012: Breaking Even Before Becoming a Full Time Entrepreneur with Bree Noble, Founder of Women of Substance

Hello everybody, its Neil Ball here, thank you so much for joining me today on the entrepreneur way. The entrepreneur way is about the entrepreneur’s journey. The vision, the mindset, the committment, the sacrifice, failures and successes. I am so excited to bring your our special guest today, Bree Noble. Before I introduce you to her, I will just give you something to think about. Paul Samuelson said, ‘good questions outrank easy answers.’ The entrepreneur way asks the questions. So we all get the insight, inspiration and ideas to apply in our businesses. Bree welcome to the show, are you ready to share your version of the entrepreneur way with us?

I am ready.

Fantastic. Bree Noble is an entrepreneur, musician and speaker, she founded women of substance, radio and pod cast to promote quality female artists in all genres. The pod cast is a five-day per week show that promotes independent female artists. It hit number one in new and noteworthy in all three of its categories and number four audio pod cast on all of itunes. She draws on her extensive experience running her own music business. Both as a solo musician and as an industry professional. To train and mentor other female musicians through her female musician academy. On her weekly pod cast, female entrepreneur musician she conducts interviews with successful indie female artists and industry pro’s that are both inspirational and informational. Bree, can you provide us with some more insight into your business and personal life, to allow us to get to know more about what you do and who you are?

Sure, so what I don’t put in my bio, I suppose is the stuff that is personal which is, I’m married, I have two kids. Two daughters, one is 12 right on the cusp of being a teenager, and one is 7. And when I started my business, my kids were little, so I grew my business very much kind of from being a hobby and just doing it on the side. Slowly grew and when I saw that it was really catching on, then it was a great time once my second daughter hit pre-school and then kindergarden, to really take it to the next level. And I was so glad that I had already built that foundation then I could just launch into the business and I did not have to think ‘ok now my kids are off to school – what am I going to do with myself?’ You know I already had this kind of launching pad.

Ok great. And what is it you enjoy most about what you do?

I’d say what I enjoy most is working with the artists. I, especially in the female musician academy now, I have a chance to work with them on a daily basis. You know answering questions and the facebook group and when I’m doing classes, working with them one-on-one and in person, you know because we do google hang-out kind of small groups in class and its really awesome to be able to get to know them. To hear all about their music, related frustrations and their business and really feel like I could help them because I have been in their shoes.

And do you specialise in a particular type of music or is it a broad type or is it?

Its pretty broad. Obviously I specialised with the female musicians, just because I love working with female musicians, I started out wanting to help female musicians get more of a platform online to be promoted because I felt like they were not being heard on the radio, like they should and there are so many fantastic artists. And then I just really enjoyed working with females and I wanted to stick with that niche. So its not any particular kind of music but I notice I tend to attract a certain kind of people based upon who I am. And a lot of those people are performing, you know more of the kind of positive pop inspirational some of them are christian contemporary because thats one of the areas I worked in as an artist. But I don’t seem to attract like grunge and metal and rap. Those are not really my thing. Although I like some of that kind of music but I tend to attract more of the full positive pop, straight up pop rock kind of music.

Mmmm hmmm. And can you just tell us a bit more about the type of music that you used to be involved in?

Sure, so I was a single/songwriter and so I wrote alot of my own music based upon my own experiences, as we often do. And you know growing up in the church and having a faith myself, I did have alot of songs that were related to my faith and so I ended up performing at alot of churches. But not all of my songs were specifically faith based you know, but I am very big on positive music. I think music has the ability to encourage us, to change us, to make us see things that we don’t see in our own experience. And you know I want to be the encouraging side of that, and not the negative side. Obviously I bring up struggles that we all face in my music because I think that music can kind of take you to that place you know in a safe way. In a way, take you to that place where you remember those struggles, you know and you can kind of feel those struggles, but then it can bring you back to a place of positivity. And so that was always my kind of focus with my music is to encourage and to be really really vulnerable with my lyrics. And with my stories too that I talked about before I would perform, I was always very very candid about what my songs were about, and I found that really was encouraging and helpful to the audience, whether they had gone through exactly what I had gone through or not, because obviously most of them had their own struggles. But just the idea that someone had been through those struggles, and had fought through them. And they could kind of see my journey through my music, that was really really encouraging and it touched them and it brought them closer to me and it helped me really get some fans magnetically.

