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Hey everybody.
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This is James strategic business manager at love admin, and you're listening to the guided growth podcast, where we'll be taking you through the basics of growing your activity organization with real insights and real actions you can apply to your organization.
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Today we're talking about all things expansion with Doug watts at show choir, after starting with one choir in Bristol. Doug now heads up a team running nine choirs across the South West with ambitious plans for more.
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We'll be discussing the roadblocks Doug has been facing, turning his plans into reality, and how best to overcome them.
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Doug, thanks for joining us.
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Let's kick off by talking about show choir, how it all started, and the journey that you guys have been on. Cool. Yeah. So we started in 2017
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it was just myself and my business partner, Jess Jess Broderick at that point.
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And we kicked off with our first choir in southville, in the south, Southern bit of the city.
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And we started off, we had a taster session with like, 40 people, 50 people, and that was seven years ago. So that was our first one in Bristol. And then we kept growing. We got more choirs in Bristol, and we now kind of have four choirs in Bristol, in the center of Bristol. We've got three in Bath, one in Froome and one in Western supermare. Cool, awesome. It's, it's fantastic to hear the journey that you guys have been on and how you've turned it into this almost sort of superpower in in the southwest, is really great. So talk to me a little bit more about your your plans for growing into the future. What's, what's the goal? That's a really good question. And me and Jess talk about this quite a lot, actually. And the short answer is that we want to keep growing, as long as it's still fun. I think we're not really looking to be kind of a big corporate a big corporate player. We always say to each other that we're building communities, first in choir second. So as long as we can kind of keep the community feel we can keep people feeling valued, keep it fun, keep the music exciting, and we'll continue to grow. What that looks like. We're not really sure we've got so we've got nine choirs at the moment, and from our side of things, myself and Jess are the, the only two full timers. And then we've got a lovely administrator who works for us. And then we've got three, three conductors as well who run, run groups for us too.
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So our team's going to grow a little bit. We've got someone else we're looking to take on in January. We're looking at starting two new choirs in September, and then probably one in January, maybe two, we're not sure. So we know we want to expand. We know we want more choirs than what we've got.
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We're interested in this kind of community of singers growing.
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But how big that looks like it's going to get we're not quite sure yet. We know we want bigger and that it's fun now, as long as it stays fun, we'll continue to grow. And I
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think that's that's a really important point.
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And I think whenever you have plans for growth and expansion, keeping, keeping the core values of what make you you is a really important thing Not, not to lose sight of. And there are a lot of organizations that are guilty of that, that as they grow, they become this sort of faceless corporate enterprise. So I certainly would look to put some sort of tangible measure on your growth and on your expansion.
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That may not be, for you guys, purely the number of choirs that you get to, but it might be the number of people that you've got engaged, the size of your community. And then when you get to a certain size that is naturally going to fall into a bigger number of choirs, because you can't have a choir with 1000 people in it, certainly not within one room. It probably be quite cramped. So I think from from from that point of view, defining your goals doesn't need to be a linear thing. And quite often people look at the number of venues or the number of classes or or in your case, the number of choirs, look for a goal that follows the values that you want to still have in sort of response to your second point around again, that whole fun element and growing that team out you want to always have the foundation of your team to be At sort of 75 to 80% capacity. And if you grow without increasing your capacity, that's when it's not fun, because that's when everybody's working consistently at 100 110 120% of a comfortable workload. And then that's where you stray from this, this sort of virtuous path of wanting to keep those those values. So by getting the right structure in early, you can really keep that element of fun, because everybody's still doing the same thing. You've just got more people doing it, and they all know what they need to do. And I know Doug, we've already had a conversation around how we can start to build in that structure as well. Yeah.
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So if. No, I quite agree. No, I see that. That makes sense. Thank you. So we so we got to we were at four choirs in Bristol, and then one in Bath, and our administrator, who we took on when we started our second choir in Bristol, so some years ago, and we were all at the point where we were like completely at capacity. We had, at that point, we had about 202 50 members across our four going on five choirs, and we we got to the point when you simply can't administrate that number of people on a spreadsheet. So we were like, all at capacity.
