Revolutionizing Music Education: Integrating Technology with Katie Argyle of Midnight Music

Are you looking to integrate technology into your music teaching practice? Then, join us as we sit down with Katie Argyle, the mastermind behind Midnight Music, an online membership program revolutionizing music education. Katie's journey from a music student working in a retail music shop to a technology educator for music teachers is filled with fascinating insights and practical advice. We get into the nitty-gritty of her transition from live workshops to the digital space, her obstacles, and her secret to overcoming them. 

We spent much time unpacking the robust marketing strategy propelling Midnight Music to succeed. Katie sheds light on content-driven marketing, the power of a solid email list, and her approach to growing her membership program. We also dive into the intricacies of running an online business—creating engaging content, managing specialized teams, and delegating responsibilities. With a knack for adapting to changing landscapes, Katie shares her experience of tweaking business strategies amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our conversation with Katie also delves into the challenges of finding the right team members for a virtual outfit, her method of batching tasks, and her innovative approach to creating content for her courses. Katie also shares her insights on handling the 'teaching technology' aspect, emphasizing the importance of not assuming knowledge and not making people feel inadequate. This insightful discussion brings valuable lessons for anyone interested in blending music education with technology, running an online business, or learning from a unique success story.
Check out Katie's website: https://midnightmusic.com/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of the business for
musicians podcast.
In today's episode I sat downwith Katie Oregal, who is from
Australia, and she runs amembership program named
Midnight Music, and this isbasically where she teaches
technology to teachers, to musiceducators.

(00:21):
If you're a music educator andyou're looking to incorporate
technology into your curriculum,your classroom, your teaching,
Katie specializes in that andwe're living at a time now where
especially AI has become a bigpart of how we do things and
it's only going to get moreintegrated into our lives and

(00:42):
also in music.
And so, as a teacher, youdefinitely need to be on your
technology game and Katie hasfound a space right there where
she's the bridge betweentechnology and you know the old
fashioned way of teaching musicin the classroom and she's
incorporating that.
So in this episode I ask hereverything about how she came

(01:05):
about this business, how itworks.
You know challenges, all ofthat great stuff.
There's a lot to learn fromKatie about how she runs this
online business full time.
You know pretty successfulbusiness doing over six figures
in revenue, teaching teachershow to incorporate technology

(01:26):
into their classroom.
All right, so stick around.
That's what we're going to bediscussing today with Katie
Orgile.
Six years ago, I took myteaching skills online and now I
make multiple six figures inannual revenue, teaching piano
to students worldwide whileworking less than eight hours a
day.
My name is Warren McPherson,the founder and CEO of Piano

(01:50):
Lesson with Warrencom, and ifyou want to learn how I broke
free from the nine to five pianostudio teaching, the late
nights and weekend giggingschedule, you came to the right
place.
At the business for musicianspodcast, I'll share tips,
strategies and tools to help youbreak free from the trading

(02:11):
time for money hamster wheel soyou, too, can build a profitable
online business while workingfewer hours and from the comfort
of your home.
Well, welcome again, Katie.
It's a pleasure to have youhere on the Business for
Musicians podcast, and the goalhere is just basically to share

(02:31):
our skill of how we were able tobuild an online business in the
music industry space.
So that's what we do over hereat the Business for Musician
podcast.
So welcome again.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Thank you Great to be here.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
So I actually met Katie in the Membership Academy,
sort of online platform groups,which is an online membership
for people who run membershipsite, and after communicating
with Katie, I asked her, invitedher hey, would you like to come
on my podcast and share your,your, your niche and your skill

(03:05):
and ideas with us?
Seeing that you're in the musicindustry space, but very
different than what I do, whichis kind of unique I wanted to
get some insights on that andthat's why I invited Katie on.
So my first questions for youis how do you have any
background in music performanceor music education?

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, so my parents actually are both music
educators and they're pretendingto be retired at the moment
because they're both in their70s, but they can't help
themselves.
They both still teach, orthey're not.
Or my mum's actually anaccompanist who plays piano, and
she does a lot of accompanyingand repetitive kind of work and

(03:49):
accompanies kids at exams andall sorts of things.
So she's still doing that.
My dad's still teaching as well, anyway, but growing up, me and
my brother were surrounded bymusic and music education things
, and so I think it wasinevitable that we would both do
something along those linesourselves.
But I did a music degree.
So I went to the University ofMelbourne here where I'm based

(04:13):
and I chose to do education.
So I came out with a teachingdegree in music education and my
instruments through school.
I started piano when I was fiveso I've always played piano and
done a lot of singing over time.
We were a big choral family sodone a lot of that.
But at school I did oboe andbassoon so I double reads.
And then at university Iactually did early music.

(04:36):
I did recorder and did likeBaroque and Renaissance music,
so very different and there wasonly a couple of us doing that
through through university atthe time but but yeah,
performing was never really mything.
I was much more into arrangingarranging music, I think and I
love to.
I love to perform in some ways.
So I've sung in acapella groupsand things as well, but that's

(04:58):
not like professionally on stageat great length or anything
Played in musicals and the bandof the musicals and stuff that
my parents were putting on, andso that was the extent of that.
But it's been, it's been goodover the years.
But then I never ended up fullygoing into teaching as such.
I sort of decided to see whatelse was out there and what else

(05:19):
I might do, because I knew if Itook a teaching job in a school
teaching music, I would notexplore anything else.
I knew that I would just go anddo that and that would be it.
So I thought I'll just, youknow, see what else is out there
.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
But so you pursue other interests outside of me?
Yeah, I just.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
I just took like a.
I did a retail music shop jobfor a while.
That was fine.
Oh you, can you learn how todeal with the general public?
So that was good, good skillsto pick up Good sales skills and
, ironically, working in a musicshop, I actually worked in the
sheet music department and thefunny thing about that was, in
order to properly help thecustomers in the sheet music

(05:59):
department, it was a lot ofclassical sheet music and
teachers who were ringing upabout repertoire for their
students and things.
You needed to have a musicdegree in order to communicate
with those people.
Quite well, but the salary youwere paid was a retail music
shop salary.
I mean, this was nothing sothat teachers would expect.
They're like, can you go andcheck what key that piece is in?

(06:20):
Or they'd hum a bit of someclassical melody and like, do
you know what this is?
I need the sheet music.
And I'd be like, ok, well,we've got a book with themes, I
can go and look it up andtranspose it into C and with the
thing it's anyway, it was crazy.
So that was for a while.
But I moved into sort of otherareas, but always really
connected with education in someway and eventually, after a

(06:42):
number of jobs, a friend of minewho worked for the Sibelius
software company, you know justa music notation.
He rang me up and he said do you, do you want a job working with
Sibelius for a couple of days aweek?
And I was like, yeah, that'd begreat.
So that was how I got that joband he and I were doing a bit of
sort of copying work andpassing jobs back and forth to

(07:04):
each other with typesetting,music and things, and so I
worked for them and that's how Ireally got into technology and
I was totally thrown in the deepand I knew nothing much about
computers.
I just barely got by really andlearned so much in that job.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
So that was a great way Approximately what year this
was.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
It was?
What year was it?
It was Sibelius version twowhen I started working for the
company.
I could probably look up a lotof work out what year that was.
It would have been Wellactually no, it was around the
time my son was born, so 2005,.
Maybe it was a bit later thanSibelius version two.
Anyway, around the time my sonwas born I did have another job

(07:47):
and I ended up sort of just justleaving that and working for
Sibelius so I could look at myson.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, yeah.
So even in 2005, musictechnology still wasn't that
it's no longer advanced.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
It was as it is now, so that was still kind of like
early days of music technology.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
That's good.
That's good, it was hard work.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
So the part of the job and this is why I ended up
sort of where I am now is thatthe part of that job that I
liked the most was that we werepart of the job was teaching
people how to use the software alittle bit, but mostly teachers
were using the software thatwas.
The biggest market in Australiawas music.
Teachers were using Sibelius,and so I ended up presenting at

(08:30):
conferences and runningworkshops for the teachers in
how to use Sibelius software andthat was the part of the job I
really liked.
The part I did not like was thetech support that I had to do
one day a week I had to answerall the tech support questions
and that was not fun, although Ilearned a lot as well.
But yeah, the part that I reallyliked was working with the
teachers and presenting.

