Michael Walker: Let's go. I'm excited to be here today with my new friend, Fabiana Claure. Fabiana is a concert pianist, music business strategist, and an AI innovation leader. She helps music performers and educators transform their expertise into scalable, profitable education businesses. She has a background as a doctoral-level concert pianist. She's a university professor and a co-founder of a nationally recognized music academy, developing the Musicians Profit Umbrella framework. So I'm excited to connect with her today to have a discussion about, you know, as an independent artist or music educator, what are some of the best ways that you can share your music and share your art with the world?

So Fabiana, thanks for taking the time to be on the podcast today.

Fabiana Claure: Thank you for having me, Michael.

Michael: Awesome. So, to kick things off, would love to hear a little bit more about your story and how you transitioned from, you know, being a concert pianist to starting to help others with their online business.

Fabiana: Absolutely. So my background, as you mentioned, it comes from originally being trained as a performing musician and educator, finishing with a doctorate degree from the University of Miami back in 2011. And I quickly realized part of my research and dissertation was there were no full-time jobs just waiting for us upon graduation.

So I quickly realized we needed to become entrepreneurs. And when I say we, I mentioned me and my husband since we were both on the same doctoral track. So there was no backup plan, if you know what I mean. The two of us had to come up with a way quickly to sustain ourselves after school. So we built a music school called Superior Academy of Music and really learned how to run a business from the ground up.

We had not much preparation for it, as you can imagine. But it was a really interesting experience to learn by doing and to integrate all our knowledge as musicians and educators while also learning about business and sales and marketing and customer service. So for five years, we were pretty much a mom-and-pop shop. We were doing everything in the business and running the day-to-day, teaching one-on-one piano lessons and running a typical music academy in the format that most of us have been taught to do, which is teaching and administration.

And quickly after that five-year mark, I realized that I wanted to do more. I wanted to share the knowledge that I had gained from running a business, and I felt that there was more out there for me. I could help even more people beyond the students I was working with as a piano teacher.

So I reinvented myself and decided to start looking outside the area where I was living in Florida, and the opportunity to apply for the University of North Texas to build their music business kind of fell on my lap. I saw the description of the job, and although I had never thought about teaching music entrepreneurship at the college level, I decided to throw my hat in the ring and see what happened.

And initially, it felt like a really interesting transition that didn't make much sense. However, for me, it felt like it just was a great opportunity to share my experience in a new way. So I applied, and when I decided to go and I was invited to accept the position, I had to restructure my music school so that it could continue running without both of us there.

And that became a really interesting lesson. I never expected to be leaving my business and restructuring it. So that became part of my philosophy as I started teaching other students in the university about building their businesses. That became part of what I wanted them to understand. It was not just about starting a business, but really, how do you build something with systems in mind so that at any point, if you wanna delegate it, you know, sell it, or even, you know, just transfer the administration to anyone else, that you have things built in so they don't all rely on you being the bottleneck as the owner.

And so that became part of my ethos, if you will, when I created the curriculum at the University of North Texas, and I co-created an MBA program with the College of Business. It was all about not just how to build a business, but how to build something through systems so it could also run for you, not just through you all the time.

And after five years of running the business program at the University of North Texas, there was a new reinvention in my life. I became a mom for the second time, and I started to feel that, again, there was a bigger calling for me that extended beyond the university, and I realized I wanted to help globally and guide other musicians how to package their knowledge and expand their work beyond wherever they are physically located into an online education business.

So I first did it myself. I surrounded myself with people who were doing it, worked with mentors, colleagues, and realized that this is one of the best ways for musicians to create fulfilling careers in combination with being performing artists, producers, you know, composers. It is having a backend platform as some sort of a business online where they can share their knowledge and have that as the main engine driver that supports everything else that we do as artists, therefore removing the dependency on trading our time for money, and instead allowing us to choose what activities we do that do require our time, like one-on-one teaching or performing, but then to always have an online business in the backend that gives us the flexibility to create a sustainable lifestyle, not depend on physical locations, and not depend on always our time in order to create an income.

So for the last six years, that's what I've been doing. Eventually, I decided to step out of academia and go full-time into my online business, and so that's what I've had the pleasure of helping musicians around the world now build. Truly a movement, we call it Musicians Creating Prosperity, that has changed the lives of so many people around the world, especially in a way that allows musicians to not have to compromise what matters most to them, to not have to choose one side of their identity.

Oftentimes, we get told to niche down, to really pick one lane and just go all in on it, and I found that to be counterproductive for musicians and creative entrepreneurs because we have many different interests and multifaceted layers of talent and passion and experience.

So as I did this, I also built a framework called the Musician's Profit Umbrella, which is about unifying everything we have to offer into one cohesive brand identity. So that's been part of the process that has allowed me to help other musicians, and then most recently, developing AI systems and platforms and custom build-outs to help musicians not have to learn as much and become masterful at marketing and copywriting and sales, but instead leverage the tools that exist today with AI to bypass the learning curve, compress time, and more quickly launch their businesses online or scale what they've already created.