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We're all, as you say, kind of 110 120% and it just wasn't feasible. We were trying to track everyone's payments, whether they paid us on time, who needed chasing, who paid for what, who done this bit? And that's kind of when we we worked out. We needed a CRM. We needed a platform like love admin, because when we jumped on board, our administrator quite rightly said, I've got too much work. I physically can't, can't do anymore. We're like, Okay, we need, yeah, we need to do something about that. So, so we'd always done, to be really funny. We'd always done all our registers and everything just on a spreadsheet, just on like a Google Sheets spreadsheet, which kind of worked, and we got away with it, but kind of tracking bank payments and stuff was just impossible. So we really did hit that wall where 110 120% capacity, and we needed to kind of streamline things to keep moving, and that's kind of where we're at now. So we took on working with the love admin system just every year ago. He was actually and we sort of put everyone through that system, of course, and it's been, it's been quite a process for setting up the notifications and and working out all the products and the shop and how it all works.
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But now we've got it. I think, as you say, in theory, we can grow, but keep our kind of, keep working at our capacity a little bit under 100% so we've still got, still got that, that kind of room to breathe. But we're getting there. We're getting there, yeah,
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for sure. And I think it is those iterative changes that will help to to keep that balance in checking and keep giving you that that time to grow. And I would encourage you to kind of keep looking at those sort of small iterative changes each time.
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People see expansion as this big thing that you've got to sort of build up to and have, kind of as a moment in time this is safe, like, for example, where you're talking about adding the two new choirs in in September and and the third in January. That that's the end result of, to me, what should be a series of kind of smaller changes to get you to that point where actually the expansion feels natural and it feels comfortable to do it, because you've you've laid all of the groundwork beforehand. So I certainly would encourage completing all of that type of stuff each time you go through a level of expansion and going, okay, how can I future proof myself? So like, for example, with what you were saying around joining love admin and the benefits that that's had for you guys, that was a reactive decision born from your administrator, and you guys going, we can't handle the amount of happen we've now got, now that we've got four or five full choirs, whereas with future decisions, if you were to go, okay, there is the potential for X, Y and Z down the track. What can we do to mitigate that risk now, and that that, I think will make expansion feel less intimidating and feel less like you're kind of growing beyond the core elements of why you're turning up to do what you do.
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Yeah, totally, I
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see what you mean. I think, I think there's definitely an element of proactive seeing it that we've not necessarily done. I think as we've grown over the last seven years, I think we've always kind of been hungry for that. We want more we want more of a community. We'd like more singers. We'd like to expand to different areas. But I think, I think you're absolutely right. I think a lot of our growth has been kind of reactive. It's been, you know, we want an area here that start acquire, well, that's not quite worked. How can we change that? I think it's been a lot of kind of, you know, learning on the job, as these things always are. But I think we've, we've always been reactive, kind of, in setting up our processes, rather than, rather than proactive, kind of as as, as we've learned we should totally, right? We're, we're going to kind of adjust our mindset on that slightly as we get bigger. Yeah, and,
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and I think in the early days, when you go from one choir to four choirs, that's that is how you do it. And there's kind of no other way, really, than the kind of suck it and see approach where you have to just get out there and try stuff and see what works and see what takes off. And I think now you're at a point of transition away from that, where you've got a pretty good framework, really, in terms of how each of these individual quieters operates, so you can start to build quite a uniform thing that you can then carry forward to other locations. And then it's a case of going, and this is why I stress and when my first question is. Is always, what's the goal? Once you have a goal is your is the very, very first thing you look at, you can then map back from there and go, Okay, what steps do I need to take to achieve that goal? Well, okay, so I want to have 300 new members by the end of next year.