And what is it that drives you Bree?

What drives me I think is first of all my love of music, and my feeling that it is a really powerful medium. And just wanting to help female artists because I was out there, you know for so many years trying to figure out how to have my place in this industry. It took me a long time to figure that out. And what I finally figured out was I could not wait around for anybody else to hand me, you know a ticket to having a career, I had to go out and make my career from the ground up, and so what drives me is I want to teach them that they don’t need to wait around for some people to just have been on a white horse and say ‘ok now here you have a music career, I’m handing it to you.’ You know, everybody that I have talked to that does have a record deal. They are like, ‘as soon as I got my record deal, that is when the work began.’ Its not like all of sudden, you know, here you go. Now you have a ‘career’ in just music and just go out and do it. I want to teach them,that you have the reins in your hands, and you need to build this thing from the ground up and whether you want a record label, to notice you or not, you still need to build something because nowadays, they don’t have money for artists development. You need to get noticed. You need to have them follow you and like, ‘oh I should really pay attention to this artist, they are bringing in all kinds of fans to their shows and they have this big of a mailing list, and they have this kind of an only presence. And that is what is going to attract the record labels and the managers, and the booking agents and the people that you need to take your career to the second level.

Mmm, so I get the idea that there is a bit of self marketing in there from what you are saying?

Absolutely, absolutely. That is one thing that drives me is to teach them to do the self marketing and alot of musicians are uncomfortable with that. We will get out on stage and we will bare our entire soul through our music. But then we don’t want to talk about why people should come to our shows and buy our music.

Mmm its a bit difficult. Its a very tough industry, I think the music industry, isn’t it? I get the idea it is, not knowing an awful lot about it. Theres alot of competition of people trying to get into it though isn’t there? so

Theres alot of competition, and it is hard, but I also believe that every artist has their own corner that they can claim, and you know not everybody in the world has the same tastes in music. And you are going to attract, its just like in business, you are going to attract the people that you are going to attract. You just have to put yourself out there to attract them.

And Bree, when you are not working on your business, how do you relax? what is it you get up to?

Oh my goodness, I was thinking about this, because I get this question all the time and I don’t always relax. Which isn’t good. You know obviously I love spending time with my husband, my kids, and lately I have gotton into Mozart and the Jungle, which I have been obsessed with. I have binged on the entire first season over the last week but you know shows that really really get under my skin, that is what I love to do in the evening when I am just too tired to work. I also perform in different places in town and lead worship with my church and so that is great outlet for me, when I am not helping other musicians, I am still kind of keeping in the game, I do a few demos for other artists, for other song writers and thats kind of a different outlet to, its a little bit relaxing and freeing to just sing sometimes.

And do you have any entrepreneurial role models? I suspect you have probably got different ones to alot of people, with your background there, so it will be interesting to hear who motivates you.

Well its funny because there aren’t alot of people out there that are doing this the way that I am doing it with music, so there aren’t that many entrepreneurial role models in the music side that I have. There are a few people that I have interviewed on my show, that are music coaches that I really admire and one of which I interviewed very recently, named Temra Gallon, she’s actually from England. She really, I felt like she was just my sister as far as having the same philosophy. As I do, but most of my role models are really in the business world and because what I want to do is bring this business world to the musicians because most of them are completely clueless about how the business world works. And how it can help them. I really seek out role models in the business world, so I started out, really one of my major role models was John Lee Dumas because he had a successful pod cast, thats what I wanted to do. You know, so I followed a lot of what he did, I was in his elite mastermind, and learned alot from him. And then kind of struck out on my own. And some of my role models probably will include like Pat Flynn and Bryan Harris, just because they are super transparent with what they do, and I love that, I love watching them. You know they are willing to give all their numbers publicly. I can analyse what they are doing, and see how that is going to work in my business. They are not holding anything back and I think thats really attractive.