Michael: Hmm. Awesome. Cool. Thank you for sharing that. And one through line that I'm hearing you share that I think is just a really valuable lesson to see, like, compressed time. So it's, like, your whole journey, like, compressed into a story. Like, one through line is around this movement between dependency and lack of freedom, trading your time, and then turning it into building systems and things that run without you, and leveraging the tools.

Yeah, I'm curious. There's a part in your description where you talked about, on paper, a period of your life where you're very successful on paper, but you're feeling exhausted behind the scenes. And so I'm curious what your life and career really looked like at that moment, and maybe for anyone here that's listening to this right now who kind of feels in that, yeah, in that zone, what you learned from that.

Fabiana: Absolutely. I wish it would've been only once. It's happened many times, Michael, and it always is at the edge of a breakthrough that leads to an ascension, a positive growth. But usually, my biggest shifts and the things that have forced me to spring into change and action have come as a result of feeling constricted, feeling limited.

I believe part of that is just the way we're trained as musicians. We're not really taught how to build a brand, how to reinvent ourselves, how to properly communicate the value of our expertise. And instead, we're really trained to try to fit in, to try to be chosen, to try to appeal in a way that always requires our physical presence.

So my first kinda choking point was when I had built my one-on-one music academy. I was teaching full-time, running the business full-time, and I had felt that I had reached what I had achieved, like what I wanted to, which was to build a business, to create a sustaining income stream and something that was meaningful.

It was getting great results for students, but it came at a price that I felt I no longer wanted to pay, which was taking all of my energy and time. At that point, I had a two-year-old son already, and so I started to feel like even though on paper it was what I had set out to achieve, right? I finished my degree. I started a business. We were able to keep it going through those critical first few years, and yet I was like, "This doesn't feel it for me."

So that's when my first reinvention happened, and I had to own an identity that I didn't fully understand yet, but that I knew I wanted to, in the sense that I hadn't ever, as I mentioned, been a university professor. I hadn't taught music business, but yet I knew that I was ready to start sharing what I had learned, what I had done.

And so that led to this reinvention of sorts, this pivoting, and kinda commanding and declaring that I was ready to serve at a greater level. And the same thing happened five years after when I started this new role. I started to embrace it. I started to build all the frameworks. At five years in, it always happens every five years. I don't know why. And I always have happened to have a young toddler around.

So within five years of running the business, running the business program at UNT, I started to feel once again that my time was completely full. It was committed to my job, right? And even though I was running the business remotely, my husband was primarily driving the business, running things, you know, from across the country. I felt that, again, that elusive faculty position that we all are taught to desire, especially if you go through doctorate degrees and everything, it didn't fit anymore.

You know, it was like a shoe that didn't fit. It felt like something was missing again. I felt constricted with the limitations and the schedule and just the lack of more autonomy over my income and my time in a different way, but it was the same problem.

So that forced me again to say, "Okay, now what?" Like, how do I reinvent myself even without having done it exactly in that way? I had never taught online. I had never positioned myself as an online brand. I had never really shared with my network that I could coach and I could mentor. But yet I decided this was my time to look at everything I had to offer and see who would benefit from it.

And the timing ended up being kind of interesting 'cause it happened around December of 2019 and January, February of 2020. In the middle of February of 2020, I really openly shared it with all my network. I posted it on all my social media. I put together, like, a narrative around what I was planning on doing, and I wanted to help other musicians globally now, not just within the context of the academic setting that I had.

And then March happened, and the world turned around. Everything was upside down with COVID, and that's when I realized, wow, I really need to lean into this 'cause musicians need this now more than ever, right?

So it was interesting how the timing kind of all fell into place, and it really helped me feel that my life had an even deeper purpose. There was something so much deeper that I was being called to do, and it just felt like something I had to just really go all in on. And I truly feel these things happen for a reason.

So for all the listeners here, like, the biggest breakthroughs are usually on the other side of the breakdowns. You know, when you're feeling like things are falling apart, where you're feeling like you have nowhere to go, where you're lost, where you're... Those are the moments where something is gonna come new into you, whether it's through your own discovery or through a series of external circumstances, but will call a part of you that you may never knew existed until you got to that breaking point.

So I welcome those moments now, and I'm not happy about them. They're always uncomfortable. Yeah. But I always realize this is something that's gonna lead to a totally different direction. It will change everything for the better in the long run. You know what I mean?

Michael: Yeah. Yeah, I do. I know exactly what you mean, and it is really interesting how a lot of times those most challenging, like, dark, hard times end up being the things that are literally the greatest catapults and the things that help you to evolve or grow or have breakthroughs.

Fabiana: Yeah.

Michael: Are you familiar with the hero's journey from Joseph Campbell?

