I am here with Tara Simon and I’m excited to get to know her and find out more about her journey as musician, how she works with musicians and discovering her true purpose.

Making money may be the major goal in entrepreneurship, but without getting that satisfaction of serving others or pursuing your true passion, it may all be for naught. Singer and Vocal Coach Tara Simon joins Bree Noble in sharing how her career eventually brought her to the vocal coaching stage, helping others hone their singing talents. Tara reminisces how the doors of coaching opened to her, giving her a bigger life mission than just earning cash. She also explains how her simple source of passive income grew into an established group of vocal coaches, which is now making the most out of the increasing demands of online lessons.

Tara wanted to be a singer since the age of 3. She thought that she was going to be a performer. She trained for it and when she was 18, she moved to New York, did Broadway at 19, toured Europe and came back. She always felt something was missing when she was performing. Whenever she was and whatever she did, people will always come to her and ask if she can coach their daughter or granddaughter. Years passed and she found herself having nothing to do and she was forced to find another income stream. The door was opened for her for coaching. Her first student, Peter, was an 11-year old down syndrome kid who was always told no by other music coaches. Years later, she found deep purpose and meaning in coaching. She realized her calling for her music and talent was not really self-serving. She finds more joy and satisfaction in pouring into others. She realized that genuinely caring for what she was doing was a hot commodity. She opened up a brick and mortar in Georgia. Peter had bone marrow leukemia and Tara still taught her even in the hospital. She still carries him as inspiration since he was the one who opened her heart to coaching. For Tara, it is important to see the heart behind what you do.

So how did Tara figure out her calling?
In Fame, she was around 2 months in, not only was she the lead singer but she was also dancing. She was so tired and always hungry and it was great, but 2 months in as the curtains were rising, she found herself bored and yawning. That time, she was discovering her true purpose. This made her think about what is her real purpose and what she really wants in life.

How did her business change with the pandemic?
Tara’s brick and mortar is still up and running in Atlanta even during the pandemic. When she moved from South Carolina to Atlanta, she eventually moved her students to Skype and they’ve been doing lessons online for a decade. During COVID, her international students boomed so her business has never been better since the pandemic.

Tara has a YouTube channel and people find her there. She having other vocal coaches under her brand is not a problems for her. She currently has five vocal coaches and she chooses them very carefully. She makes sure they are first of all a professional. She stalks them for months and makes sure their excellence is aligned with their brand. Tara then trains them for months. So it’s like their students are working with her with a different face.

About her YouTube channel
She didn’t really do much advertising rather than SEO. She hired a videographer to do short Instagram tips and tricks. When they still had time, he offered to do a reaction video for YouTube. She started getting subscribers by the thousands and that built her YouTube channel. She did something that wasn’t saturated at that time.

Streams of Income for Musicians
Tara is a huge believer and beneficiary of courses. We can educate ourselves online just as we can in person. There’s value in courses and value in subscriptions. There are so many ways to monetize your time and make some passive income while discovering her true purpose.

To find that stream of income, ask yourself these two questions:
1. Who would you like most to serve?
2. What in you is valuable that you can give to them?

“If you’re not sure what you’re doing in life or where you’re going, just look inside yourself and serve others. You’ll find your direction when you get your eyes off of you and start looking towards someone else.”

You can find Tara everywhere by googling Tara Simon Studios.

This episode was first aired on Episode #13 of The Profitable Musician Show.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Bree’s PR Guide

Bree’s Musician’s Profit Path