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Okay. That means, in order to achieve that, I must open four new choirs. Okay, in order to open four new choirs, I need three new conductors, because two of the choirs are in the same city, so one conductor can conceivably do both. So in order to have three new conductors, I need to train them up, and I need to recruit them. And in order to do that, I need to have a framework on how I'm going to do that, and a consistent standard for a good conductor.
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Good conductor of a choir looks like there's your first task, because that's going to give you that framework. You do all of those things in order you achieve your goal. You still have the fun element, because you're not going, Okay, I've all of sudden, I've got three new choirs, and I'm working seven days a week and 100 hours a week to make it happen. But this isn't sustainable, so I've got to get three new conductors, but I've already launched the choir.
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So I'm, do you see what I mean it? That's when the fun stops.
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Yeah, no, I
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think that. I think that's absolutely fair. I think that's kind of kind of always, always how we've done it, kind of historically. We've, we've sort of gone to open something else. I'm like, Well, turns out we need someone to open that, and then and so on and so forth.
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I think this is the first time kind of as a business, we've we've had to start planning proactively. And, you know, beginning with the end in mind, as you say, like, we've never really had to do it with a team of two people. You can kind of, what, two, and then three, and then and then so on. Like, you you can kind of get away with working on things like WhatsApp and just, does this need doing that he's doing? Yeah, that's fine. You do it. I'll do this bit. That's kind of okay with the bigger teams the first time, we're kind of very much having to organize who's doing what.
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We're starting to project manage things as we grow, starting to work backwards from our big kind of concert dates, our big recordings, our big video shoots, and work out who's doing what and how and what we need to get get to that end point. But, but yeah, with in terms of growth, we've not really done that so much. I think we're, we're from a growth point of view, we're kind of focusing, or we, at least, we have been focusing on growing something from scratch in a new city and then letting it kind of organically grow on the grounds that it takes a while for people to kind of build those relationships and to build this kind of community. But I think, I think I totally agree. I think if we have more of a clear idea of how many singers we want, how many people we want to be involved with our business, kind of going forwards, we can kind of work back from that and see how many people we want in our choirs. Yeah, I
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think that will certainly just give you more of an element of control. And I know when you kind of look at blockers to growth, sort of knowing what to do and where to go is is often the biggest thing notice you mentioned quite early on around not wanting to be corporate. And I find that, I find that really interesting, because it's something we hear quite a lot with activity organizations that are all of a similar sort of size, is that being corporate is kind of a swear word, actually, I would argue that it doesn't need to be, and that there are elements of the corporate world that are are beneficial as long as you do one thing, which is to reference and frame every decision you make from one question, which is, does this thing that I'm about to do stay in keeping with what my core value is?
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So, for example, you mentioned quite heavily at the start there about it being fun and having a sense of community. So with every decision you make, ask that question, is this going to be fun, and is this going to build my community? And then actually, you can take some of the corporate elements, things like market research, for example, sound all very big and scary, but a lot of that could be going to a new city on a Saturday afternoon and just walking around the town center and asking people questions and spending a couple of hours doing that, or taking some of the element other elements.
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So I know Doug, we've been working on a job description for a conductor and a ways of working document, which can feel quite alien from a fun community organization, because that feels corporate and rigid. But actually, if you put in the job description, this is going to be fun. Well, then you're you're not going to lose that sense of fun. So I, I would encourage you not to see being corporate as as a swear word, as something that you must stay away from, that everyone's going to turn into sort of faceless mega corpse in skyscrapers and that kind of stereotypical definition of what a corporate company is, I would say, take elements of it, but keep in mind, what makes you you?
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Yeah, totally, I can see that. Yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, we've been working on this job description and ways of working document, and I haven't passed this back to you, actually, so we've been working on it going back and forth, and I managed to kind of squeeze the ways of working systems, you know, this needs doing on a weekly basis and a monthly basis, and this is how we'd like you to do it.