Fabiana: Yes. Yes.

Michael: Yeah.

Fabiana: Yes.

Michael: You know, that framework is so interesting and the death and rebirth cycle. Mm-hmm. So it doesn't surprise me to hear that you've had those cycles, and every breakthrough has been, you know, on the other side of that challenge.

And hopefully it's inspiring to people who may be in the middle of one of those right now and maybe... 'Cause when you're in the middle of it, even if you know that, you know, this is, like, a part of the breakthrough, it still can be really challenging and going through that sort of that caterpillar, caterpillar turning into a butterfly is, it's uncomfortable, but it's also beautiful at the same time.

Fabiana: It is. It is. And everything is in our own perception of the situation. That's one of the things I would say that's been the greatest lesson from all these different periods of my life. From having been, you know, a student first, going through multiple degrees, then becoming a business owner, then becoming a university professor, and now being, like, a global online strategist, basically, every step has required an elevation of my personal development, not just acquisition of skills or learning this tactic or that tool.

It's about becoming a new version of myself at each stage. And when those challenges happen, it's that moment of deciding, "How do I handle this? I get to handle it like the person I'm becoming, or I get to handle it like the person I have been." And that decision is what can actually make or break your ability to move through it.

And usually, every time I've been in those moments, I've had to call in the future Fabiana, not the present one. I've had to make decisions out of the future Fabiana and ask myself, "What would she do right now?" And that has been a crazy, incredible hack.

So for anyone listening, if you're right now there, don't try to solve the problems from who you are now. Ask yourself, "Who am I becoming? What are the qualities of the person I know I need to be to make my dreams come true, to create the life and business that I want?" And how can you call those qualities now and invoke them into helping you decide and take action from a place of certainty, even though you have no idea what's ahead of you?

You know what I mean?

Michael: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah, I think there's, it's almost like that thermostat analogy where, you know, if you set yourself, if you set your thermostat at where it currently is, then you basically will just stay there. But if you set it higher, if you have, if you call in the future version of yourself, then something can kinda kick in and pull you up to that place.

It's a lot easier, too, to give yourself advice when you can get space from the perspective. And so calling in your future self is almost like it lets you look at yourself on the outside looking in from tapping into something, you know, that's like a source of wisdom.

Fabiana: Yes.

Michael: But isn't that funny how it is? Like, it's coming from ourselves. It's literally coming from ourselves, but... And it was there the whole time. Mm-hmm. But also having that frame can be a big unlock.

Fabiana: Yeah, and it almost helps you not take it so personal. I think it helps you remove some of the pressure because when you're trying to make decisions out of the patterns that have brought you to this moment, you're bound to repeat the same mistakes, right? You're bound to repeat what you've done.

As we say, you know, your external reality most likely is related to the way you've made decisions and the way you've acted. So, you know, perpetuating those same thought patterns and decision-making patterns will usually keep you in a loop, right? I call it the misalignment loop.

And so in order to break that loop, you have to start making decisions differently and, you know, becoming more courageous, creating better boundaries, whatever that looks like for you. Sometimes it's being willing to have uncomfortable conversations and be okay with that. Sometimes it's regulating your emotions. Sometimes it's being able to, as you said, to pause before reacting. Sometimes it's just as simple as taking care of yourself, just being more balanced so you can better think.

So whatever these things that are, you're having to decide on, it's always important to say, "Okay, how do I make things new? How do I make them feel fresh? And how do I embark on this next challenge with a sense of wonder because I don't know what's ahead, and I've maybe never made decisions like this before?"

So that is almost like you get to put yourself in another situation and embody a version of you that you've never tried. So it's also, I think, exciting, you know?

Michael: Awesome. You remind me of that quote from Albert Einstein about the definition of insanity.

Fabiana: Yeah.

Michael: Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. And so what I'm hearing you say is that, you know, part of where transformation comes from is getting awareness to recognize that the same things that you've been doing or the same patterns that have been happening over and over again aren't gonna change things in and of themselves.

And if you need to transform, you need to come at it from a different vantage point to make it new again.

Fabiana: Mm-hmm.

Michael: Hmm. Cool. Mm-hmm. So curious, having so much experience both personally as, you know, an artist going through this, then also starting to mentor and help other artists, what would you say are some of the biggest challenges or mistakes that you see musicians make when they first try to go down this path of packaging their expertise into, you know, either a course, coaching program, or membership?

Fabiana: Okay, great. I love that question. So first of all, the first mistake is thinking that you're not a teacher, like, yeah, you couldn't educate. A lot of active performing musicians have this notion of teaching as something very constrictive, and some of them have had very bad experiences and they say, "Oh, no, no, no, I don't wanna teach. I just wanna sing. I just wanna tour. I'm not a teacher." Right?

