A few clips from the seminar at Roosevelt including: seminar lesson #4 “knowing is half the battle” (© 1985 by Hasbro, Inc), strengths & weaknesses form, strength areas discussion. See the bottom of this of this post for images of the E-Workbook.
I had the rare privilege of creating an entirely new approach to artistic business planning this spring. What a blessing to start from a blank slate like this and dream up what would be the most effective method of helping fourteen highly-talented and motivate singers developing a plan for their futures!
Where do you start? How do you bring structure to what can be an amorphous pile of worries and stress? Also, these students are already highly informed and charged up. What can I offer that will really challenge them?
This was part of the spring semester of Dr. Dana Brown‘s Graduate Seminar, “Topics for the Professional Singer” at Roosevelt University, Chicago College of Performing Arts.
I had already connected with this group of singers earlier in the fall semester. They completed several homework assignments using Velvet Singer Software to quickly generate a database of professional contacts, repertoire lists and audition history reports. So coming back in the spring to talk about the planning side of the business was a treat.
We spent a fair amount of time discussing what the purposes and benefits of developing a business plan might be. I was impressed with their ability to take this so seriously and to generate many good uses for having a written plan. Before we decide what a plan should contain, let’s make some commitments to how we intend to use it and who we are going to share it with.
Among the purposes of a business plan that they came up with were:
- To help organize your thoughts and gain clarity
- To involve stakeholders in furthering your career
- To persuade others to support you
That is powerful stuff!
So who are we going to share this with, and when? These students were busy singing graduate recitals and preparing for graduation. What a perfect time to make a plan and share it with your stakeholders!
Here are some of the folks with whom they committed to share the business plan executive report:
- My voice teacher
- My parents
- My girlfriend / boyfriend
- My director from last summer
How powerful and rich might those experience be?
Imagine that you are a director and you receive a courteous email from a young singer you had worked with the previous summer. Attached to the email was a nice report outlining that singers plans, strengths, weaknesses, priorities, mission, values, vision and strategy. Holy cow, that could have a profound impact!
Now imagine that you get to know this young singer better and she includes you every year with an update. When you need a last-minute Despina, who is going to get the call?
Click here to learn more about Velvet Singer Seminars.
During this seminar, we rely heavily on the E-Workbook. In this video clip, we mention the Product Strengths & Weaknesses Forms and then generate the “Strength Areas” bar chart as a result. The E-Workbook has been a great framework for meaningful conversation.
With Velvet Singer Courseware, we were able to create a homework assignment including submission of these five reports:
