To expand your business online, Jaime Slutzky, as founder of The Expand Online Summit and The Tech of Business, helps creatives and musicians navigate the confusing tech hurdles of marketing and providing online education.

I get a lot of people coming to me all the time frustrated with online tech, thinking they can’t possibly master it. They want to do more things online but the tech is holding them back. Jaime will talk about tech things to help musicians make money online.

Jaime Slutzky have been techy all of her life. She got her degree in Computer Science, worked in corporate IT, did online web freelance work. She grew up in Vancouver, Canada and lived in Seattle. She has dual citizenship and that gives her more of a global feel. She decided to work with musicians because there is so much opportunity for creating a difference in making a difference in a person’s life. She did not see enough online music programs.

What tech things are artists getting stuck with?
Most of Jaime’s clients come to her wanting to do something in their educational space. They are teaching one-on-one and wanting to create an online course or membership site. They don’t know where to start. Most of her students have picked a platform such as Facetime, Skype or Zoom and that is the limit of how they connect with their students. They figure out what they want to accomplish with their students and then figure out the tech container to help them with the next level of how they should do things. Start with what they want to help the students with, that’s kind of the big thing.

What do you advise to someone whose already using an existing platform?
If you already have a software that you’re using, see if you can make it work without too much struggle. Invest in your future self and your future students. Invest enough that you don’t have to invest again soon to expand your business online.

What point makes sense for somebody to make that investment?
Investments should pay themselves back and make themselves profitable within 3-6 months. If a software has a one time payment, think about how long it will take you to return that investment and eventually make a profit.

For those that do not have anything set up, what do you recommend?
The first is WordPress where you use plugins but everything is self-contained on your site and you are in full control of it.
The second is Thinkific. What I like is you don’t need to add too much.

How about for emails marketing?
It is a really important piece and I recommend ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign. ConvertKit is leaning more on the creatives.

A lot of musicians are now doing one-on-one teaching. When this pandemic started, I encouraged musicians about doing their teachings online. I myself was so overwhelmed when I started coaching. People were booking calls on my calendar and I felt I had no time of my own and it stressed me out. How do you make people make the transition where they can feel that they’re not completely trading time for money?
There is generally a mindset work that goes into that. Another one is a philosophy that I have, “we don’t have to translate the methods, we have to translate the results.” Let’s think of the students’ goals, how do we teach them asynchronously so they can reach that goal? So my clients have been dedicating one day for student feedback, one day for content, etc. There’s so many ways you can do it. Think about how you consume content. You can do your content the way you want it so that you can have more enjoyment doing it by using demonstrations, pictures, videos, etc. to expand your business online.

Do you help your clients incorporate some form of gamification in their course?
Yes! This goes back to our elementary school days where you get your gold stars. It doesn’t need to cause you extra money but it make consuming your content more fun.

What’s holding people back from using tech?
There are lots of people signing up for course-delivery or learning management platforms everyday. Those people do not have any more experience than you do. One advantage musicians have is you have already used a microphone. You have read Bree’s email and you have listened to a podcast. You are already ahead. Think of all the small tech wins you’ve had. Think about what you can do for your students and find a platform that makes you feel comfortable. Watch videos, start with bare minimum then add increments.

Tech is a much smaller hurdle than not having fans. You are already a teacher with your methodology. It can be done.

Here’s the biggest thing. If you want to do this, gain more control of your schedule and leverage the talents that you’ve got online, then go for it. Create an online program of some kind. It’s not just asynchronous programs. You as a teacher can decided how much contact your students can have with you. If you want to have weekly group calls, you can build that into the program. There’s a lot of ways to structure it. Now is really an important time for them to bring music into their lives as much as they can. You can definitely do in-person performance but having online programs set up and running can amplify and magnify your impact.

Reach out to Jamie at @jamieslutzky on Instagram and her website is techofbusiness.com

This episode was first aired on Episode #15 of The Profitable Musician Show.

Links mentioned in this episode:
Tara B’s Book Like A Boss – profitablemusician.com/booking
Jamie Slutzky’s Instagram and website – @jamieslutzky, www.techofbusiness.com