(08:51):
Presenting at workshops andconferences was just great
because you got to see the helpthat you could give the teachers
first hand.
You know I could see suddenlythe light bulb would come on or
they'd say, oh, I never realizedyou could do it that way and
that was so much quicker thanwhat they were doing and I just
love.
I loved that so much.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
So yeah, so you took that knowledge for a into
technology.
And you were able to create abusiness later on that you
called Midnight Music yeah,which is an online membership.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, everyone wants to know about where the name
came from.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah, so when I was working, for Sibelius.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
I was doing copying and arranging work and working
for Sibelius and sort of doingsome other workshops on the side
, not for Sibelius itself, butjust, you know, myself.
And so much of the work I wasdoing was late at night.
You know.
You know what it's like.
You've got deadlines to meet.
If you've ever done typesetting for people like
orchestras and stuff, peoplering you up and they're like

(09:54):
I've got this job.
And the first question doesn'tmatter what the job is, the
first question is what's yourdeadline?
And they say yesterday.
You're like OK, I can't fitthat in right now, so I have to
pass.
But I was doing so much latenight work and I really wanted a
business name that wouldn'tpigeonhole me to a specific
thing, so I wasn't quite surewhere it was going to go, so I

(10:16):
thought something generic, ish,you know.
So midnight music was what Icame up with, working late at
night.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
I bet there was no competition getting that domain.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
Well, it's funny.
You say that I registeredmidnight music dot com dot a you
because I'm in Australia andyou needed to have a business,
an official registered businessname, to get the AU, which I did
.
I don't know if I even lookedfor just the plane dot com at
the time, but someone someonebought it and has been squatting
on it for years.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
And you know right that kind of thing Wow.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
If everyone listening Warren's face does went into
this.
Oh my gosh, look, yeah, I know,right Midnight music.
Dot com Like who wants that?
I don't know.
I guess it's a good sort ofgeneral name for something.
So for years I didn't worryabout having it, I just had dot
com, dot a you.
But from the very early days ofhaving my business it became

(11:12):
very apparent that the majorityof visitors to my website like
70 or 80 percent are from the US.
Wow, I then really kind ofstarted wanting the dot com,
because it just makes more sense.
It's you know the US peopleprefer.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
If it's notcom, it gets sketched out.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, exactly, so yeah what is this?

Speaker 1 (11:35):
So you're buying the, the Wow.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
I'm not kidding, only I think it was last year, only
last year, and I've had thisbusiness name.
I've had my business goingsince 2008 or nine, like I've
had it that long.
So I only just just we hadsomeone negotiate and had to pay
.
It wasn't, you know, like 20bucks for the domain, like it.
I figured it was, you know, Idon't know a couple of thousand,

(12:01):
a few thousand or something,but I thought it's time just to
get it.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
And so we moved the whole.
That's deductible, right it wasanother whole yeah, yeah,
exactly.
That's good.
That's pretty cool.
So when did the bulb click foryou working for Sibelius?
When did you decided you'regoing to start an online
business based around technologyand helping teachers with that?

Speaker 2 (12:24):
How did that came about?
Yeah, it's not through my shows.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
It's still new.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
Well, like, and I didn't really have it then.
So in the very early days I wasjust running live workshops in
person workshops at that time.
And my surveillance job ended.
There was a whole shift withthe company.
They got rid of a whole stackof positions.
Mine was only part time, so itjust went, you know.
So I thought, well, I just needto replace that income like part

(12:50):
time income and I thought, well, I'll just run workshops in
Australia for Sibelius.
But also I thought I betterexpand my repertoire and add
some other software in and othertechnology stuff and and
technology at that time, forteachers, was the thing where
schools were starting to say,you know, you really should be
looking at using technology moreand this is going to be the

(13:11):
future and you really need toget on top of it.
So, so those workshops weregood and I did live workshops
for a long time and then in 2012, I started I mean, like you
probably, I started listening toa lot of podcasts, particularly
which talk about onlinebusiness, and I heard this.
I heard a few people talkingabout you know, online courses

(13:35):
make a lot of sense because youcan record once and then people
can watch the course wheneverand pause you and repeat the
workshop and go back to it.
And because I had so manyvisitors to my website who were
from all different countries,not just the US, but lots of
different countries.
Everyone's in different timezones and people were starting
to ask me do you ever come tothe US or do you run any online

(13:58):
courses and I'm like, oh no, butI think I need to look at that.
Online courses was what Istarted doing in 2012.
And that was live onlinecourses and that was the Wild
West man.
That was terrible back then.
It was really hard work.
It wasn't wasn't like Zoomtoday.
Zoom didn't exist back then.
I had to use WebEx.

(14:18):
You couldn't.
The biggest issue I had at thattime was it was basically
impossible at that time to shareyour system audio, your
computer audio.
So if I wanted to show music,software programs, I couldn't
play the sound of the softwareprogram at a high quality.

(14:39):
It had to go out of my speakersand back in through my mic and
that's just horrible.
Like it sounds horrible.
It's terrible.
But that was.
I remember being on support toWebEx.
Like I was on phone to WebExsupport trying to explain what I
wanted to do and she's justlike just turn the volume up,
you know, so it comes out louderif you speak, because I'm like

(15:00):
you don't get it.
That's not what I want.
I want this good button up.
It was really hard.
So that was the early days,just running these online
courses.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
You mentioned that you got a lot of traffic from
the US, so I'm curious whatwould it?
What searched home were theyusing?
Send them your way.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
It's funny.
I'll say it because that'sthat's something I struggle with
all.
I still struggle today withkeyword research because
teachers don't know what to lookfor, they don't know what they
don't know, they don't know whatthey need to know.
And it was because I waswriting blog posts.
It was all content marketingand I think people just found it
accidentally.
So I wrote articles about techtools that I was using, tips,

(15:47):
how to use Sibelius, how to dothings.
I had a handful of YouTubevideos and I started just
writing about stuff and thensharing things and you know,
just exploring ideas or sharinglesson plans and that that was
the sole reason for all of thetraffic to the website.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
I think, really that's good and still is today.
Yeah, we've talked about paidadvertising.
Yeah, yeah, it was.
Just it was working.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, it was really good so.
So that was the reason, andbecause there were all these
visitors, they're like, ok,you're doing these online
courses, which are great, andthey were live at the time and
they were in my evening time, sothat worked OK for the US sort
of.
But then people are like Ican't get to that one.
When are you running thatcourse again?
And I was like I think I thinkI need to start selling the

(16:38):
recordings.
So I saw the recordings asreplay passes essentially to the
to the workshops that I'd donelive over time and that worked
quite well as well.
And I was selling all one off,one off payments, individual
course sales.
So I know you were sort ofasking about that too, like is
it individual sales or whychoose a membership over the

(16:59):
individual sales?

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Oh yeah.
So what those downloadablematerials?
Or were just like a place tolog in online?
And, yeah, a place.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah place to log in.
So they were hosted on Vimeoand then I'd embed them in my
website.
It was not very sophisticated.
At the time I had a.
I had a plugin that allowedpages to be password protected.
Yeah, that was about it.
I'm sure people could havehacked their way in there if
they knew what they were doing.
But the teachers bless them arenot totally, you know, not

(17:30):
Uber's sex.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
So it was OK, yeah, so one of the biggest things
people talk about with online orjust any sort of business is
niching.
So your thing niche is teachersand technology, but do you need
further like that?
For example, like what type ofteachers is your target audience
?
Middle school, high school,colleges?
Is there a specific that worksfor you?

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yes, it's all school based ones.
Let a smaller subset would beprivate instrumental teachers.
You know, private piano teacheror saxophone or trumpet or
whatever, but mostly schoolbased teachers.
So elementary, middle school,high school, band, orchestra,

(18:13):
chorus teachers, all of thosemusic teachers that are teaching
at a school, really.
But then on the side a few sortof private, private
instrumental teachers as well,and some pre service teachers,
sort of ones who are about tobecome teachers.
That's a big area that I'd liketo cover more, actually,
because I think they don't quiteget taught the right things

(18:35):
that they need to know.
By the time they get into aschool they kind of think oh,
where am I?
You know what's going on.
But yeah, that's most of it,and it's funny because there are
so many different types ofmusic teachers.
People think it's all just onebig bucket of you know of people
, but no, there's very specifictypes.
So, yeah, a lot of lesson plansfor teachers.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Do you help them with lesson plans as well?