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Then the job description just, you know, half a half a side of roughly what being a show choir conductor entails, and how we'd like to do it. And interestingly, kind of to that point, our first bit of feedback from our conductors was that it was, it was actually too formal, that it didn't have enough of that sense of fun in it. So we sent it. I sent it to yourself, the first draft, and to our to our conductors. And we were in a really, really lucky position where we we we have people that we love working with already.
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We kind of got to work backwards from that. We weren't necessarily writing a job description for people we'd never met. It was like, these are the people we work with that we love working with. How can we kind of put on a on a side, what they do on a weekly in a monthly basis, and how they do it, so that when we do recruit we can say this is, this is how we do things. So I sent it over, and yeah, their feedback was much the same as yours, actually, that it was too formal, and that getting that sense of fun and supportiveness between the different members of the team, it wasn't really in their first first time around.
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So that's what I've been working on recently. And you're absolutely right. I think my first paragraph in there was a little bit corporate, you know, we want someone with these skills and, you know, this, this kind of character, and this, this skill set and, and whilst that's fine, and that is valuable, you're totally right.
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I think it didn't sound like we'd written it initially, which it has to if we're growing this, this business and this community, and we want people to want to do it and to grow these communities. We need it to sound like us, and we need to to get to get that kind of vibe distilled into into a document.
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So that's what we're working on on this week, actually, is how we send that out, and what, what thatlooks like.
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Yeah, and, and I think that's that's really important, and a really great example of how the word corporate is, is misused almost, yeah, and people just sort of assume this stereotype of needing to be super formal and kind of speaking legalese, I think, is the phrase where it's this kind of jargon of words that don't really mean anything.
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It certainly doesn't need to be that case. And actually, you know, your your conductors are completely right in the if a job description doesn't match the way they work, but then the job description is not right, and it absolutely needs to convey how you want people to be when they're in your organization.
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And that's a really, really important thing. And I think the easy thing to do in that situation is just to go, Well, that doesn't really work. So we won't do it because a job description is overly formal. A job description is just a title of a document. What you put in it is up to you. And I think you're kind of going through that process now of almost releasing the shackles of what you thought you had to do in that startup document to going actually, what is going to be, what is going to be most valuable. And again, that's how you're sort of processing that step in unlocking future growth, without you having to manage a team of 20 conductors, all of whom are doing their own different thing. And then those core values and that core identity starts, starts to wander, I think, as well, from what you've mentioned around not wanting to be this, this massive organization, have you considered at some point in the future franchising at all?
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Yeah, we've had conversations about it, and we, we kind of, we kind of come back to the same, same thing about it being fun and whatnot. And whilst I think, you know, we'd really have to work at being under, under our capacity, like 80, 90% capacity all the time, so we can grow comfortably, and so we can enjoy doing it franchising.
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We decided, when we had a conversation about it last that it wasn't for us now, because we're really lucky that we're working with the people we're working with, and we're growing, and it's fun, but franchising, it doesn't quite work, because we're not really ready to hand that over.
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I think at the point when we are kind of up to capacity, and you know, me and Jess and Sean, our administrator and our team, by the time we're working kind of all the hours we can, we're not able to grow because of that. I think that'll be at the point to kind of take back 10% of our workload and start looking at how we can maybe franchise, franchise that out. But I think in terms of numbers of people and how much we're doing, how many choirs we've got, I think we're probably a long way off.
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We think I'm sure it would be physically possible to kind of put the business in a box, to sell it out and to to get different people doing our music and using our values in different places, in different areas. But if we don't think it's for us now, I think, as well as kind of the capacity limitations, I think the geography is going to play a massive part in that we've been really lucky that we've grown kind of geographically.
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We started in Bristol, we sort of spread out gradually, and we're looking at going going north into Cheltenham and Gloucester next, and then kind of going south east into chippenham and that kind of area of the country. And whilst we can do that with the conductors we've got, we think if we did decide we wanted, you know, to look at the northeast, because there's no musical theater, musical theater choirs up there, we definitely need to franchise and look at having that being kind of led by someone else, because we wouldn't be able to do it. We're really nice position where our conductors we can all kind of cover each other.