Yeh

And also, a female role model for me was probably Charlene Johnson because she approaches business the way I do. She is very practical minded, she is very specific in her teaching. Which I love, she is never like vague. She is like, ‘this is how I do it, this is why I do it this way.’ And to me like, what’s the point of teaching people stuff if you are going to be vague? You know even on her pod cast, she gets very specific about what she does and why she does it that way, and I have learned alot from her and I have taken alot of my style from what she does.

Ok. thanks for that, so Bree, can we now go back to the time before you were an entrepreneur, and just talk about what sort of difficulties you had to overcome when you started your business?

Before I was an entrepreneur, I worked actually as a Director of Finance at an Opera company. So, hence one reason why Mozart and the Jungle has recently become my favourite show, because its very similar. Its about a symphony orchestra and I worked at the opera. Worked behind the scenes all the time. But, it was really cool, you know, I got to go sit in the front row for every show and you know, go to all the after parties and all the fancy balls and all that stuff, but on the other hand, it was really stressful, because the arts a very difficult industry. Working in a non-profit and being the accountant there is stressful because the flow of money is never even. Theres some times of the year when we have a ton of money and you feel like on top of the world and then there are other times that you are scraping by and you are calling the bank every night to make sure that your payroll is going to go through. So that was really stressful and I loved working there, but there was just a lot of drama, a lot of stress and once I started having kids, I was just like, ‘I don’t know if I can take this anymore.’ And so this whole time while I was at the opera, I was trying to do a music career on the side and I certainly would have quit the minute I had a ‘music career’ where I could say, ‘I’m full time and I could afford to quit.’ because you know I was making pretty good money.

But I was not being able to get a full time career because I had no clue how to build a business as a musician. I was trying to be in all these other bands and try to grab onto their coat-tails. And not figuring how to do this as an individual. So finally just the stress and having my first child and trying to juggle everything just drove me to quit anyway and re-organise my lifestyle, and scale down and move closer to my husband’s work, so I could then be home with my daughter. And at that point, I am like ‘ok now I have time to really focus on the music career because I’m not doing anything else.’ and that was when I started to really hone in and figure out that I needed to be my own advocate as a musician and that was when I really started my first stages of my business, I mean obviously then I was a musician. And that was when I built my music career, and I toured and all that stuff, and that is very different from what I do now. But its the basis for what I do now. Otherwise I don’t feel like I could talk honestly to the musicians because I had not been in their shoes. So that needed to happen first.

Well thats great, and did you have any doubts that delayed you starting your business?

Well certainly on the music side, I had a lot of doubts. Obviously I spent ten years trying to figure out how to do it. But also having little kids, you know, could I really tour when I have little kids? you know, but I figured it out. I brought my mom with me on tour, and she watched them and but for the business side like, with the women of substance, the only doubt that I had in the beginning was I needed to make it break even before I started doing it, I was not going to do and just go in the hole, so I figured out a way to re-coup my past at that time. To start building it, and I built it so slowly because I was home with kids, that the first five years it was just a slow building. At least maybe then the first four years and then the fifth year we became a professional station and I started selling advertising and all that. And so every year I just built it, so I don’t know that there were any doubts, there was certainly a doubt when I moved to doing the female musician academy because I’m like ‘do I have what it takes to be a teacher to these people?’ You know I needed to feel like I was going to be able to give massive value before I started selling something. You know and there is always that imposter syndome. You know like, I am not some super successful entrepreneur, yet I was a musician and successful but I was not like, you know I did not have grammys and all that. Are they really going to listen to me? You know those kind of doubts.

And what mistakes did you make that slowed your journey?

I would say with the female musician academy for a while I was like, ‘oh my gosh I need to build this huge platform before I could sell anything to anyone. And so that was the biggest mistake because it held me back for several months of when I think I could have launched. Just because I thought that and then I finally, I was on a call, with John Lee Dumas and I said, my understanding is that I need to build this whole thing before I sell it, and he is like ‘thats crap, you need to sell it now.’ Like you have the authority, you have this list of people that know you. You need to sell it based upon your credibility. Give them a good discount. Get them in there, start building it, and then you can use that as testimonials to get more people in there. Once you have built the platform out alot more and so I am really glad that I finally asked that question, and that I took his advice, it probably took me another two months to have the guts to take his advice. Because I, theres still a lot of things you need to do. You need to actually have a platform and figure out the right way to do it and all that but yeh, I am so glad that I asked that question. I took his advice, but if I could go back, I would do it much earlier I would think.

