrible. And you say, Oh, did you know that we have free parking behind the building?

No, nobody told me. Great. I'm going to credit you 50 bucks for the parking from last time. And why don't you come back next time and use our free parking that you didn't see? So there are ways sometimes to retain, but it's hard. It's much easier upfront to notice if they're doing the things that your best customers do, if they look like them upfront, and then if they're doing the behaviors.

So for example, if somebody pays for an event and they don't show up, if they're a subscriber, you want to know why they didn't come and why they didn't give their tickets to [00:23:00] somebody else. And you might even want to say, I noticed you didn't use your tickets. You have the privilege of exchanging them.

You should have exchanged them. Let's just exchange them now, even though the event already happened, because we want you to get the value you're entitled to that kind of thing in the first month or two can really deepen the relationship because you're noticing that they're not getting value. And you're intervening before they get to that time.

Most people don't start working on 30, 60 days before renewal. And by then it's usually too late. They've already stopped using the product or decided they don't want it anymore. And so you want to do that much earlier on. Yeah, 

[00:23:36] Aubrey Bergauer: that makes so much sense. Reason number four of four, in my mind, why the arts are struggling with subscriptions compared to other industries is what I call, we now have same value for twice the price.

So what do I mean by that? At orchestras, again, this is very similar for other disciplines, but at orchestras, the national data shows that Over the last 10 years, this is [00:24:00] actually definitely predates COVID. If we're going back 10 years, it might even be 10 years pre COVID, but regardless, take about the last decade subscription prices have risen at nearly double the rate of the consumer price X.

We've raised prices because as attendance has declined, we've been dialing up the price in order to balance our budgets. I've been there trying to balance the budget. I understand, but. By doing this, our subscription prices have risen at double the rate of the consumer price index over the last 10 years.

So that means the same product people are experiencing now has less value because the price they've paid is twice as much. The value has declined. So, Compare that to, you know, like Netflix last price increase, I think was a dollar, right? Something like that. So does that resonate? Is this a pricing question?

I'm not sure. What's your response to me saying this? Maybe it's the right. 

Yeah. So let's talk about pricing for a minute. So the first thing is in a subscription. One of the reasons that subscriptions work so well is that people make it a habit. And they know what to expect. So they don't have to pay attention, right?

[00:24:59] Robbie Kellman Baxter: They just say, [00:25:00] you know, I'm relaxing into the subscription. I'm paying whatever at some point when I was paying attention, I decided that was a reasonable cost for what I'm getting. And I'm not going to think about it anymore. When you raise the price, they stop what they're doing. I need to think about this again.

Do I still want to be a customer? Do I still want to subscribe? Netflix dealt with that. Every time they raise prices, a whole bunch of people leave. They know that. So that's, that's the first thing to know is that you want to be really thoughtful when you raise prices, because people are going to leave.

And a lot of people are leaving because they're kind of dead wood anyway. They're not loving it. And they're like, Oh, Oh, I forgot I was subscribed. You know what? Now they're raising the price I'm leaving. So that's something to keep in mind. Second thing is elasticity of demand. So there are some products.

Where there is great elasticity of demand, which means for each dollar of price that it goes up, you lose a certain percentage of your customers, right? Salty snacks are like that. When salty snacks, when potato chips go on sale in the supermarket, people buy more of them and guess what? They eat them right away, right?

So if chips are cheaper, people consume more chips. Tuna fish. If tuna fish is cheaper, you may [00:26:00] buy more, but you pantry load, and then you don't buy any the following weeks. So the number of cans of tuna fish sold over the year stays constant regardless of the price within a range, because people either eat the tuna fish for lunch or they don't.

And they're not going to eat it more because it's cheaper. It's just different than chips, more chips. So you want to know how elastic. are theater tickets. My guess is they're not very elastic, that it's more of a binary decision. Either I like going to the symphony or I don't. Either I believe in supporting the arts or I don't.

And within some range, like, of course, if the tickets became, you know, 3, 000 a seat, or they went down to free, that would obviously change things. But in the range of whatever it is, 25 to 200. In that range, a lot of people are going to be like, well, this is just something I do. So you don't want to over worry about your pricing, but at the same time, you want to explain why you have to raise the price.[00:27:00] 

Netflix was really good at that. Well, actually they did a bad job and then they did a good job. I don't know if you remember when Netflix, the first time they raised their prices, they split the business in half. What happened was When Netflix started, they were so small that the movie studios weren't worried about them.

And so Netflix went to them and said, Hey, can we use your DVDs, buy DVDs from you and, you know, have this subscription? They were like, sure, we'll give you a really good deal. Cause it's irrelevant to our big business. 10 years later, Netflix is actually keeping people from going into the theaters. So it's affecting those movie studios.

They said, you know what? If you want to have access to our movies, we're going to increase the prices in our new contract dramatically. So suddenly Netflix's costs went way up. They had no choice, but to raise their prices. But what they did is instead of saying, Hey, customers, bad news. Our prices have gone up.