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, yeah, lesson plans.
My theory, though, is it'sfunny because the teachers that
I've worked with over the years,they, they, really like to have
everything given to them.
Done it, done, just roll it out.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
Just want to shop and teach.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
Give me the stuff, yeah Exactly Give me the stuff
and I'll just run the lesson,but my, my theory is that I feel
like I prefer to teach theteachers the skills so that they
can then go forth and, you know, work out how to implement
things into their lessons.
So I do a bit of both.
I was pretty adamant that Iwasn't going to provide, like

(19:35):
teachers pay teachers materials.
You know where you can go andbuy everything really made like
a package of stuff, you know.
But I do do some of that,particularly with.
So basically, things likeSagrange band.
I have a series, I have a coursewhich teaches the teachers how
to use GarageBand, specificallywith regard to in the classroom.

(19:56):
Here are lesson units of work,lesson plan ideas using
GarageBand with your students,or Soundtrap or Bandlabel,
whatever it is.
And then I do actually have aseries of videos that they can
play for their students in class.
So I teach the class for them.
All right, get out GarageBand,open up a new project, add a

(20:17):
drum track and then we're goingto record this rhythm.
Here's the rhythm, count four,you know, and it's me talking
through step by step for thestudents, broken down into short
videos.
I do do some of that where it'shanded out to the teachers, but
I do prefer the idea thatthey're learning themselves
rather than just getting me toteach their class for them.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
What would you say is the main thing teachers come to
you for?
Because I'm sure there's a lotof different technologies up
there and stuff.
What's the main thing they comefor, like as soon as they come
into your ecosystem, you're likeKatie.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
X, help me with this.
It's really quite different fora number of the different types
of teachers because they allhave differing needs.
If it's a band teacher who'syou know, I got grade nine band
or something that's quitedifferent to the needs of the
elementary music teacher.
Sometimes they come with adevice in mind.

(21:13):
I have Chromebooks, my studentshave Chromebooks.
What can I do with Chromebooks?
That that'll be sometimes thething they come for.
Or I need lesson ideas for mygeneral music classes and so
they'll come with that.
So it's a big variety and a lotof what I do is so content
driven.
Like my marketing is verycontent driven.
Like here is a course which isGarageBand, soundtrap and Band

(21:37):
Lab Lesson Plans and people willjoin my membership because of
that one course.
Or I've got one about creatingteaching materials with Canva.
That's one of my most popularcourses.
It's not even music software,it's Canva.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
But the girls have a very general profile to shop.
Is that interesting?
That as well?

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Absolutely, absolutely Love it.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
To do what, what do they do with it.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Oh my gosh, create posters, create concert programs
, create oh yeah.
Graphical organizers,worksheets, social media posts,
because the teachers even needto promote their program,
advocate for their program.
Social media, you know shortvideos and stuff.
I have a whole course on videocreation and editing.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
So you're literally doing everything tech with these
teachers?
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Exactly Because you know when I just came across
your website.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Looking at it from the membership academy, I was
curious about, ok, technologyand teachers.
But now I'm realizing that, ohyeah, it's really technology and
teachers every second.
Wow.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Do you want to know about one of my most popular?
I do live webinars.
I was doing them free and opento everybody.
Now I'm just I've taken it backto just they're just for
members only.
So if you want to join thewebinar, join the membership.
But one of the most populartopics that I've done in live
webinars where I will get like athousand people sign up is

(23:09):
about digital organization howto organize your files, because
it's a hot mess for mostteachers and they honestly don't
know where to start.
So in my course videos, whenI'm teaching about GarageBand or
other programs, I'm like OK, sohere's how you'll save your
project, save it to some placethat makes sense to you.

(23:30):
Someone commented and she goeshere's where I get stuck.
I don't know where to save myfiles and I'm like OK, let's
talk about that.
There's some basic computingskills.
I think that teachers do notget taught when they're studying
or even at work.
I think everybody assumes thatyou should know all of that

(23:52):
stuff, but they really don't.
So I just did a two partwebinar series on organizing
your digital files and it wasreally popular.
It's just crazy, yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
Do you have a primary marketing platform?

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Well, email, just email my email list is emails.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
How do you build your email list?
All content marketing no, well,yes, you do that?

Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah, blog posts.
So pretty much every blog posthas an opt-in.
On my website, Every single onehas an opt-in.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
Would you say that's your strongest source?

Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, Absolutely yeah we
get about 600 new email signupsa month coming in through yeah,
through my blog post.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
That's my weakest source of anything.
I recently only started lookingat blog posts, like a year ago.
Wow, even though I've beenonline, my primary marketing
source is YouTube, videos,youtube yeah, and that's my
weakest.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
That's where I'm about to.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
I've always been curious for folks who make the
blog post thing work.
It's like, how did it do it?
So I'm looking on that now.
So that's cool, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
If you've got something you can, tangible,
that you can give us a downloadfor a while, I think we probably
will dial it back a bit For awhile.
We were basically offeringevery blog post as, if you want
to take away a downloadableversion of this blog post, click
here.
He's the PDF version.
But honestly, the biggestoptions are where they get

(25:32):
something extra.
Excuse me, they get somethingextra, like an extra thing which
is associated with that blogpost.
And the biggest options that Ihave, I've got sort of five big
ones which are an annual guidethat I put together which is

(25:53):
about free tech resources forteachers.
It's just a huge list which Istarted 11 years ago or so and
every year I update, I add morethings in and take things out
which have disappeared, and it'sjust free tech resources, free
online programs and it could beanything, including things like
Canva, which is you can use forfree.

(26:13):
So that's a really big option.
But also I started to createlike digital clip art libraries,
so I've got a library of musicnotation, individual notes with
transparent backgrounds thatteachers can use in their
teaching materials, like theycan put into the Google slides

(26:33):
or Keynote or PowerPoint or intothe Canva doc and create their
teaching materials using these.
You know triple clefts and baseclefts, and sharps and flats
and everything.
So collection of that clip artthey can download for free from
my website.
So that's a huge option.
Eucalyle chord diagrams.
Guitar chord diagrams.

(26:54):
Kodi Sulfo hand signs I made awhole set of those and give
those away.
But yeah, it's huge.
That's the biggest source oftraffic and options for my email
.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
That's amazing.
And you don't do you promote?
Do you do any paid ads towardsyour blog post or those orders
or all organic traffic?

Speaker 2 (27:16):
All organic.
Yep, everything's organic.
And the social media side ofthings, funnily enough,
instagram.
I've had a couple of goes withInstagram where we've really
concentrated hard on Instagramand I have a content manager who
works with me and after wekilled ourselves getting really

(27:37):
good, high quality Instagramposts out for a period of time
like, say, three months or so,we looked back at our Google
analytics and we're like 0.2% ofpeople who see us on Instagram
come to the website.
It's not worth our time.
It's just not worth our time.
That's not where I'm gettingtangible results.
Like, for the amount of time wewere spending on it, it just

(27:59):
wasn't worth it.
So the biggest referral trafficcomes from Pinterest of all
places Wow, yeah, like andPinterest.
If you look at the Googleanalytics, pinterest accounts
for like 80% of the socialtraffic and Facebook's next at
like, I don't know, facebook'spretty good for me, but it's

(28:22):
still, you know, 10% compared toPinterest, 80 or 70%.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
It's just so interesting how these different
platform works, because I waslike, yeah, let's try to
Pinterest thing, and I posted afew videos just like shorts and
stuff.
Yeah, I don't think I got anytraffic at all.
I think I'm interested.
Yeah, I think.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
I also don't know how it works really I still haven't
figured it out.
I think the teachers are there alot, especially this time of
year, because they're all inthere going back to school mode
at the time of recording.
You know teachers that havejust started the school year or
are just going back and they doa lot of over the summer.
They do a lot of looking at,looking for resources like

(29:01):
lesson plans and stuff, andPinterest is one of the places
they go for my audience, and sowe have blog posts up there.
You know eye catching visual.
They're pinning it, they'revisiting the website, they're
downloading stuff, they'resigning up for the list.
That's cool.
It's just insane.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
Have you been on Tech Talk yet?