And so they still have this negative stigma around transferring their knowledge because they associate it with the traditional one-on-one model where you have to sit in a place where most of the times you're working with people who are not interested in the subject. They're just doing it 'cause their parents are forcing them to or whatever.

And it can be an unpleasant experience to teach in that setting. However, my first call to action is, what if teaching did not have to look anything like that, and you could actually share your expertise, whether it's around performing an instrument or learning about performance anxiety, or how to find concerts, or how to set things up in a gig.

It does not matter what that knowledge is about. What if you could do it in a way where you're not limiting yourself to doing it one-to-one, and everything depends on you physically having to be giving all your energy, repeating the same concepts to each student all the time?

What if teaching could look completely different, where you could instead have a model like a weekly group session or a master class format? You could share your experience through having clients ask you questions one at a time, even if they're in different levels.

What if you could have a platform where throughout the rest of the week, you could asynchronously send feedback to your clients and let them post questions on their own time, giving you total freedom in your schedule, not having to confine yourself to give one more hour away every time you welcome a new client?

What if teaching could actually be an exciting and creative experience for you, where you're not pre-recording content? That's the second part of this. You don't have to pre-record materials, spend hours and hours and hours in front of a microphone and a camera trying to come up with all a curriculum and all your genius in one.

That, this is not at all the way I recommend musicians package their skills. I'm a fan of doing things in real time with real people and documenting those encounters, and over time, extracting the teaching frameworks, the principles, the through lines that come out in those live meetings, and then building the recording materials, the frameworks out of that experience.

And yes, over time, you can end up with a beautifully curated library of trainings, all your intellectual property. But this, I believe the notion of you must pre-record the videos, try to sell a finished product, and teaching is not for performing artists or it's something that is a drag, it's a necessity you just do because you have to, those are the two things that I always highlight need to be reframed because, number one, teaching could be completely different, and number two, you don't have to pre-record your course materials to try to sell them as a finished product.

There should be an emphasis first on building a brand, understanding how to convey the value of what you do, which, by the way, no one teaches us how to do that in music. We're taught how to be good at what we do, but not how to know how to share that, how to convey the value.

So learning how to convey the value of your brand, how to explain that, and then having a good offer, teaching can feel like a very different phase in your life, and one that if you're savvy enough, you're gonna realize is the most scalable way you can grow your income and will also expand your impact.

So that is a long answer to your question, but there's several elements to it that I wanted to include.

Michael: Yeah. No, that's great. And I mean, I feel like I can personally relate because I went through that journey myself with starting Modern Musician. You know, I toured full-time for about 10 years, and when I got married and started my family and started transitioning, that's when I built Modern Musician and became a coach.

And I remember going through that same phase that you're describing. Early on, I had a lot of imposter syndrome. Like, who am I to teach this stuff? Like, you know, the band had achieved some success as an indie band, but I was like, "I've never taught this." Like, you know, I just, I wanted to be valuable, and I felt like, you know, I felt like that was my, one of my biggest fears is like, do I have anything to teach? Is it gonna be valuable?

So I love the approach that you just shared of, you know, not trying to create the finished product, you know, before you've actually had those interactions and you've actually had the conversations, and just documenting what you're already doing. That was a mistake that I made.

I mean, I remember the first time I created a course. I was devastated because I had packaged 10 years of touring into like a $1,000 course, and I tried putting it out. Like, I had a few hundred people on my email list, and I had zero sales. I was like, so much work and effort and everything went into this, and it felt like it was 'cause I was not good enough.

And it wasn't until I started doing what you just suggested of actually having conversations and getting to know artists personally, face to face. And then that started over time to expand into models and frameworks that, you know, came out of that shared connection.

So I can tell that what you're sharing is coming from that experience as well of actually going through that, and I can see why other people might have gone through, might be going through, or having, you know, felt that same thing that I also felt when I was going through that.

Fabiana: Absolutely. And don't get me wrong, I think there is a time and place for packaging pre-recorded materials and selling them as a finished product. I don't think it's a bad idea. I just think there's an order that I have found to be much more strategic.

In other words, as you're building this for the first time, right, which is the case for most musicians, the way to start is not by pre-recording and trying to sell something, but instead it's to understand truly how you wanna be seen, communicating the value accordingly, learning how to attract the right type of client, how to enroll them, and once they're in, then you start building the materials in a responsive way to what they need.

In my case, I started my first online program when most of my clients were university professors, just like I was at the time, and they joined my first cohort, and they were very academic. They were serious. They're, "Where, where's the course? I wanna see the whole library. What's the syllabus?"

And I told them candidly, "I have nothing created. Everything I'm gonna build will be done week by week based on what I see that you are struggling with and how I wanna help you address the specific challenges that you all are gonna bring to me. Of course, I know that I have a lot to offer. I know that I'm gonna be able to support you, and there are elements that are part of my signature approach, but I'm really gonna take the time to curate and build everything along the way."