And what are some of things you did before you started your business? That would be helpful tips for some of the listeners who have not yet taken their first step of the entrepreneur way?

Well the biggest thing I think is growing my list, so and my following because I had women of substance, its an aligned pursuit to what I want to do with the female musician academy and so I had been building that as a brand, as a list, as a following, on social media for years, and I built it slowly. But when it was time to launch, I had a list. I had a list of 3500 people and so that was what allowed me to actually launch when it was time and have the credibility to be able to launch. I could not have just started with nothing. So I think whatever niche you are in, you need to go out there and start building your list.

Yeh thats some great advice because thats pretty universal in most businesses as well isn’t it? Its not just what you do, I think that applies to any business. So thats great.

Mmm hmmm.

So Bree, can we just move forward now to your entrepreneurial journey itself? and just talk about a few things there, so do you think culture is important from the beginning in a business? In terms of the culture you create within the business with people that you work with and things?

I think so, I mean within a business where for me I did not have any employees for a very very long time. But I think the culture that I created within having all of my customers or the artists that I work with, it was super important for them to feel like they could trust me. Because musicians get really frustrated when they feel like they are having to outlay money upon money to promote themselves, and they are not bringing in any money. You know and so they just feel like everyone is taking advantage of them and so for me I had to really develop this trust with my artist and promote the fact that I am on their side. Because otherwise they are just going to feel like I am another one of those people thats taking their money and not giving them anything in return. I wanted them to understand that I was going to give them massive value. But yes, I need them to invest a little bit of money with me, even if it is just 15 bucks or whatever to have their music reviewed so I can decide whether they belong on my radio station. You know, I have got to run my business, so I can’t do that for free and I need them to understand that but I also need them to understand that I am going to provide them with as much value as possible because I am on their side.

And knowing what you know now, is there anything that if you had known it when you started out, would have helped you to shortcut the learning curve?

I would say, just again, the whole thing about building my platform, and not waiting around until I had something built. I probably could have started the female musician academy 6 months to a year earlier. That would have been good, But I did not do and I wish I had, but it turned out fine in the end. You know, but it would be nice, you could always hope to get more time back, because time is the thing that you cannot ever get back. You can make more money and stuff, but you can’t make more time. So you know I wish I would have moved into that area a little earlier.

Mmm hmm and how much does gut feelings influence your decisions in your business?

You know, I’m really a practical person so I’m not sure that gut feeling plays that much of a role. I always validate my decisions. I’m always in a mastermind or have an accountability partner or a mentor or something that I run through all my decisions with, because I don’t know if I trust my gut feeling, I mean I have certain gut feelings but I want to go to someone who has already done what I am doing or at least has experience with it and gleen what I can from them because why should I screw up when I have the opportunity not to?

Yeh absolutely, its interesting though because when I talk to different people there seems to be a whole range of different answers on this of people at one extreme. People at another and then people somewhere in the middle. So I always think its fascinating just to see how different people apply gut feeling or not, or how much they do. So Bree, life is made of constant change whether we like it or not, so I believe that one of the only constants in life is change. So how do you try to keep up with change in your business?

I think the biggest thing is to stay educated, like I am constantly learning. I am constantly learning from people that I respect and watching their business and try to model my business after that. And if I do that, and I watch people that are a little bit ahead of where I am, I can see where the changes have hit them, and I can be ready. You know, to me its like, why should I be this lone ship sailing on the sea when I can have a whole fleet whose out ahead of me watching to see if a storm is coming, you know?

Mmm hmm. Its a good philosophy. Bree, what is your favourite book on entrepreneurialism, business, personal development, leadership, or motivation. And can you tell us why you have chosen it?