Speaker 2 (29:21):
Oh, so, okay.
So here's my plan.
This is where I think we'll doa reverse interview and you can
help me on that.
So for years and years I makevideos all the time but they're
nearly all for my membershipcommunity, you know.
So I'm not afraid to makevideos, but I really, really,

(29:41):
really want to get regularYouTube videos out and then make
a short version for Tech TalkReels and shorts.
You know just, I just want tomake one.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
That's what I do.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
And then we'll upload to each of the oh good, yeah,
each of the platforms will addcaptions.
I guess on I don't know, do youdo it on the platforms the
captions for each one.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
So I have a video editor.
Yeah, I shoot my videos for theweek, or cause I?
Try to do one YouTube videoweek when like 15 to 20 minute
video she edits that, but thenshe also then take same video
and turn.
She will pull like from five to10 shorts from that one video.
And so then I'll have to dojust Uploaded to the different

(30:24):
platforms.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
It's the same one I upload all over the place.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
So that's why I Grow my tiktok, my Instagram and then
also put it on Facebook as well, because you know, facebook
does this cool cross thing wherethey're sharing the same reel
on Instagram and shame Instagramreal on Facebook.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
So it's pretty cool.
Yeah, that's my plan and Ithink I'll just have to get a
bit.
We'll talk later about video,yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
Videos, but I just get it's hard to keep up if you
want to be consistent.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Exactly, I'm not editing it.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
It's like I need to outsource this.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Yeah, I can't do it either.
I find it hard.
I think for me the hard thingis that All of my videos not all
of them, 80% of my videos IWant to do screencasting like
it's.
It's involves me showing myscreen and the problem with the
vertical format is.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
There's solutions for how you can do it, but it's
none of them are great for doingthe screen on tiktok, you know
you gotta show a slice or you doit yeah, you know, split the
screen vertically in half orsomething, but yeah, there's a
woman in my mastermind, that is,she does a lot of stuff with
paint shops and scrapbooking andshe's also Trying to find a

(31:36):
solution.
I said how do I do this shortthing when I I got a screen that
yeah, it's hard.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
I'm gonna try a few things.
I'll.
I'll, yeah, experiment with afew options, but that's my plan,
for I had to sort of decide toconcentrate on Retention for a
bitch.
You know, with the membershipand I didn't even say really
that the membership ended upgrowing out of the fact that I
couldn't keep up with runninglive online Courses.

(32:05):
It was too much.
You know, people wanted thiscourse again and I'm like, well,
I've got to do these otherthree courses and then how do I?
Anyway?
I ended up with a library ofrecorded courses and then
selling them individually justdidn't make sense after a while,
and people asking all thesequestions via email, and I'm
like I just need some way,better way of managing this.
And I actually went to anonline Entrepreneur event.

(32:28):
Chris Stucker ran an eventcalled tropical think tank the
first one that he ever ran wasin, I think, 2014 and I just saw
him mention it on Twitter and Iwas like, oh my gosh, that
sounds amazing.
The podcast heroes were going tobe presenting at this event,
like Pat Flynn and AmyPorterfield and like there's

(32:51):
always amazing people.
So I went to that.
It was a life-changing eventtotally and it was great.
And then the second one I wentto there was a few of us there
and we all entered up startingmemberships, based on James
Tramco, who presented at thatsecond one and he is all about
memberships and he said you gotto get a membership going, like

(33:13):
you, you're just working toohard Selling individual courses
all the time.
Yeah, one membership, one price, one payment, you know, and
everyone gets access toeverything.
They're not having to pay forall the separate things, like
yeah, he really does simplifymarketing with a membership
simple and simplify themarketing.
Yeah, he was like this price andjust get everything Including

(33:35):
access to me.
And actually the access to methat that was one of the best
things To start for me, startinga membership.
I was getting so many questionsvia email and I was in the
early days I was answering andthen after a while I'm like I
cannot answer all theseIndividual questions, like, and

(33:57):
I felt terrible, like but I'mlike I just I had, I had my VA,
we had a like a standard replysaying so sorry, but Katie just
cannot, you know, answer allthese individual questions.
But now we have that standardreply which says Can't answer
individual questions by email.
But if you join the membership,go for your life.
You can ask as many, I willactually, I make a video

(34:19):
recording of my answer.
Usually, showing the screenlike this is how you can fix
this problem click here, clickhere, click here.
And the members loves that.
They're like oh my gosh, Iwasn't expecting a video.
And like, yeah, well, it'squicker for me to make you a
video showing you the thingrather than write it all down in
a forum post.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
So she do use like something like that.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah, exactly, and because Loom easily records the
system audio.
Hello and and my voice and Ican be on the screen or not, if
I choose, and I Welcome all mynew members.
I just have me on the screen,camera only, and I just welcome
every new member that posts andsays hey, I'm a new member from
such and such plays.
I will record a quick hi, it'sgreat to have you, you know.

(35:01):
Thanks for letting us know whatyou're teaching and if you've
got any questions or I'll answera question if you've asked it,
and it's just a greatcommunication.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
So when did you make midnight music into?
When did you make the full-timeleap?
How long did?

Speaker 2 (35:15):
it take you from when you decided gonna start a
membership to hey.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
This is going so good .
I need to dive in full-time tobe able to keep up.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Well, it was kind of backwards.
It was the membership got goingafter what I was already doing,
the business full-time.
So after my after my survey isjob ended, I had the business
going and it was only equivalentto a part-time you know salary
that I was earning reallythrough the business in the
early days and Then as my kidsgot older, because you know I

(35:44):
had babies, so as the kids gotolder they're now 18 and you
know it's 16 and a half so theycan fully take care of
themselves really.
But now that they're a bitolder it's much easier.
But yeah, I just started reallypart-time and then the
membership grew out of all thoselive workshops that I was
running.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
So it wasn't hard to make the transition from
face-to-face to online, you juststart telling everybody hey,
you need to continue, followthis.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
URL.
Yeah, I still, it's funny, Istill prefer.
I still do do live workshops inperson, you know, in Australia
particularly, or New Zealand,which is just Not far away, but
I still prefer the live inperson on, you know, seeing
people's reaction and stuff.
I much prefer that.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Are these live events that you host or people invite
you to?

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Sometimes.
Yeah, I haven't done any likethat since COVID, you know,
since before COVID.
But I'm thinking about goingback to that actually because
they can be quite, they can workout quite well financially
because I get a school to hostthe event.
Which doesn't cost me anything,the school that's hosting, can I
say Send whatever teachers youwant for free to the workshop

(36:59):
for the day.
We invite teachers from aroundthe area to come and attend and
they pay a fee.
I will organize, or someoneorganizes catering for lunch,
you know.
So it ends up being quite anice day.
I mean, I worked out that if Ican get Minimum of like 12 to 15
people preferably closer to 20or 30 people there, that well

(37:21):
and truly covers my costs fortravel and presenting.
You know, minimum presentingfee, and the more people I get
there, obviously the better offit is financially.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Usually one day events.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Yeah, yeah one day I like a school day.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
I've been thinking about doing an event.
I've never done a live event,but I'm just like I don't know
where I would start.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
It's great, it's great, I'll tell you what you
have to think.
The thing you have to do, thebiggest tip, is that you start
advertising and telling peopleabout it well before you've
worked out what you're actuallygonna do.
That's what I like.
A few months like.
For me, the teachers really needa lot of warning because if
it's on a school day, they haveto get a sub and they have to

(38:05):
plan for the day.
Sometimes I do it on a weekendbecause actually some teachers
just cannot take a day offschool and at the moment We've
got a huge shortage ofsubstitute teachers in Australia
at the moment.
So it might be a Saturday, butanyway, they need time to
organize.
So I will just I'll get adescription up of what I'm
planning on doing, but I may nothave actually worked it out and

(38:26):
I would just literally sayhere's what we're doing for the
day.
It's gonna run nine till three.
There'll be a lunch break inthe middle, foods provided.
This is the cost bookings hereset up that and then, as it gets
closer, I'm like what did I sayI was gonna do?
Oh, yeah, yeah, you can gethelp with that Ticket bookings

(38:47):
and stuff, just yeah.
Cuz I was trying to do somethingfor 2024, but we'll see, yeah,
and using one of our services,like event, bright or you know
equivalent, where Tickets aredone through that system.
It's much easier than Trying tosend out individual payment

(39:07):
things.
You know PayPal, whatever, yeah, just through event bridal or
something like that.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
Single link.
That's where it's really well.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Mmm.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
So you mentioned a content manager and a VA, so do
you have a full team and so howmany people?
How does that work?