And when you have done a good enough job of building a human-centric brand that allows people to trust you, then you should be able to communicate that in a way that has no problem with students. Because ultimately, they trust your vision, they trust your leadership, and if you've done a good enough job of conveying that value, they won't care whether they come in and they have 20 hours of trainings or none, because they're coming in because they want you.

You see what I mean?

Michael: Mm. Yeah. That definitely makes sense. Yeah, I think one of the mistakes or the challenges that I had when, uh, doing that for the first time, which I think is solved by starting the way that you're recommending, is I think I misunderstood what people actually needed or what they were, what they were really looking for, what their challenges were.

And so I created all, spent all this time, you know, packaging what I thought was the most important part, and then I realized, after talking with people and asking them, "Well, what are their challenges right now? What are they struggling..." Like, that's, that's actually what it was.

And so getting in sync and actually serving them based on that was much more fruitful for both, for both sides. So that's great that you package that as the first, you know, the first thing is actually getting that research and then turning that into a methodology.

Fabiana: Yes.

Michael: So how does someone who is, you know, having those conversations and doing, you know, doing the initial research and enrolling, you know, new students, how do they make that transition from starting to do the one-on-ones and starting to develop the frameworks into actually codifying it into something that is more systematic and more scalable?

Fabiana: Yeah. So first of all, I highly recommend not to start in a one-on-one type model. I actually recommend starting in a group model. Why? Because it gives you a format where you have more control over building the systems in a way that appeals to the different types of students, but also gives you leverage in how you manage your time.

Here's the problem with the one-on-one model, is that it limits you to have to only work with one student at a time and create content and repeat a lot of the things with each of these students. And then by the rest of the week, if you only see them once a week, then they're reinforcing, you know, negative patterns on their own, to which when they see you the following week, you have to repeat 60 or 70% of what you told them, undo the damage, and then continue the path.

And so that becomes such a slow progress compared to having a weekly group meeting, right, where you have your students show you individually what their problems are, what they need from you, without having to take a full lesson with each one of them, but just hot-laser coaching for specific problem spots.

But then throughout the rest of the week, you can have ways where they can send you questions through videos, through written posts, in an, like, open platform community where the rest of the students can see that back-and-forth coaching. And that enriches the experience, and it allows your students to start learning from each other, from the way you give feedback to the different levels, the different students, the different problems, and over time to start building a library of trainings that allows future students to refer to those without having to hear things from you every single time fresh.

So that is part of creating the systems for delivery of the service, for client-facing systems. There are many other systems that most musicians don't really even know exist, but the reason why it's important not to limit your schedule to one-on-one teaching is because if you do one-on-one teaching and you grow your business that way, you have basically no time left to actually build the other systems that your business needs around sales, around marketing, around financial management, around operations, which are very important parts of a business.

It is not only the teaching side. So there's, you know, many more ways to keep building systems. We can talk about this if you'd like, but when it comes to the teaching side, this is one of the best ways that I have found to systematize the teaching.

And you can still have different levels. You can have a group for beginner students or young students. You can have a group for intermediate level, advanced. You can have a group for adults if you want to separate them. That's still a fair goal to have, but it's still one to three, maybe five hours max a week, versus if you're trying to build this through one-on-one teaching, you're probably gonna need 20, 25, 30 hours or more to build a baseline of revenue that would allow you to sustain yourself.

You see what I mean?

Michael: Mm-hmm. Makes sense. Yep. So what I'm hearing you say is that, you know, one of the main advantages of group coaching is that it helps you to better design the curriculum in a way that's more scalable and less dependent on your individual time. There's less repetition where you might not—you don't have to teach the same things over and over and over again to different clients.

And so you found that to be an effective way for someone to build those initial methodology and frameworks, but do it in a way that's a little bit more scalable. Awesome. So—

Fabiana: And it's not just scalable, it's actually incredibly beneficial for students. One of the big concerns that I hear music educators who have, you know, most of us have great standards, high standards. We really wanna do the best we can for our clients. So this isn't just more scalable, this actually has proven, you know, at least with the musicians that I've helped do, it actually gets students faster results because they're having a lot more feedback from you. They're also showing up more prepared because they're gonna play in front of their peers.

It's so easy to tell the one-on-one teacher, "Hey, I didn't practice last week because I had karate," or whatever. When they know they're gonna perform in front of their peers, they practice, right? And they make a lot more progress in between each of the sessions.

Plus, they have the asynchronous element throughout the rest of the week, where you can hold them accountable to certain homework assignments and have them send you a video the next day, in 24 hours, 48 hours, and say, "I want you to show me this thing I'm showing you now in our master class. Send me a full video applying that thing." You don't need to wait till the next session to see that.

So it basically can compress time when it comes to learning, and many of my clients have told me what used to take them a year to 18 months to achieve with their students, they can now do in six months because of this model.