Sure, I think my favourite book is probably ‘the one thing’ by Gary Keller and JA Paperson, because I have a tendency to get distracted by alot of really exciting things, that I could do in my business and they are all good but then probably you end up doing all of them you know like half-assed like you just its so easy to like, this week I’m like ‘oh, I’ve got to do this in my business’ and the next week its ‘oh I heard this person doing this thing and they are crushing it, I need to do this’ you know? and so what I really need to do is focus on one thing. At least for 90 days and so I can really really hone in on that thing and do a good job at it, and then move on. So that is what that book really solidified for me.

Excellent, thank you. Everyone, when you have a busy life, listening to an audio book is a great way to expand your knowledge in the time when you may be doing other things. Such as driving your car or when you are at the gym. We have a special offer for you of a free audio book of your choosing, to choose your free audio book go to freeaudiobookoffer.com as long as you have not already signed up, you will qualify. Bree, what we are going to do now is we are going to fast forward into the future a little bit. Initially we will start around about now and a bit further forward. So what is the one thing you would do with your business if you knew you could not fail?

I think that I would number one, just try and serve as many people as possible. And I think the one thing I would do is I would really really scale up my facebook ads, because they really have been very successful for me. In getting new leads into my business, getting to know new people, getting new people to know me, and getting them into my world. But you know sometimes there is that fear of like ok I’m going to put all this money into these facebook ads and then is it going to translate into new customers? You know and I invest every month in facebook ads but I have a budget and I don’t go over it because its so easy to go over. Its like oh this ones working, this ones working. But then what if you don’t see it on the other end. Then you are up a creek you know, so if I knew I was not going to fail, I would double or triple my facebook ad spend I think, because its been a great platform for getting to know new people and getting them into my business.

Do you track your facebook ads in terms of how many people, how much its costing you to acquire a customer and what your conversion rates are?

Oh definately yeh. I was just actually doing those numbers last night. You know and there are certain ones where I am getting people to submit their music to me, and that gets them into my world, and those actually I break even or even make a little money on that but obviously have a little work to do on the other end.

Yeh

But then theres other ones where I am just driving people to my pod cast, and getting them to consume some really good content that I provided. Then I know how much it is costing me for each one of my clicks, there and a load of my leads, so that is how I can know what I am spending and how much it is working, but I do set an amount per month and I kind of watch my ads that way and if I am starting to go over then I pull back one or the other. You know if I have some special thing that I am promoting, like a webinar, then I will scale it up for just a few days and then I will scale back in other areas. Because I want to keep that, you know its really important to me to stay on budget.

Mmm I can understand that. I think the one thing with doing that kind of thing is if you have got a good grasp with your numbers ultimately. It should self-finance itself shouldn’t it eventually? Once you understand your numbers and you get the trend and everything in there?

Yes and I’ve scaled up my facebook ads in the last 2 or 3 months and I don’t quite have enough data to quite feel like ‘ok I can really scale this thing up now because I know exactly what it is going to bring in on the back end.’ So I’m still working on that, I think like maybe in another 3 months I will be ok. I know if I put in this much money, I will get out this much money. And right now I don’t have an absolute clear picture yet, I just have enough to know that it is really working.

But you are getting there. So what skill if you were excellent at it would help you the most to double your business?

I would say for me, its probably building funnels, because, and I think I have really gained alot about that skill but I am not very fast at writing copy, I’m not as fast at designing the page, you know because I am doing this all myself. That is something that I am not outsourcing at this moment, and I probably should but I really like doing it and I really like customising everything. But I feel like I need to get more funnels out there to get people into my business because once they are and get to know me and trust me, then we end up having a really great relationship over the years. And they will do more business with me but, I need more touch points out there, and those are usually through different kind of funnels that I am advertising certain courses that I have created in the academy that will interest specific groups. So, I would love to be able to whip out a funnel in an afternoon and I’m not quite there yet.

Yeh they are quite time consuming I think.

yeh.

In five years from now, if a well known business publication was publishing an article about your business, after talking to your customers and suppliers, what would you like it to say?

I would love for it to say, first of all, that they consider me a friend. They consider me a trusted source and someone that provides huge amounts of value to them, but I would also just love to see many of them get profiled and their businesses get the spotlight of like ‘oh I started out with nothing and now I have got 5,000 loyal fans, I am making this much money a month. I’m touring and I’m performing at these amazing venues.’ you know? I would love to just mostly spotlight and profile the people that I work with to see where their careers have grown in that five years and hopefully, I have been a major part of that.

Mmmhmm sounds good. So we are now at the part of the show where you share three golden nuggets with us, so Bree, what is your favourite quote and how have you applied it?

My favourite quote is definately and I am not sure if I am going to get this exactly right but the more people you help get what they want, the more you will get what you want, you know. The Zig Zigler quote because for me its all about, as I was just saying with what I want people to say about me in five years, its all about me pouring out great value to these artists and helping them get where they want to go in their career, and that is going to get me what I want because it is going to grow my business. You know the more people see that the teaching that I am giving out is helping other people, the more I am going to want to come in and you know it is just as great like cycle that I want to create in my business. And I want to feel like I am helping people but also get what I want as far as growing a business that I can do and on my own terms. Thats flexible and that I just get to work with cool people.

Well, sounds like you are getting there. And do you have any favourite online resources that you can share with us that would be useful to the listeners?

Lets see, one I use every day. I definately use ‘Meet Edgar’ to do my social posting. Which has been a life-saver for me, but I also have a couple of outsourcers, and I have gotton them through virtual staff-finder. Which was a godsend for me because I was super nervous about going on like up work or any of those places, and trying to find outsourcers, because I just did not know if I was going to get quality people. And so using virtual staff-finder was great because I got two really good assistants through that, and I have been working with them now for 7 months or something. Its so easy to work with outsourcers when you actually interview them, and there is a process and they go through and do a whole personality analysis on them to see if they are going to be a good fit for me and stuff. And it has made it so much easier than trying to do that on my own.

And what is your best advice to other entrepreneurs?

Boy thats a general question, my best advice is as I said earlier, start building your list, even if you don’t have a product. Start interacting with your future audience, and I also think just being transparent. Being transparent as much as you can, being vulnerable, because those are the kind of entrepreneurs that really draw me in, like I said Pat Flynn is one of those who I said just does everything out in the open. And Brian Harris is one that I have really started watching because he calls what he does ‘learning out loud.’ Which I love because it allows us to learn along with him, but also because he has done so much learning out loud, he has become an authority. And so I think that, thats really attractive. So don’t feel like you have to make it look like you have everything under control, you have everything all figured out. You know you obviously want to have an authority,about what you do, but its ok to say like you know ‘ooh I just discovered this new thing and I am going to try to figure it out and I am going to let you guys see what happens. You know, do some experimenting.

I think I am going to do that with periscope at some point.

Yeh I know I have kind of been the same way with periscope, I don’t love video on my phone very much. But I know that it is something that is going to be helpful for a musician, so I definately need to get into periscope.

And the other one I have been looking at recently, is it Blag I think its called?

Blab?

Blab sorry thats the one, yeh.

Yes yes. Thats another one too. I have already signed up with Blab, I just have not done a Blab yet.

No, neither have I. Everyone, if you did not manage to get a note of Bree’s favourite resource or her favourite book, you can find the links on Bree’s shownotes page, just go to the entrepreneur way and search for Bree or search for Bree Noble in the search box. Bree is there anything else that you would like to add about your business?

I would say, first of all if you love good music by female artists, you definately need to check out women of substance radio and podcast so you can search in your app store, for women of substance. And we have an app for the radio station where you can listen to not just independent artists but all kinds of female artists, ones you would hear on the radio and then ones that you are going to discover. So you can check that out, or you can check out our podcasts, its a five day a week podcast. For women of substance, and its a really good place to discover new music and new artists, that you will never hear on the radio unfortunately. And then if you are a musician, you know connect with me. Come hang out and listen to the female entrepreneur musician pod cast, and learn from all of my guests, and from some of the solo episodes I do about experiences I have had in my career, and I think that will be a great resource for you to get started, and give you some ideas on how to move your career forward.

Ok Bree its been an absolute honour chatting with you and having you on the show. You have really provided us with some great perspective and insight into the entrepreneur way, and you have certainly inspired me and given me a lot to think about, and hopefully the listeners will feel the same about that. So thank you very much for coming on here.

Your welcome, its been fun.

Good thank you.