Speaker 2 (39:24):
sounds Well, sounds like a lot.
Nobody works full time.
I used to have a full-time VAbut we we she's left the
business now so I don't have heranymore, but I have well, I
have a customer support VAperson.
Yeah, she does, she's great.
She does email.
She does all the I can't lock.
I've lost my login for themembership.

(39:45):
You know, I've lost my passwordor whatever.
She does deals with all of that.
She's fantastic.
She also does a little bit ofhelp on the like Publishing blog
posts.
Like she'll put the blog postinto WordPress and when we've
got an email sequence that'sgoing out, she she'll put the
emails into.
I use on report for my email,you know, in CRM.

(40:06):
So she'll put emails in andshe'll do formatting and stuff.
But so she does that thecontent manager separate.
She does Um blog post.
She does social media stuff forme, which is great.
So like she writes the stuff,she writes some blog posts.
I write some she writes on wehave some guest writers who do a
few as well, but she managesthe guest writers if we have
those working for us.

(40:26):
Yeah, so she, she's really good.
You know handling all of that.
How did you find?

Speaker 1 (40:32):
that person.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
We've got to do like an online platform, or is it
someone local in your Community?

Speaker 2 (40:39):
no, through an online platform.
We put an advert out.
We've gotten better at writingthe ads, so I think it's about
how to write the ad and toincorporate some kind of and
this is with all positions somekind of test tasks that they're
gonna do or Scenario gives thema scenario.
This has been.

(40:59):
It's the biggest way to thequickest way to weed out people
who are not suited to yourbusiness.
We have like there'll be acouple of questions in the the
application which will say ifyou were in this scenario, what
would you do?
Or whatever it is.
You know that quickly younarrow it down.
Okay, we're down to two peoplenow, that's it great, yeah, and

(41:22):
then then after that gettingthem to do some kind of sort of
practice thing, like a littletask or a test or something.
Particularly with the adminpositions, I find where you
really need people who you know.
Everybody says they've gotattention to detail, but until
they do a task for you and yougo, I don't think you really do
have attention to detail,because you've misspelled this
word and that's wrong, and thatperson, it's like it's just all

(41:45):
over the place.
So again, you can easily weedthem out.
But I've had a good gut feeling.
When applications come through,I can Often identify who I
think is going to end up withthe position even before we've
done anything like second roundinterviews or anything.
So, yeah, yeah, just online,sometimes word of mouth.
Over the years I've haddifferent people doing different

(42:06):
stuff for the business.
I have those two.
I have a business manager typeperson online business manager
person.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
What does that person do?

Speaker 2 (42:15):
She kind of oversees Things she had we talk about,
like what promotions are wegoing to do in the next few
months?
She is the interface betweenthank goodness me and the
bookkeeper, like all that stuffthat I just like.
Oh my gosh, anything technical.
If there's website issues, shewill.

(42:35):
She's actually very skilledwith website stuff herself, but
she will manage with.
You know the guys that lookafter my website who do all the
updates of plugins and stuff.
She will interface with themand just go okay, we need this
to happen.
Or this is broken, or you know,this is fixing one of those
full-time position.
No, every single person who'sworking for me is doing at most,

(42:58):
ten hours a week.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah, sometimes I feel like I need that a business
manager, that decision.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
Yeah, a while back I had a friend who took a friend
who I actually met at thattropical think tank event, who
has their own online business.
She she kind of moved into thatrole for my business after a
while of us knowing each otherand it was just fantastic.
And then she really needed tolike concentrate on her own

(43:28):
online business.
And so the person I have now isa friend of hers who you know
she's known for some time.
But but this person who I'vegot now her name's Tamsen she
she also has her own businessand she works a lot to find VA's
for people, so she's very goodat narrowing.

(43:49):
So if we need anyone in mybusiness, she says that's fine,
I got it sorted, you know shedoesn't go often, yeah, she does
the high and she does the avid,like she's really good at.
She just knows all those people.
She knows how to find peoplebased in the Philippines or in
America or Australia.
Sometimes we have differentneeds depending on time zones
and you know language skills orwhatever it is.

(44:12):
So, yeah, so she's been great.
And the fourth person I haveworking for me regularly is Ryan
, who knows Entroport, who myCRM, who.
He just knows that inside outand he's really done a lot of
great things.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
Funnels and all that.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Oh, he's so good.
So we've had that softwareforever and I knew for a long
time that we were not doingthings like the most effective
way.
It's such an enormous programlike it's just there's so much
to it, it's so complex andthere's so many moving parts and
in the early days I was doingit all you know and then I'm
just like I can't do anything.

(44:52):
You could literally just dothis all day and he's so good at
doing.
You know he has now splittesting happening and you know
we have all these things inplace now.
It's just amazing and I said tohim the other day I'd have him
full time if I could afford it.
I can't afford it, but yeah,again, he does.

(45:12):
You know, Handful of ours aswell.
So so it sounds like I've gotthis huge team, but really
people are only working, youknow, Up to 10 hours a week for
the business and they all dospecial, it's very specialized
areas that they each do and it'sReally to allow me to to try
and get things done that I wantto do or need to do for the

(45:33):
business and it's almostimpossible doing it on your own.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
You just it is and it's a real realization that's
hit me hard over the past two tothree years, where I realized
that I'm not able to produce thethings that I want to because
I'm too bogged down in otherareas and, like I mentioned,
video editing was one of them Iproduced so many videos so much
video content a month To sit andcrank out quality editing.

(46:00):
You know that looks professionalwith text flying here and all
this I was like this is.
This is itself is another fulltime job.
My thing is teaching piano.
I need to focus on that.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
That exactly.
And I find it hard because Iactually really enjoy video
editing.
I also really enjoy graphicdesign related stuff, but it is
not where I should be spendingmy time.
I love it but I shouldn't bedoing it.
And the thing I find hard withhiring a video editor, I think
in terms of having a YouTubevideo that I've already done and

(46:34):
then someone chops it down to,you know, for shorts and stuff.
That would probably work.
But the initial editing of theYouTube video it's so screencast
based, it's so software basedthat unless that person also
knew the software as well as Ido, I don't think they could do
the editing for me.
I think I would need to do thatinitial editing and then they

(46:57):
could maybe make the littleshort snippets for me.
So that could work well.
But yeah, I don't know that Icould let it go Like all the
online for the camp.
Of course I just relaunched mycamp.
Of course I made 115 videosover four weeks.
Wow, 115.
Like I was really efficient.
It's got the wrong time.

(47:18):
That's a lot.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
So how do you like use screencast to do all that?
They didn't go in and doadditional editing with a
software.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
It depends how I've screencast in the first place,
and I have a couple of differentways.
If it's me talking over slides,they are so quick to edit, so
quick to, I don't put myself onthe screen, which instantly
reduces the time taken, you know, and that's for that reason
that I don't put myself on thescreen.
And I've actually polled myaudience.
I've asked them do you like tosee my face on the screen?

(47:50):
Because some people like tomake the connection, whatever
Most of them go, we just want tosee the screen.
We just don't want, you know,covering up of parts of the
screen.
So I'm like, fine, great, soit's me really well, don't have
to do my makeup in here for that, but for those ones it's quick.
But when it's screencasting, Ido it a couple of ways.

(48:10):
I either hit record and doeverything at once Talking and
the screen part, or, if it'skind of complex, if it's the
music, software stuff, audacity,garage band surveillance I tend
to script and record my audiofirst and then I make the
screencast with I know how I setit in the recording.

