This episode about music income streams was previously published on the Profitable Musician Show.

Creative business coach and heart-healing medicine musician, Tara Divina, talks about infinite possibilities in creating income streams for musicians. She discusses about how setting up a crowdfunding campaign is a great way to leverage the enthusiasm of your fans and supporters into financial results. She talks about all things music career as far as how to make yourself stand out and how to make money from music from her unique perspective.

Tara was in her third year of university on a business track when she looked deep inside and decided she wants something about music. People around her discouraged her saying it’s impossible. She ignored them and emailed random 300 record labels saying she’d like to be an intern for them. She got 2 replies out of the 300. One of them was from London-Sire Records, which was Warner Music Group Company in New York City, which was Madonna’s label. They took her in and have her do internet marketing.

She ran their new media department and stayed in the company and went on to become a corporate label executive for ten years. During that time, she helped ink deals with Apple, Spotify, etc. It helped create. Tara had a pretty successful career. She was vice president at 26. She had it all, but one day she realized this was not what she wanted to do anymore.

She had a lot of burnout before that decision. Companies were merging and shutting down. She had a really good offer at Warner Music Group to become their Neuropsychiatrist and she took that final role since she couldn’t pass it up.

Things opened her eyes to the possiblity that she could love her career and what she does. She could be fulfilled. Once she saw that, she walked away from the corporate world. She had no idea what to do next.

She found her way back to being a musician. She mentored other people around creativity and loving their careers.

Music income streams and finding your purpose

To find your purpose and feel fulfilled, you need to get clear on what you don’t want, your yes and your no. You need to understand how to go beyond social constructs and mindset issues that can interrupt out inner truth. You need to have a consistent connection to that sense of direction that we each have all the time. It’s a lot more common now for people to follow their hearts and path of creativity. There’s a shift in collective consciousness about what’s possible. It opens up the idea of being self-directed.

For Tara, she has always been autonomous but she had challenges with putting herself and her stuff out there and risking being seen in failure. She believes that we all have a core message and we are a beacon of light in that topic. This usually comes through in music. Artists must continue to speak about it in their marketing and show it in their branding. It should be a real extension of your art.

Artists must not listen to the feeling that they have talked about things 100 times. People hear us only on the 100th time and get it. The more we broadcast our message, the more we broadcast our brand. We need to bring more of our self out. You can stand out as an artist by being transparent about the truth, what’s going on, your weaknesses and strengths. By hiding things that you think may turn off certain people, you’re hiding what’s going to have people love you.

Tara shares that the best music income streams come from crowdfunding campaigns. It’s an incredible way to leverage the enthusiasm of your fans and supporters into financial results. She did a crowdfunding campaign for her album and it raised $15,000 in total. Second is channeling your creativity in other ways such as making beautiful memes or products using lyrics on your merch. People are less attracted to starving artists. Crowdfunding is all about the perks.

Tara loves supporting artists through her online course offerings and coachings. She supports artists in understanding how to find their core message and how to be able to write in an articulate, coherent, impactful way. She has courses that allow you to find your core message, courses that allow you to learn how to write, clarify your mission and purpose.

You can find her at TaraDivina.com and on Facebook, Instagram and other platforms at @TaraDivina.

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