Music For Kiddos Podcast
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There are some questions about sensory regulation, songwriting & early childhood music education that I get asked on a consistent basis over on Instagram or Facebook. Especially since the release of my Social Media Marketing For Music Therapists & Music Educators course last year, I’ve increasingly received questions about how I run my online business, Music For Kiddos.
So I’m going to answer some of my most frequently asked questions (FAQs) about how is it that I am able to create an online business, in a really specialized way, with a relatively small audience, that provides a full-time income.
Do you want to know what is one of the most important things when running an online business? Consistency.
My best example about consistency: I have delivered an original, professionally recorded children's song to your inboxes every month, for free, for the past couple of years. This is something that I promised to do, over four years ago and I have done it every year and every month, even if it’s sent out the last day of the month but I stay consistent and I'm still delivering what I promised. That's just sometimes how life goes, right?
Consistency is taking whatever you are offering, whether that is educational material, resources, knowledge, ideas, etc. Whatever it is that you are offering and delivering it to the people who are looking for it consistently.
Maybe you are doing a podcast and you have an episode once a week. Maybe you are delivering some kind of free resource. Maybe you are doing something special on social media, especially as you're getting started, once or two times a week. The idea is that it is very consistent and people can rely on it.
Now that we know that being consistent is one of the most important things about running an online business, I'm going to give you other important aspects and some ideas that have worked for me as far as getting my business going. Keep in mind, these are really basic ideas that, in my opinion, could work for any type of business model.
Along with being consistent, being persistent is a super important element when you’re starting or growing an online business. Persistence is simply the fact that no business is going to “blow up” overnight. In fact, it is going to be a slog.
To give you an idea my first year of business where I was working really hard at it (I'm talking at least 20 hours a week in my business while working another job), I lost money and it took me about 18 months to really realize that I could actually make real money in my business.
It took me up until the two-year point to make a considerable amount of money a month where I started thinking “wow, this could actually turn into a significant amount monthly income.” It was such a hobby until around that two-year point.
I had things along the way that were giving me an idea that my business was working:
My social media was growing
My email list was growing.
There was a little bit more chatter about what I was doing.
Interestingly, when I started, I had done research on businesses like mine and first and for watever reason, two years stuck out in my head. So I told myself that if I was serious about this business, that I was going to do it for two years and I could not stop. If at the two year point it wasn't working, I was going to walk away. In my second year in business, I met my initial goal, which was to make $2,000 a month in extra income at the two-year point.
Specialize in something
As you are formulating your idea for your business, I think it’s a good idea to specialize in something. Identify your niche.
For example, there are so many music therapists, so many music educators, but there are so many little specialties in what we do. What is a specialty? Something that you are exceedingly good at, that you love, and that can be your area of focus.
For me, my area of specialty is writing songs for kids.
When I started, every single part of my business was about the songs that I was writing for kids. As my business grew, there were inevitably some pivots and some changes.
But I have always brought it back to these original resources and songs for music therapists and music educators. As my business pivoted and grew, I started involving people who were really good at other things, too, things that they were specialized in.
I started to feature these colleagues I’ve collaborated with on my website but the content is largely focused in songs and resources, and what I believe is my biggest contribution and mission, which is providing and sharing high-quality children's songs.
Is it too late?
One of the questions I get asked all the time is “is it too late?”
Many feel like there are already many other people doing what they want to be doing. They feel their ideas aren’t original. That the market is saturated. And to that say that I felt the same way when I started, because I'm not sure that there is such a thing as a completely original business. But what makes a business original and unique? A specialized offering.
My best advice is to make sure that you're offering something different, or slightly different. If you are a children's musician, maybe your style is different than somebody else's. If you're a music therapist, maybe you specialize in working with seniors. Maybe you work in childbirth or in the NICU. There's always some kind of specialized area that people are touching on a little bit, but nobody's doing a deep dive in that area, and that's where you want to focus on. You definitely don't want to copy anybody as you're doing this, but there are ways to do your own unique thing without copying.
About pivoting…
I’ve mentioned that my business has pivoted a number of times and the reason for this is simply because I'm open to the idea that I don’t have it all figured out. I will also tell you that my business idea in my head is actually really different than what it looks like now but as long as you're open-minded as you go, the pivots are really easy to come by.
Some projects you work tirelessly for many months, you launch them, and they completely bomb. Others, you work on them and they are a complete success. So you pivot, you change and you find something different, and when it works, you do that again and you try and improve on it each time.
The importance of collaboration & generosity
The last things I want to share with you are perhaps the most important when running a business. Collaboration and generosity. I've been really fortunate to collaborate with some wonderful people, colleagues that specialize in other things they are exceptionally good at. In order to expand Music For Kiddos, having the opportunity to collaborate with other professionals was the next step.
Collaborating with others has been the most joyful and happy part of my work.
Collaboration goes hand in hand with generosity; it is quite possibly the largest business value of mine. If you ask my friends, my family, the people who hear about my business regularly and my collaborators, they will tell you that being generous is something that I care deeply about.
I think it's really important that when you ask someone to be a part of your business where you will be making money in any way, shape or form, that not only they get fairly compensated for that work every single time, but that they get to be involved in making a real commission (not just a flat rate). When you run a business that is generous and that pays people every single penny they're owed, you then have lifelong collaborators to partner with.
You will feel good about your business every step of the way. Your collaborators will feel good about your business as well as your customers, because they will absolutely pick up on that.
This also applies with being generous when sharing resources and offerings.
Insert generosity into your business because your business then will become this thing that grows on its own, and feels really good for everybody that's involved.
If you’re interested in learning more about how I built my business and the strategies I used (and still use!) to make a full-time income online, check out my course Social Media Marketing for Music Therapists & Music Educators to learn more!
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