(48:33):
So I'll have that in my headand I kind of you know, hope
that the timing's vaguely okay.
But then I go through and Iedit the two together and
synchronize.
This is why no one could dothis for me.
I don't think, and that takesso much time.
And when you look at my videotimeline, there's chop, chop,
chop, chop, chop, chop, chop,chop.
It's just like all these tinyclips which are synchronized

(48:54):
together.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
It's really really, really good.
How often would you have to dothat kind of complex form of
editing or recording?

Speaker 2 (49:01):
For a course.
For most of the courses I'mdoing that.
So the Canva course videos weremuch quicker than the music
software ones that I've done.
So because it's Canva, I don'tknow, it's just a lot more
straightforward, I think,because in the music ones you're
dealing with the movingplayback line a lot of the time

(49:23):
or sound that's playing, youknow, in the background and it's
harder to edit that, like youneed to be more careful about
how you shoot it in the firstplace and then how you're
editing it.
Rather than Canva it's just aposter, it's just a picture,
it's not moving or doinganything.
So it's just by its nature it'smuch more complex.
So sometimes a three-minutevideo for a music software

(49:45):
program, I mean it can take fiveor six hours to put that
together sometimes.
But if it's me talking overslides, I can do it once through
live and maybe not have to editat all, apart from fade in,
fade out at the logo at the end,like we're done, you know.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
So it really varies, really varies.
So what's your goal formidnight music?
Do you see it as something thatyou're going to do until you're
90, or you do like 10?

Speaker 2 (50:12):
years.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
I'm trying to sell this thing.
Get out, do something else.
Have you thought about that?

Speaker 2 (50:18):
I have been thinking about it.
I didn't think about that untilprobably the last 12 months or
so, mainly because I didn't wantto think about doing anything
else.
I was just so enjoying, likewhat else would I want to do
anyway?
But then, you know, I'm 51 andI'm kind of like, well, at some
point that was the thought I hadAm I going to be doing this

(50:40):
when I'm 60, when I'm 70?
Like, am I Maybe?
Maybe I will, and I don'treally know the answer to that.
I'm only in the I'm thinkingabout it state at the moment.
I don't want to move on fromthe business anytime soon at all
.
I did have a period of timewhere I think I was just you
know, it was probably COVIDrelated in a very down kind of

(51:04):
place and struggling witheverything, and for that period
of time I was like I want to doanything.
I'd love to go and paint houses, like you know, walls, wow,
that was all I wanted to do.
Yeah, just for a while.
Now I'm kind of back into.
No, I'm good.
I'm good on my business againnow.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
Have you ever thought about bringing in someone else
to work alongside you?

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Yeah, maybe and I do oh there is another person I
have who works with me.
Actually, he doesn't, hedoesn't.
I've got a lot of that.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
Teach courses and stuff.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Yeah, oh, okay, that's great.
Sorry, amy, if you're listeningto this at some point.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
So she does.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
She, yeah, she's, she's a teacher in the States.
She is a full-time teacher andI don't know when she sleeps.
She says the same thing aboutme but honestly, don't know when
she sleeps.
She has two young daughters anda husband and she works
full-time.
She works for me and mycommunity.
So she is in the forumanswering questions.
She does posts in the forum,you know, sharing something.

(52:05):
She has a YouTube channel whereshe makes and shares, you know,
videos about stuff music, techstuff, whatever and teaching
things, and she also sometimespresents a webinar for me, you
know, for the business.
When we did the course which isfor, we've got this one course
which is for GarageBand andSoundtrap and BandLab it's the

(52:27):
same, the same materials for allthree of those software
programs in a single course,because they're all pretty
similar.
She made the Soundtrap videosfor me, so, and she's done a
couple of other courses for theinside of the community too.
So, yeah, so she does workalongside me, but she was also a
full-time music teacher as well, wow, so, yeah, so it's funny.

(52:48):
And as for selling it, I don'tknow, it's a hard one because my
business is very wrapped uparound me really, and it's not
to say that I couldn't be handedover.
I think it could be handed over, but it would need to morph and
then change.
You know, I'd have to morphlike take myself off the

(53:08):
homepage of the website, forinstance.
You know, which I don't love.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
anyway, it's an interesting thing because that's
a similar business we run.
We're kind of like the gurustyle business, where we almost
we are the product.
People come to us for ourknowledge or expertise, but also
our personality, you know.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
And that's the thing.
It's the personality.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
So how do you solve that up?
Absolutely the thing.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
I don't know, and I think that's the biggest thing
for my business.
That is what teachers say to meand it's probably the same for
you.
It's the thing they like aboutme and my business, is my
teaching style and mypersonality.
Because I made a, I mean, I wasdoing it anyway.
But I also say this to peoplethat I don't care if people know

(53:54):
nothing about technology andwhen I explain things I never
assume knowledge and I nevermake them feel like they should
have already known that I don'tcare.
What do I care?
And I say look, I always weaveit in very subtly.
It's like I'll show somethingand I'm like and if you've never
done that before, this is whatthis is why we do it this way,
or this is what you should do,or this is how you know it's

(54:16):
best to go about it.
Whatever, I'll just weave it inin passing.
And people have said to me I'mso happy you said that because I
never knew that, or no one evershowed me that, or no one
taught me.
Teachers experience at theirown schools.
When they don't know somethingto do with technology They'll go
to maybe the IT person or acolleague, and the other person

(54:36):
frequently will say, oh, youjust do it like this and they'll
take the mouse and go, click,click, click for them.
What's the point of that, like,why should they have known that
they just if they've never beentaught?
I think it's because I didn'tgrow up with I'm from the era of
not really growing up withtechnology.
I had to learn everything in my20s and 30s and 40s and now 50s

(54:58):
, like it's just, you know, I'mlearning as I go still, so I
still remember what it was liketo not know and I just never
assume that and so, yeah, that'sthe part of it.
I would need to find someoneelse who just is the same in
that regard.
At least you know, just doesn'tmake people feel silly.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
One of the reasons why I ask about that because
it's something I've thoughtseriously about is would it be?
I've seen another competitor ofmine that has completely
removed himself and replaced andhe did it like 10 years ago.
Wow, and he seemed to have doneit successfully because the
business is still going.
Not that I don't like what I do, but I feel also, if I'm able

(55:39):
to bring someone in, even ifit's just a part time, that can
help to create content.
I feel like that would helpsignificantly and me even just
sort of being able to focus onother areas of the business.
So just curious how, how youfound Amy and then to be able to
forgive her, even though itmight be a meaning key to the

(56:00):
kingdom, so to speak, in termsof yeah, you have someone
creating content for you.
How did that come about?

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Yeah, and there's actually I have a couple of
other people who I know, who arealso along those lines, who I
could see in the future that Imight get them in, and even
already Teresa, another greatteacher in the state.
She has been one of thosepeople, but Amy and I match.
I met a number of key people inthe in our tiny niche of music,

(56:28):
technology and education.
We all met on on Twitter of allplaces back in 2009, where
Twitter was kind of it was likea happy place to be back in the
day.
The app logo anymore.
I hate seeing that X.
I feel like it's I don't know.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
I won't even say what I feel like on my phone.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
It doesn't look like a place I want to go anymore.
But back in back then I Thoughtwhat is this Twitter thing
anyway?
And jumped on and there was afantastic core group of music
teachers, music educators, whowere tech savvy.
They they were the only peopleon Twitter at that time really
and the use of hashtags wasreally Effective back then.

(57:18):
I don't know so much anymore,but there was a lot of hashtags
which you would follow.
It set up your software tofollow in our use tweet deck and
I've set up a column which wasTwo or three of these hashtags
that I was following and a coregroup of us connected.
So it was me in Australia andprobably 10 teachers who happen

(57:39):
to be all US based and they allknew each other from Music
education circles and being atconferences and presenting and
things over there.
All of these key people we allpresent at conferences, so
they're kind of leaders in theirfield and I knew it was one of
those.
So we just connected there.
In the end I eventually, aftersix or seven years, went over to

(58:01):
present at this conference inTexas, which is one of the
biggest music educatorconferences there's, like I
don't know, 10 or 12,000 musiceducators.
Plus an additional 20,000students and their parents and
entourage who are they'reperforming in bands and choirs
and Mariachi band, like all thisamazing performance stuff going

(58:22):
on that every year there's thisconference in Texas.
So I went there in 2016 and Imet these people for the first
time.
We felt like we knew each otherfrom Twitter Just for all those
years and we'd probably by thenhad maybe a couple of like I
don't know zoom calls togetherand stuff like that.
So we had really connected,that we all met up there and Amy

(58:44):
and I and a few others just wewere in contact.
And then eventually I Said toher I need some help.
I had someone else helping meout with the forum part and he
had to move on.
He was doing a PhD, so previousguy Martin had to move on.
And I said that Amy, do you wantto like, would you be
interested in just doing a fewhours a week in there?
And she's like, yeah, it'd begreat.