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The way we've run our nights of the week is so that there's always at least one of us free on every night to cover. And it happens we get ill. I'm a bit ill at the moment. I'll still teach tonight, but, you know, a lot of us have got kids. We get bugs all the time. You know, we're ill, that's fine.
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We can always cover but we decided that franchising and kind of handing the baton on someone else, we wouldn't be able to work quite so closely and have that kind of community feel. I think the other element of that as well is that so far, our conductors that we work with and our staff, they've all been friends we've known before, and which I realize is pretty rare in a business, and I think we're really, really, really lucky to do that, but the people we've known that we've worked with, that we sung with for years, and kind of got them on board.
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And there's, there's a lot to be said for our vibe and our values being carried forwards because of that, because we've known each other already, and we know how we work, how we like to work, what we're trying to what we're trying to create. So in a sense, we've never had to like structure, our values or what what we want to do, and our ways of working, I think, which is why you and I were discussing the job description and ways of working, because we're starting to look at people and we don't know so well, and that will kind of in volve a lot of shadowing, but I don't think we're ready tohand that over someone yet.
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Yeah, no, I think, I think you touch upon a really, really excellent point there. And I, I would say absolutely franchising is, is growth when, to my mind, is growth when you you don't want to grow organically anymore, when it starts to get to that point where you're going to lose control. And geographically, for example, as you described, you simply can't, can't cover it.
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But there is also that element of when you franchise you do you do, naturally relinquish some element of control in the organization, because you're entrusting someone with with the keys, effectively, to part of the business, to go and to go and run within the framework that that you've set. And I think I'm kind of circling back around to to how we started today, but by setting those goals, short, medium and long term, that can give you that plan that can include organic growth and potentially franchise growth in the future.
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By going, I know in roughly three to five years, I want to look at franchising, because we will have, based on all of the other short to medium term goals we will have looked and expanded to the maximum that we could possibly expand. Now that doesn't need to be hard and fast, and you don't need to get to the exact point of it being five years from you making that decision to go right after franchise now, because five years ago, I said that that was my plan to do it, but it starts to plot out a bit of a timeline for you.
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So again, you can work back and decide what actions you need to do. And certainly it sounds like there's loads of opportunity and for your type of organization as well, to be able to grow organically and to retain all of that control yourself. But just because you don't want to do it now doesn't mean you shouldn't think about it at all, is probably why I would say.
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And I think a crucial part of expansion is knowing what's next. So what's now is, in September, going to be launching two new choirs. In January, going to be launching another new choir. It's going to take, take us up to 12. That will probably mean that you start to look at bringing in people that aren't from that initial sort of core group of friends, which so many activity organizations start with.
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And to be honest, is often where that initial success comes from.
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Is that real close knit group of people, and that's where where you get that real strength of value from. But then after that, you kind of then end up falling off a cliff until you decide what the next thing you thing is you want to do, whereas actually you want to kind of bounce from from one to the next and split up your time. So you've got day to day operation making expansion successful that I've already done. So, for example, growing out those three choirs.
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Because that's that's not going to happen overnight, unless you're really, really, really lucky, and you've sort of hit, hit the golden egg. And then the other portion of time is, what's the next expansion I need to start working on, and how do I need to set up my organization to be able to accommodate that really easily? Does that kind of make sense, or does that seem like quite a kind of scary way of looking at things?
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No, no. That does make sense like, yeah, I can, I can see what you mean. I think we, we've always had, I say always recently, we've had the first two levels of that going on. We've had the day to day expansion, sorry, day to day running, what that looks like in terms of starting the next few choirs, but I think with taking on new staff and joining new choirs, that kind of third level of what does this look like in a few years, and how can we work backwards and look at what size we need to be in and how we start moving that out?
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If franchising is there a role, if always we've not done that so much recently, I think we've had big projects, and we've kind of focused on those as we've done them, but, but, yeah, you're totally right. I think the slightly more long term, long term strategy we we've not spent so much so much energy on. I mean, I think it's something we'll need to, need to incorporate into our into our kind of business plans going forwards.