So I wanna make it very clear, this is not just a business convenience. This actually has proven to create outstanding results for students as well.

Michael: Mm. Awesome. That totally makes sense. So what I'm hearing you say is that, you know, it's not just about, in addition to having a more scalable model, that designed in the right way, that group coaching could actually improve their results as well.

Yes. There's more accountability. There's more of a group, peer group dynamic, and that can actually, you know, not only serve you, but also serve them at the same time.

Fabiana: Yes. Yes.

Michael: Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, you know, I feel like this is something that I've seen a lot of different models and, you know, different opinions too. Like, there's, like, different opinions around, like, one-on-one coaching versus, like, group coaching and courses. And we're about to dive into AI, which is just a whole other, like, you know, can of worms, which is awesome.

But group coaching versus one-on-one coaching, I've both received group coaching, one-on-one coaching. I've also delivered group coaching and one-on-one coaching, and I think that there's, from my perspective, there are for sure major benefits to group coaching, both for the student and for the, and for the person who's, you know, creating the curriculum.

And I really appreciate one-on-one coaching when it's done selectively or in the right way, especially if it's, like, much, much higher priced so that it's only for someone who's, like, really, like, gonna value it. I can see where that could fit into the model, but I agree that in terms of the building the system and building the business, having group coaching versus if you had to choose, like, one or the other, it does seem like group coaching, you know, has a lot of benefits in terms of how you just structure a core operating system for a company.

Fabiana: Yes, and I love what you mentioned about the one-on-one teaching because I obviously learned to play the piano. I became a pianist through one-on-one lessons, so I completely understand the value of that experience, and I don't think it's, like, one is better than the other.

Obviously, from a business growth standpoint, of course, the group model is a lot more scalable and there's many benefits. I do think that the beauty of this model is that when you build an online business, you can still add one-on-ones if you want to. It's not like they have to be mutually exclusive.

Many of the musicians that I've helped, they still include maybe once a month a one-on-one instead of every week, or once every three months they get a one-on-one session.

The same thing happens with online versus in person. Many of the musicians that I've helped love doing things in person. They love still meeting with their clients in person. You can integrate an in-person component if you have an online business. You can do whatever you want. The sky's the limit.

I have a client who has a Italian festival. She lives in Canada. She teaches voice online, but she also has a yearly Italian festival where she gathers all her voice students. They fly into Italy. She spends a month with them there in person, and so her program is actually a hybrid where there's an online component, but there's an in-person component.

So, in the same way that you can have a program that includes both group and one-on-ones, you could also have programs that include online and in person. I host live events, you know, where my clients fly in from all over the world, and we get together, and so I think there's a way to get the best of both worlds when you know what you want and when you know what your goals are.

So, I love that you mentioned that.

Michael: Cool. That's awesome. A full month in Italy—

Fabiana: Yeah...

Michael: for students. That's very cool.

Fabiana: Yeah.

Michael: Okay. So AI. AI. It's a whole, whole can of worms. So would love to hear your perspective on, you know, AI as a tool. I think that for a lot of our audience, there's, uh, quite a bit of tension or fear around AI as a tool just in general, but in particular for, like, creating art, you know, for, for the music. Things like Suno are under a lot of scrutiny.

And so I'm curious, how would you, how do you approach AI as a tool, and how would you recommend that someone who's listening to us right now start either exploring using the tool or, uh, what are the main, what are the main benefits, and what are some of the boundaries that you might set in terms of how you use AI for yourself?

Fabiana: Thank you for sharing that question. I think it's a very important one, and I can see that you're already, like, can of worms. There's this feeling about AI that I can see is controversial, and here's how I see AI. AI is here to stay, folks. There's no way around it. Just like when, you know, we went from the typewriter to the computer, when the internet became a thing, when we went from walking around with heavy Nokias that could break our feet if it fell on them, and now we have a smartphone.

AI is here to stay, and it will only become more and more accessible as time passes. So, rather than see it as a threat and try to create it as this sort of, like, potential enemy to artists and our livelihood, the best success that we can have is by understanding what AI will never replace, which is our lens, our brand.

When you focus on creating a human-centric brand and the way that people trust you as a person, and create a way in which people come to you because they want your lens, your perspective in implementing your art, in using AI, in doing whatever it is that your knowledge is about, that's what's going to never be replaced by AI.

But if you become an artist that is just a commodity in terms of, like, information, and you are just transactional service that has no deeper brand separator, deeper story, deeper mission, deeper human element behind your services, then you are right now already in a very dangerous place of being replaced.

And because AI has made information everywhere for free and has commoditized information. So how do I make this more clear? As artists and thought leaders and educators, people are gonna come to us not because of what we know only, but because of our unique perspective on what we know, the way we implement what we know, the way we apply what we know, the way we teach what we know.

And if you can convey how your unique story, background, travel, you know, experiences, challenges have given you a unique insight, then you are not just going to be a service that is based on providing very high-quality information, you're gonna be the discernment of that information, the guide of that information, and that's what they cannot get with AI.