(59:06):
And so she did that, but thenalso started doing a bit of
content creation and she does astack of content creation
herself anyway, regardless ofwhether it's for me.
So she's well practiced with,you know, screencasting, logic,
logic and final cup, pro and allof these, you know, programs
that we need to use.
So so she's a great, a greatasset and she's an elementary

(59:29):
teacher, so she really helps outfor my business with that.
That side of that sort of smallsubset of teachers in there,
that's great.
But yeah, fine, it's very deep.
I find it very difficult tofind people who teach the way I
want them to teach in mycommunity.
That's the key for me is how dothey teach?
How do they teach?

Speaker 1 (59:48):
Yeah, really cool.
So another question I have foryou is what is your biggest
struggle with the business?
If you were to pinpoint onething like it's time to do
things.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
The YouTube channel I've been wanting to like okay,
this is the year that I'm gonnajust concentrate on YouTube,
like that's no kidding for beingfor about four years now.
And so I just said this morningto my content manager I'm like
next week, next week I'm gonnasit down and properly plan out
the YouTube videos and just getit going.

(01:00:21):
You know I've got a.
I have no shortage of ideas.
Idea generation is not ever,ever, ever an issue for me.
I have spreadsheets full ofideas for videos and Courses and
all sorts of things, blog posts, everything, so that's not an
issue.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
What I'm finding the time yeah, I do is I take old
YouTube videos and I havesomeone that's been converting
them into blog post, yes, somaybe you can go the reverse.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
Yeah, I'm actually gonna do the reverse.
So I have a lot of blog postswhich I'm gonna make into videos
.
They'll be different format,that and also I have Hundreds of
conference presentations thatI've done over the years and
again Small parts of those caneach be a video, like just one
section, one set.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
So sounds like Opening right there for a video
editor.
Yeah, it created work, then itmight be easier to then
incorporate a video editor,especially if you want to keep
it consistent, because that'swhere the burnout hits.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
That's it.
It's consistency.
I know my podcast is a goodexample.
Yeah, and I'm just back on that.
The thing I I Do in periods oftime and I know it's the, it's
the best way for me and foranyone else with an online
business is to do batching.
You know you, I need, you knowit's.
So everything goes better whenI sit down and I script or
bullet point five podcastepisodes in one sitting or over

(01:01:51):
a day or two, and then the nextweek I record the first couple
and then the next couple, andyou know, and then we edit them
like it's so much better if Ican get a few done.
So my main aim this week is torecord three podcast episodes by
the end of Friday, so that I'venow got Six weeks worth of
podcasts because, like everyother week, I'll be released.

(01:02:11):
But what's one of your I want toget done with the YouTube
videos to just do that yeahwhat's the name of your podcast?
Music tech teacher.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
The music tech teacher podcast is it different
formatting from the blog post orthe stuff that you do with
videos?

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
Yeah, yeah, I found that because it's an audio only
format and you'll hear me say insome of the episodes like it's
hard to describe this in anaudio format because often I'm
talking about software programsor websites, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
Video like yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
I don't want to do video for the podcast because
it's just.
It's much quicker for me tojust edit audio.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
This is being recorded because I do video, so
then I chop them up and I putthem on tiktok.
Real Instagram stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Yeah, so that that's, that's, fine.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Maybe because I came from the video world, so the
idea of just doing an audio onlypodcast is like I'm gonna try,
I gotta do the video thing.
But also I've seen so manyother podcasters.
That successful one that Ifollow from the UK is called the
Diary of us Is it called diaryof a CEO, something like that,

(01:03:23):
and his YouTube channel is likemillion plus and it's it's a
podcast.
Well, I mean, that's mentioned.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
Joe.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Rogan and just other people who their main thing is
podcast but their video portionof it is still so popular, so I
was like I was well just turnthe camera on right, but anyway
yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
I think people have both options and you know, yeah,
and I did think about it, maybedown the track, but for now,
you know, I thought no, I'drather spend video time and
effort in Like YouTube videoswhere it's me teaching a skill
or showing some sort of softwaretool, something, but yeah, it's
, it's hard, yeah.

(01:04:04):
But the other, the podcast, isit's good.
I mean it's I enjoy it justtalking, but yeah, it's, it's
slightly different Content.
You know, I mean it's the samecontent but it's a different
approach because I'm justtalking about it rather than
Showing things on the screen.
So I have to be a little bitstrategic.
Some topics doesn't work wellon a podcast, and Then other

(01:04:27):
ones I can just talk about, likeproductivity tips.
That's a great one for apodcast, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
You were to start midnight music again from
scratch.
What would you do differently?
What would you do differently?

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
It's hard to say.
I think I probably waited a bittoo long.
Everybody says this, that theyprobably waited a bit too long
to hire extra people.
So everybody listening that'sjust starting out or hasn't yet
hired anyone, just bite thebullet and get someone.
Oh, and I have to say we didthis pretty early.

(01:05:02):
But if you are starting out andare about to hire someone or
just have hired someone, thebest thing you can do is to
write every single process down.
We have we've had for years inmy business.
I set up a spreadsheet and inthe spreadsheet there's a column
which has the name of aprocedure in in one column.

(01:05:24):
So it'll say like how to updatesomeone, someone email record,
or how to fix their login issuesor how to Add them to the
mailing list or how to, whateverthe thing is in the business.
You know how to, how to send aninvoice from zero, whatever in
that.
In the next column there is alink to a Google doc where the
instructions for that procedureare, and in the next column

(01:05:48):
there's often not always, butoften a screencast video.
So whoever knows how to do thatthing hits record one day when
you're doing that job, hitsrecord and records that task and
just says okay, this is how youwill update someone's email
record in on trip, or you'll goin here and you'll click here so
that if Michelle, who does mycustomer support stuff, is sick

(01:06:09):
for a week, she has never beensick for six years working for
me but let's just say she is oneday and we can't get a hold of
her and we're like we need toreally get someone's login fix.
Like you know how do we do that.
Someone else can go into thespreadsheet and look it up and
go, oh yeah, so there's a wholewe call it the training catalog.
So there's about you know ahundred things in this training

(01:06:33):
catalog and the sooner you writethat down, the sooner you can
hand it off to someone else.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
Have you read the book the eMeth Revisited?

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
No, I know of it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
That's exactly what the books talk about.
Yeah, that's crazy.
So who showed you that process?

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
I had started in a certain way and then I heard a
podcast episode where someonetalked about some aspect of
doing that.
And then I heard another friendwho I've met at Tropical Think
Tank.
She has great online businessand she said that they do this
spreadsheet thing and I'm likethat's it.
I'm doing the spreadsheet.
It's very unpretty, it's notpretty, it doesn't need to be.
It just needs title link toinformation done and I haven't

(01:07:15):
followed you actually for oh,you should totally.
So good, because one of the bestthings I heard someone say on
some podcast back in the day wasIf you can write the steps down
for something that you can do,then that is something you can
delegate.
If you can write it down stepby step, like the things you

(01:07:37):
can't delegate would be I can'tdelegate the plane, the keyboard
and the video in the keyboard.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
Yeah, and for me same thing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
I can't delegate the teaching of the software or how
I'm going to do that.
But if I can write down how togo into Canva and update, you
know, whatever it is, how to,how to switch out the text on an
image that we're going to useand update, yeah, someone else
can tell me to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
That's something you can say.
I read that book three, fouryears ago.
That I'm just like I've beendoing this thing.
All wrong because I wasn'tdocumenting anything down.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
And when I mean that was one of the things.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
Why didn't I took me so long to hire?
It's gonna be taking too longfor me to Sit there and explain.
Yeah, no one should be writingthings down.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Yeah, so when we had the VA that I had who's not
working with us?
But when she was working forthe business, when she started,
we did a little bit of trainingwith her for her, like she had
some training but not a lot,because we kind of said, look,
just this is what we need to doevery day or every week.
Go into the spreadsheet andtake a look at the process, do

(01:08:49):
this thing today, have a go atit, report back and say you know
, could you do it?
Okay, what was missing?
Or if you've got questions, donot hesitate to ask.
But then she could reallyfollow the steps, because there
was someone teaching her on avideo anyway and showing her the
process, and the only timeprobably there was many issues
is if that had not been updatedsoon, you know, recently.

