Toronto Songwriting School Harmonizes During Pandemic

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Hey there, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. Every day bringing you different stories, questions and answers, all kinds of tips, ideas you can take and apply in the world of the new economy. Oh, my name is Chris Guillebeau, by the way. I'm your host.

Now the purpose of a case study, these stories that we tell, first of all, it's to tell you an interesting story, hopefully, and we try to keep ours pretty short so that you understand the essential details without getting too sidetracked. And of course, if you want to learn more about any particular story, any person or business, you can always do that by going to the show notes page and following some links from there. Without further ado, in today's story, two longtime friends inside Hustle Partners work in harmony to maintain their songwriting school in the midst of pandemic disruptions. And think about this, if meeting on Zoom is sometimes challenging, just imagine singing together on Zoom and trying to coordinate multiple people singing in harmony in different locations, but they've been able to figure out how to do it. And they also make money doing it.

The story is called Toronto Songwriting School Harmonizes During Pandemic. That story is coming right up. [Music]

Musician and songwriter Murray Foster performed in the Canadian folk rock band Great Big C for over a decade before the group called it quits in 2013. But Murray wasn't quite ready to retire from his love of songwriting just because the other guys decided to move on to different things in their lives. An idea dawned on him to monetize his passion by creating a songwriting course in the Toronto area.

Even though he didn't know much about marketing or building a business, this musician was pretty upbeat about keeping the dream alive. He reached out to his friend, Mary Krause, and they went into the project together. What project would that be? The Toronto Songwriting School. Mary had spent two decades working behind the scenes to support musicians, artists, and authors with management, booking, and PR services.

Her day job is running social media for a healthcare organization, but her true passion lies with the music business. Now partnered up, Mary planned to manage the operations of the new school. Now in a side hustle, that means a lot of things because there's typically no one else to pass something onto. How did it all get in motion? It got in motion with $500 of Murray's money and lots of Mary's time, and they rented out vacant space in a local church preparing for class.

Luckily, with their network of friends and family, especially Murray's fan base, their first class was filled, and it grew from there. Over the past six years, they've offered songwriting classes for both beginners and those with more experience. They also hosted songwriting getaways to major musical cities, such as Nashville, New Orleans, and even Dublin, Ireland. But it all changed, just as it did for so many of us in February, 2020. Mary and Murray were leading one of these getaway trips to Austin, Texas.

And you know where this is going. COVID-19 was just starting to gain momentum. The getaway guests were innocently sharing meals, drinks, and microphones as if life was totally normal. But within just two weeks, they'd have to completely cancel in-person classes and fully pivot how the Toronto Songwriting School operated on a daily basis. They wanted to keep their tight-knit community of students together.

So they started by hosting free Sunday night song circles while developing a long-term strategy. Each week, their students would come together, share a song or two, this is all online, and they would close with a check-in to make sure the small group was doing okay with everything happening around the world. Now, like the rest of us, they hoped the change would be short-lived. But as Canada continued to shut down, it became pretty clear that they'd need to adjust their courses to be online only. Mary was ready for the challenge.

She reached out to some incredible songwriters who were also looking for ways to make money during lockdown. Together, they came up with creative online workshops, guest lectures, and a masterclass so that their students could continue gaining value from the school. She also ramped up their digital marketing. Advertising on Facebook and Google became increasingly essential to keep fresh faces coming into the program. So they started spending several hundred dollars a month on ads.

Overall, they focused on building a quality customer experience from start to finish with a focus on sharing valuable lessons. Of course, there are always cons or difficulties to working in an online-only format, so Mary and the team have had some challenges adjusting. We all know that feeling of hopping on a Zoom call where everyone talks over each other, but how about trying to sing in harmony with one another? The difficulty level of getting multiple singers to harmonize with each other over video chat has been off the scale. Still, they persevered, and their side hustle is now bringing in around $2,500 in profits each month, part-time.

Mary continues to work her full-time healthcare social media job. Meanwhile, Mary stays busy with artistic pursuits, such as teaching at a local college and writing musical theater. [Music]

Listeners, I hope this story strikes a chord with you. How will you go from idea to income? And by the way, the Toronto Songwriting School runs multiple songwriting competitions each year to test your skills.

And all you have to do is sing into your phone and submit a $5 application fee. And learn more about that on their website. I'm gonna link up their website. Anything else I mentioned in today's show notes page, that page, what would it be? It is 1772, 1772.

Thank you so much for tuning in today. You can also ask a question there on the website, find some other resources. Mostly, I hope you will do something for yourself. I hope you will think about an idea you have and ask yourself, what's the next step? And then of course, take that next step.

I'll be here again tomorrow. I hope you'll join me. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.