With AI, they will get the information, but they won't get the lens through that, how to implement that information. So what happens in the case of composers, right, songwriters, who are literally being told, "Well, no one's gonna hire me now," because they can produce music with Suno, and, and, you know, filmmakers and, you know, producers are just gonna go and create music with AI and publish it and just all these things.

What is my role now if no one's gonna hire me to create music? Here's the thing. This is why I wanna empower your audience to not let this idea of not being an educator stop them from documenting and packaging their knowledge. If you have any area of expertise, even if you've never taught it before, the fact that you know it, the fact that you do it, is already a sign that you can teach it and transfer that and add your unique perspective to it.

So while there will be some areas of the industry that will be, you know, monetized differently, like producing music, composing, and all those areas, if you build a career where you're not just the composer behind the scenes that people hire to create a one-time product and that's it, but you're actually a visionary thought leader that has a point of view, that has a story, that drives people to you as a person, not just to your skills, then there will always be people who hire you, not because you're the best composer or the best producer, but because they want your unique approach towards composing, your unique approach towards producing, your unique approach towards the service that you provide.

They're more driven by you than by your knowledge or your service. So that is the challenge that we need to embrace as artists is, how do we build a bulletproof personal brand, basically, that gets people a very clear idea of what makes us unique, and that's something that AI will never replace. You see what I mean?

Michael: Mm. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So what I'm hearing you say is that, you know, in a world where a lot of the tools, the skills are being uprooted because we have AI able to create, you know, technically things that used to be required by a certain role that might have taken decades to create.

So that, that part of it, if all you're doing is a commodity, then you are at serious risk of, you know, of being disrupted. But if you focus instead on creating your unique, you know, lens or your unique perspective and turning your knowledge, you know, into a source that actually creates something that has personality or something that's unique—

Fabiana: Mm-hmm.

Michael: —that's a way that... 'Cause AI is, is gonna be sort of generic or bland, or it's going to, you know, it's, it's not gonna have your unique story and vantage point and personality. And so that's, that's why you'd recommend right now leaning into that particular part of it.

Fabiana: Yes, and I really feel it's the most strategic way of approaching the imminent changes and disruptions that AI is here to make, and this actually may be a blessing in disguise. I'll tell you why.

Because up until AI showed up as this big threat for that type of artist, right, which relies mainly on done-for-you work, let's call it that, right? It's the artist that is being hired for a specific project. They're being paid to produce, to create, to write, and then that's it. There's no more in the relationship than just, "Give me the product, and now I'll pay you for that," and that's it, right?

The problem with that model, with or without AI, is that it is a time-for-money limited model. You're trading your time in order to get paid. You're creating something, and you're getting paid for that, and that's it.

And I'm not talking about composers who publish their own music and then get royalties. That's a different type of revenue stream. That's more of a passive, you know, recurring revenue stream that you re... I'm talking about done-for-you work, right? Session players, composers who get hired to produce something, and then they have to be paid for each time they accept a project, they have to sit down and work, right?

Before, that could become, like, many people relied on that livelihood. Now, that no longer is the case. So, it's forcing artists to actually build a smarter business model where they now have multiple income streams.

They're no longer depending on just the time-for-money model. But now, if you want to survive, you need to have an online business. You need to find a way to package your knowledge differently. You need to create a brand where you want people to come to you, honestly, for whatever you offer.

Whether you have a course, whether you have a program, whether you sell software, I mean, it does not matter what you end up offering. When people come to you because they believe in you and they trust you, you can sell whatever you wanna sell.

But that part of having to build a brand was never as urgent as it is now. You see what I mean? Now you must do that, but actually, I think it's a good thing because artists can truly create freedom.

I believe, and I've seen firsthand, what happens when you have this type of backend business. You go on tour, you don't have to depend on the income only from the gig. You record an album, you're not depending only on the income from that album. You write a book, you're not depending only on the income from the book.

When you have an online platform, a business, an educational model in the background, all these creative projects lead to a way where people can be a part of your online community, either as free subscribers to your email list, upon which later you can build a relationship and maybe eventually sell them into something, or directly to join your programs.

Every time you're on stage, you're not just collecting the revenue from that gig from the ticket sales. That's not as important anymore. If you get three or four people in the audience to scan your QR code that you can offer and say, "Join my email list," and you build a relationship over email over months, maybe one of those, or two of those two people in the audience can become a client eventually.

So, everything you're doing as an artist becomes ten times the potential return on investment when you have this brand platform and a different way of monetizing your knowledge to complement the normal models.

So, I actually think it's not a bad thing. It forces artists to be more strategic.