(01:09:12):
So that's another thing.
We actually have a column whichsays when it was last updated.
So if you go, that hasn't beenupdated for five years.
Maybe that someone needs to goin and look at that.
That's a very straight, cleanprocess to me it's really good
Once you build it up.
I think the thing is because Ithink in my mind I would feel

(01:09:34):
overwhelmed if someone said tome you need to document
everything in your business.
You don't need to sit down anddo it in a day or two, just the
next time you do that thing.
The next time you whatever yeah, you just hit record on Loom,
screencastify whatever and runthrough the steps and talk it
through.
Don't just need to be fancy,you can amunar, you can pause

(01:09:55):
the video and come back and yeah, the next time you do it and
then you add it to the thing andthen, after a month probably,
you pretty much run through mythings that you'll do, yeah
handed off.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
Handed off is quick as possible.
I got one more question herefor you.
So what advice would you giveto anyone in the music industry
who wants to start an onlinebusiness in their expertise?
How Anything to get them going,anything?

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Yeah, I think you have to just get started.
Really, you have to just do it,and this is what I'm trying to
tell myself.
With the YouTube thing, likeyou know, part of me wants to
make it perfect from the get goand it's just not going to be.
But you know, with onlinebusiness generally, you just
have to start doing somethinglike get your website happening.

(01:10:44):
Maybe that's the first thing.
Just use WordPress, you know,don't use all these other tools
that are popping up.
Wordpress is just.
Most people in the world areusing WordPress.
All the plugins available arefor WordPress and you can hire 7
million people to help you withyour WordPress site if you
don't want to do it yourself.
So, yeah, just get started withthat.

(01:11:06):
And everyone, I know again,talks about consistency, and it
really is.
It's consistency.
Whatever you're doing, whetherit's blog posts or YouTube
videos, you know, don't try anddo everything at once.
Just pick one thing.
The biggest struggle I have iskeeping up with all the
different things.
Like you know, youtube reallyis where I should concentrate my

(01:11:26):
time, because that, for me, isgoing to be beneficial.
I can teach, I can show peopleteaching, and there's sort of
ever growing videos, as opposedto social media, which
disappears up a stream, you know, eventually.

Speaker 1 (01:11:38):
And the search engine quality of it.
It's a search engine.
It's a search engine.
When I'm trying to learnsomething new, that's the first
place I go.

Speaker 2 (01:11:45):
Yeah, same with me.
I didn't use to.
How do I do this in Photoshop?
Yeah, the first place I go, Idon't even Google it, I go to
YouTube first, and I thinkpeople are like that too.
But yeah, I think just startingsmall and being consistent is
probably the best place to start.
It's a bit boring and fast.

Speaker 1 (01:12:03):
Everyone said that, yeah, but it's actually just
it's the best thing because, youknow, I have a lot of
colleagues in the music field,people who tour the world with
artists, and they're like youknow, I want to get out of this
thing, this touring thing orthis classroom thing, but I
don't know how to start.
How did you do this onlinething?
I was like, is it too late,because you know you started in

(01:12:25):
2014.
I'm like it's not too late,it's never too late.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
Forget about what camera you want to watch.
The best camera what's the?
None of that matters.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
I was using my MacBook Camera.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
And I started and you know I was like what?
Iphone 3 at that time orsomething.
Yeah, you know, just the basiciPhone.
That was what I have.
I didn't have any fancy nothing, no fancy microphone, I was
just using the belt and speakerinto my computer.
Yeah, and it's funny, some ofthe videos that I created then
has the most views even today.

(01:13:02):
I look back and I wonder.
Those videos have 1.5 millionviews.

Speaker 2 (01:13:07):
Oh, and it was like video number five.
Yeah, my fifth video where Ilooked terrible.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
On camera was awkward .
The lighting is probably, butyeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
Yeah, absolutely, that's pretty good advice.
I actually think, yeah, that issuch a good point about just
getting started with what you'vegot.
Every single type of video Iwatch which teaches you about
things.
That is the question thateverybody asks.
So if it's for music stuff likelive loop I love live looping
you know you record yourself,you lay down a loop, you record

(01:13:37):
straight away over the top,straight away.
You're doing it all live thefirst question people ask is
what technology, what pedal areyou using?
Or what app are you using onthe iPad?
It's like, yeah, that kind ofmatters, but not really when
people see video editing, likesomething that's well edited for
video, which video editingsoftware?
So I've been lately gettinginto drawing.

(01:14:01):
It's sort of pattern baseddrawing called Zentangle.
It literally involves a pieceof paper and a fine line of pen.
What's the question?
Everyone asks which pen are youusing?
It doesn't matter.
Pick up a burrow.
Like draw me.
Yeah, it does not matter whatyou're using, like just, yeah,
start.

Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
People would be like I want to learn the keyboard,
but there's so many differentbrands which keyboard.
Which one is the best All?

Speaker 2 (01:14:27):
of them, it's the keyboard, if it makes a sound it
is the best you know.

Speaker 1 (01:14:31):
So what it comes on is how much do you want to spend
?
You want to spend $5000 on akeyboard or $500.

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
You can still achieve the same.

Speaker 1 (01:14:39):
So yeah, people get obsessed with the gear and the
gear is going to make me better,and no, it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
You don't need to know Get practicing first.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
Get practicing, yeah, or practicing in whatever thing
it is Practicing video editingor video recording or Zentangle
drawing Just get started andthen you actually you're in a
better position to make adecision about what to buy.
Because then you go, oh, I lovethis one, but I wish it had
another octave, you know interms of key, number of keys.

(01:15:09):
Then you go, okay, so I need toupgrade.
My next keyboard will be a bitbigger, or whatever.
People have touch sensitivity,yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:15:18):
You learn what you need as you go along, and that's
one of the biggest problems.
They're thinking that they needto be able to see the end.
I need to be where Warren is,so what do I need to get there?
And I said I can't tell youthat.
You're going to have to figureit out as you go along because
your path is going to be alittle bit different in mine.
When I just started, I knewnothing about websites.

(01:15:40):
I was like how do I upload avideo then sell it?
You know, wasn't that straightforward and it was just.
Every time I had a question Iwould just go to Google.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
How do I do?

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
this and then I find out or blog post or a video and
you, just you learn as you goalong, based on what you need,
because the knowledge I have nowhad someone poured it out on a
piece of paper, it would havescared me.
Yeah, absolutely Something,just not ready yet, for you know
you have to grow into thatposition.

(01:16:11):
So, yeah, thank you for that.
You really have to learn bydoing.
Well, that's it, katie.
That's pretty much what Iwanted to discuss with you.
This was an amazing discussionMidnight music, where technology
meets teaching.

Speaker 2 (01:16:31):
That's such an awesome thing.
Such an amazing thing.

Speaker 1 (01:16:34):
Thank you for coming on and sharing your knowledge
with the folks over here atBusiness with Musician, because
I didn't know this was possible.
So to see that this is actuallya thing that is so in demand
for music teachers around theworld, it is truly a thing.
So I'm glad, maybe I'll bereaching out for you to for some

(01:16:55):
tech skills as well.

Speaker 2 (01:16:59):
How do?

Speaker 1 (01:16:59):
I connect some of these things.
My entire music teachingbusiness is all tech, all online
.
So that's great.
Yeah, it's insane.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
And it's hard with music as well, because it's just
.
You know, music isn't that muchmore difficult than anyone else
who's working in the onlinespace.

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
People are like you.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
Just get on soon.
Oh my gosh, you have no ideaLike sharing audio through an
online platform is hard work,but yeah, you can do it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
Great, so thanks again for coming on and for
sharing your knowledge with us.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
No worries.