29 Days to Diva: Day 7 – Outsource and Conquer (#29DTD)

“You should have kids early in your career…”

“You should wait to have kids until you’re established in your career…”

Know what those pieces of advice are? (Other than things you’ll never hear come out of my mouth?) Beyond being a terrible way to talk about family planning with creative entrepreneurs, those unsolicited pieces of advice are little heads-up moments that running your diva business is time-consuming. Whether you are thinking about adding offspring to your equation or not,  it does not matter. Singing is a time-consuming life choice. You will need to make decisions about where you spend your time and with whom. When you choose to play this game, singing will always demand to be one of the main considerations in your planner. How do we keep pursuing singing and spend more time with the people we love? Outsourcing.

How do we keep pursuing singing and spend more time with the people we love? Outsourcing.

Your Day 7 Challenge is to Brainstorm Tasks You Can Outsource in Your Diva Business.

When you hand over tasks to other, probably more competent people – in that area, it frees you to earn more and spend time in the ways your truly care about. So much of our jobs demand that we are on-site. We have to be the person in the practice room, learning all the notes, drilling the rhythms, enunciating the text, and inhabiting the character. We have to be able to get ourselves to and contribute to the rehearsals and performances. We have to be the ones teaching the next generation. Living the life of a freelancer is “being on” one hundred percent of the time. Wondering what singer tasks you could possibly outsource?

Let’s make a list!

This is just a beginning for you to create your own list of time-consuming activities that could be outsourced to someone for experience or money. Ready to take the next step and hire someone to help? I highly recommend Fancy Hands as the starter set for those who need some help with tasks here and there. (In fact, here’s my affiliate link.) Ready to upgrade? Another great site to check out is Onlinejobs.ph which comes recommended by the indefatigable Chalene Johnson.

Luxury is a free schedule.

1. Graphic Design Work – for your posters, social media posts, blog posts, YouTube or SoundCloud pages… I bet you personally know someone you could support by asking them to help you here. What’s 2 hours for you is 30 minutes for them.
2. Research – you could easily have a Fancy Hands assistant make you a spreadsheet of every opera house in a certain geographic area or level with their programmed repertoire for the coming season, for example. Got projects in mind where it would help to have some assistance in the research area? Here’s your invitation.
3. Audition Book/Performance Scores – Got an in-person helper? Outsource the copying, binding, etc to them.
4. Photography & photo editing – no brainer here right? Call your photographer and get those headshots and publicity shots taken care of.
5. Video Editing
6. Social Media Posts/Comments/Scheduling
7. Social Media Advertising
8. Website Design
9. Copy Writing – Does your bio suck? Don’t fancy yourself a writer? Give a writer your résumé and some key points and see what options they return.
10. Inbox Zero – Have an assistant go through and set up folders and management of your inbox.
11. Newsletter Management – You could outsource the set-up, list management, design, or even copy writing of your newsletter. Wouldn’t that make it easier to connect with your tribe?
12. Audio Recording and Editing
13. Personal Branding
14. Public Relations/Press Release Creation and Distribution
15. Event Planning – Put a real event planner on the case when it comes to your next self-produced performance. I bet that would revolutionize how you think about your audience and your event.
16. Personal Styling – for events and auditions. Just one more thing you don’t have to think about. You don’t have to be good at doing your own hair. Have someone else do it.
17. Taxes!!
18. Travel Planning
19. Setting Appointments
20. House Cleaning – I cannot recommend this one enough. If you’re feeling a little overly Cenerentola-like in your life and not in the singer way, outsource this post-haste.

Outsourcing can feel off-limits to us because we think that it will be cheaper to do it ourselves. As part of your daily challenge, think about exactly how much money you could be earning in your speciality in the same amount of time you are spending on the tasks above. Some of these are literally $15-$25 tasks that could save you hours and will help you land more gigs in the future. Do you have any tasks that you can add to the list? Please mention them in the comments below – even if they are singer-specific! I would love to read them. There is definitely something to be said for learning the inner workings of these tasks but not spending valuable time on them after you know what you need. If nothing else, remember that luxury is a free schedule. Your time is your own. Choose to spend it in the most luxurious way possible.

Your time is your own. Choose to spend it in the most luxurious way possible.

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I am part of a huge, awesome new music community. I’m beating the pavement this year to spread the word far and wide. Every gig in every zip code contributes to what we can do together. I do not apologize for the music I perform. It is staggering and awe-inspiring that we can perform music from across the centuries and still be premiering new pieces today. Music can do that. I want to promote your stunning projects and the way that you’re spreading the gospel of classical music too. Drop me a line on twitter or email me and tell me what you’re about.