We have to pass some of that on to you. We hope you think that there's still enough value to stay with us, but we can't be in business if we don't raise our [00:28:00] prices, what they said instead was. Great news. You were paying 1399 for streaming and three DVDs out at a time. Now you can pay nine 99 for three DVDs out at a time or seven 99 for streaming.

Or you can get both if you want both. And so like every person in the world that was subscribing to Netflix was like, well, I can do the math. 7. 99 plus 9. 99 is a whole lot more than 13. 99. And that is not good news for me. That is bad news for me. And Netflix is trying to pull the wool over my eyes. I don't trust them anymore, which is really important in a subscription.

That they trust you, they trust that the reason you're charging what you charge is because you need to charge it. So, you know, to summarize in the area of pricing, if you have to raise prices, make sure that your subscribers understand that and try to not do it a lot. And the other thing that I would say about it is raising your prices because you don't have enough customers.

Is a doom loop. You have to [00:29:00] be in the world of subscriptions for the longterm. You have to feel like your customers are getting great value for the amount they're paying. They're, you know, your subscribers are getting great value. If you get to a point where you say, wow, you have to be kind of crazy to spend this much.

This is kind of a crazy deal. You know, that it's only a matter of time before your subscribers catch up with your logic and they leave. 

[00:29:21] Aubrey Bergauer: Oh god, so much wisdom and all of that. This answer gives me hope because what I'm hearing you say is it's not price alone. Of course not. And I think as long as we have a range, which almost every arts organization does, we do have very high prices depending on who you ask.

And then, but more and more arts organizations are doing a better job of having a lower entry point. So to me, that says, Oh my gosh, it's not that, Oh, our prices have risen so much over the last 10 years. It's by and large, we need to be better at how we message that. And when do we increase prices and not so often?

So that's, this is actually a very helpful response. I love this. So great. Yeah. 

[00:29:55] Robbie Kellman Baxter: Also it's for whom? So there's some people I imagine [00:30:00] who would say, because you have a philanthropic component to this, which I think is always really tricky if you're a non profit or you have a philanthropic component. So some people are coming and they're like, no, I'm paying 50 bucks for my ticket because this is a fun night out for me and I really don't want to donate any money to this.

And other people say, I believe in the arts. I want to support this. I'm happy to buy my ticket. I'm happy to buy my ticket and not go. I'm happy to give them a check. And it's really important to know who's who, which ones are likely to convert over time on their journey with you and which ones have a totally different use case and are never going to become philanthropic participants.

And to communicate differently with them because they're coming for different reasons and they expect different things back. So a value for a donor, and I know you know this, is different than, like, the value of somebody who pays for a ticket because they like the music. And they like the fancy theater and they like that experience.

There's different reasons, right? I feel good knowing, you know, my donation is contributing to children, school children, being able to go in here, [00:31:00] the symphony, or that it's allowing music students or people who can't afford it, or to keep the building open or to endow a chair for the director, whatever it's different.

And you just have to know who's who, because when you're telling them what they're going to get for their money, they're getting different things. 

[00:31:18] Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah, you have to know who's who you have to differentiate in your communication. It goes back to segmentation. This is a total soap wax issue for me. I love it.

I love it. I love it. Okay. Ravi. Oh, I can just, just thank you a million times. You're just your wisdom. Your expertise is just, um, like I could just eat this all day long. I just so appreciate it. Follow Robbie. If you're not already on LinkedIn, on any other channel, listen to her podcast, subscription stories.

I've been like obsessing over this podcast, totally binging it over the last few weeks. It's awesome. And then lastly, her new book, please pick that up. The forever transaction. Grab one, please. One more time. Thank you, Robbie. Bye. Have fun. [00:32:00] One of the top things I hear from individuals all over, something people are increasingly wanting is people who say, I want more connection with like minded colleagues.

If that resonates, I created a new community and you're invited to join. It's an online gathering place for arts and culture professionals wanting a different, stronger paradigm for the industry. It's a place for those not satisfied with the status quo for arts and culture, who believe there is a better way forward, and that the future of the field doesn't have to be all doom and gloom.

It's a place of people trying to navigate the ins and outs of careers in the arts and want smart, growth mindset type people alongside them. It's a place called the Changing the Narrative Community. I'm so excited by the folks who've already joined and no matter your artistic discipline, geographic location, role, or years in the field, you are welcome and invited as well.

Visit aubreybergauer. com slash community. The narrative is changing, and I [00:33:00] hope to see you there soon. 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, at Aubrey Burgauer. Definitely hit that follow button to subscribe to this podcast, and if you like what you heard here, will you consider leaving a review or rating?

I'd be so grateful for your help and support in that. Thanks again. See you next time on The Offstage Mic. The Offstage Mic was produced by me, Aubrey Burgauer, and edited by Novo Music, a studio of all women audio engineers and musicians. The narrative is changing for arts and culture, and I'm so glad you're here to be a part of it.

This is a production of Changing the Narrative.