Michael: Mm-hmm. Awesome. Yeah, that, I mean, that absolutely makes sense. And I think you're right that it seems like when information is being commoditized, that how we—the lens that we put on our teachings or our programmers, who, who we are, our brand becomes even more important. Certainly feels like right now, too, we're already in a phase where trust is sort of scarce, and we really want to genuinely connect, you know, with, you know, with the people that we're working with.

So it makes sense as well to lean into that and get clear on what is your lens and who are you? What's your story? What's your purpose? Definitely isn't the only time that we've had, like, a technological revolution, and usually there's, you know, a resistance to, you know, are the machines taking over roles that used to be done by humans?

Over 93% of people used to be in agriculture, and now it's less than 3%.

Fabiana: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Michael: And sometimes it can be rocky, you know, the transition, but ultimately, you know, it serves all of us, and we create more abundance and innovation because of it. So that makes sense. I—and if it's not clear to you, like, I am really excited about AI, and I think it's an amazing tool and a resource that's changing—it's leveling the playing field for indie artists, and it's helping to, you know, to be able to compete with major record labels that have millions of dollars to be able to invest into artists.

Now, indie artists can basically, you know, compete with artists that are much more well-funded. So I'm excited about it. I also understand where people have, you know, ethical and, you know, and different kinds of concerns. Usually when I share it, I have to preface it by being like, "Hey, like, I love... I think it's really exciting, but also I understand the other, the other side as well."

So I think it's always helpful to have conversations like this and to hear from perspectives of someone like yourself who is actually using the tools and helping artists use these tools on how can they prepare so that the tsunami that's coming doesn't just smash them, but they can swim along with it and catch, catch the wave as it's going.

Fabiana: I like to think of AI as a tool to help us be more human. I actually think the more we learn about using AI, the more time and space we're gonna have to focus on connection and on building relationships and on better serving the people around us.

We have personally, in my company, we've seen the ability that we now have to help our clients at a deeper level than what we could do two, three years ago. Because AI has provided ways for us to build frameworks, build systems, and compress time for our clients to bypass the learning curve that they used to have to, you know, take in terms of learning skills like marketing, sales, copywriting, and now simply provide them with custom AIs that are built on our proprietary systems and tell them, "Here, use this and go and launch your business or go and launch your brand. Go and do this by using this that will help you create the results you need to create," versus, "Now you have to learn this. You have to watch these videos and little by little start developing yourself into the person who understands these skills."

That is no longer the case. So personally, we've seen how AI is allowing us to serve our clients at a much deeper level, getting them faster results, right? And looking at ways to say, you know, "AI is here to save your time so you can spend it on being a better person, connecting with your family, connecting with your clients, getting them better results."

So I've also had clients who built their own AI systems to serve their students that don't necessarily replace the teaching side, but then still provide facilitation of the content, direction, support, in addition to the main human guide.

And so what that does is, once again, it creates faster results for their clients. They're happier. They stay longer. They pay higher prices. So everything is gonna come down to how do you learn to build AI systems that work for you, right? And not feeling that AI is dragging you to become someone that you don't wanna be.

I like to think of it as a human sandwich, right? You are the human first. You build the AI systems with your vision. You create what is necessary, what you feel is gonna be helpful. You use AI, and then you tweak it on the other side with the human side.

So it's that human sandwich. As long as there's human, AI, human, everything you create, whether it's content, whether it's services, whether it's systems, will always be amplified, right?

The problem is when you don't have that human sandwich element, and you're just outsourcing everything to AI. That's when the problems happen of sounding generic and feeling impersonal and disconnected. But if you use it this way and you learn how to make it work for you, then this can be an incredible driver and accelerator of your genius, and I've seen that firsthand, not just in the work I do with clients, but now in the work my own clients are doing.

Michael: Human sandwich.

Fabiana: Yes.

Michael: I like it. And this, the cannibals who are listening to this right now are like, "Hmm, human sandwich sounds tasty." Awesome. Well, Fabiana, this has been, it's been a lot of fun connecting. I appreciate you coming on here and sharing your story and sharing some lessons to help artists to make it through, you know, ups and downs and also to be able to catch, catch the waves of, of these tools that, that are making our lives easier.

So thank you for being here. And for anyone who's listening to this, watching this, who is interested in connecting more or diving deeper, what's the best place for them to go to connect more?

Fabiana: Yes, absolutely. Well, I would recommend you check out my free masterclass. You can go to musiciansprofitmasterclass.com, and I regularly present a masterclass talking about the main drivers that allow successful musicians to build scalable careers, not only through online teaching, but really through building a strong personal brand that precedes any type of model change you may wanna make.

So that would be my first starting point, Musicians Profit Masterclass. And then the main website that has more details around my background and the different things we do is musicianscreatingprosperity.com. So those two sites would be great places to start for anyone in your community.

Michael: Well, thank you again for taking the time to be here and to share some of the, the lessons, the wisdom that you've learned. And like always, we'll put the links in the show notes for easy access. And until next time, Fabiana.