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And I think it is something that I champion with everyone I speak to, is that owners and kind of founders and managers shouldn't be immune from from the working structure piece of work. So we've looked at doing the job, job descriptions and ways of working for your conductors. It may be a useful exercise to kind of self reflect on that and look at what your working week and your yours and Jesses working weeks look like. And how do you facilitate having time to do those three things each week or each month?
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Now, yours is going to be more varied. It's not going to be as structured as at the start of the day, I'm going to do this, that and the other but over the course of a week, you should broadly be able to say, Okay, I need to spend X hours doing this with the day to day Corporation, and I need to spend, Y was doing this, managing those three new choirs that are about to go live, and making sure that they're successful.
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And then that leaves Z. And then you can, sort of, I would, then put that bit of paper down that you've read it all on, leave it alone. Leave it alone for a week, two weeks even, and then come back to it and reflect on what you've written and go, Is it urgent? Is it important? Is there someone else that can be doing those things and then that can free up your time? Because, again, whilst you don't want your team to be working 110 120% it's important that you're not as well, because it's got to be fun for you. But don't forget that element of it. And I think that's something that's very easily forgotten. And I've spoken with other activity providers who work 100 hours a week, and, frankly, are miserable half the time, and they don't enjoy it anymore.
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They've been doing it for 20 years, and it's it's mutated into this thing where, whilst it's commercially successful, it's not fun, and that's because they've not taken themselves as part of that process of adding structure and growing with the growth of the organization.
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Yeah, that's super interesting. We started building lists of what we all do, like who's doing what, but I think the kind of the second level of that, of how much of that is urgent and important, how much of that needs to be a priority.
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So we can kind of hit those, I say, bigger targets. If the feels a bit, you know, bit cooperative, doesn't it is not so much a target. It's kind of a way in which we'd like to grow.
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We've not really looked at how much of each of those details is a priority on a day to day basis. So, yeah, that's definitely something, something we need to do.
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Yeah, and I think it's, it's all about building in those, those processes and having that kind of chain of thought with the end goal, the end ambition in mind. And it kind of has three sort of strands, really, which is, what I want to achieve. What do I need to do? And what do I need to do to achieve it, kind of in in one what are the values that are most important to me that I cannot deviate from, regardless of what I choose to go and do, and how am I going to alter the way I work and the way we work as a team in order to achieve the values that we want to have, that we're not going to deviate from, and the ambitions that ambitions that we've got and the plans that we've got to achieve them. I think if you could do those three things, that will make the growth and expansion process much easier, because you're always sort of self reflecting, yeah, especially
00:29:15.829 --> 00:30:01.759
I see that. I think that's really interesting. I think if I can just kind of, like, flip it briefly, in the sense that, like we're talking about how we want to work and our values and our staff, and how we expand and how we want to grow. How To what extent do we throw that out to our I suppose you know, using corporate language, you say, our clients, like our singers, our communities, how much of like our values and our kind of how we want to grow should be there, there on our branding, if that makes sense, like we've taken on someone to do our marketing, our marketing management. It just he, just so happens to be my business partner's husband, and he is absolutely wonderful. But how much of that vision and that those values should be in our.
00:29:58.309 --> 00:30:02.269
Message to our customers as well,
00:30:02.359 --> 00:30:35.990
I would say it needs to be all over it. And your values and your branding, to me, are two sides of the same coin. I see, okay, sure, because it is what makes you you. And before your customers come in to meet the conductor and to take part in a session, all they can see is what you show them through your marketing effort, and you want them to see that it's fun, and you want them to see that it's a community. So your branding and your marketing has all got to sing that same song, if you Pardon, pardon the unintentional pun there.
00:30:36.650 --> 00:30:37.250
No, I like that.
00:30:38.029 --> 00:30:43.880
So certainly when you're looking at your marketing again, going back to this central question, is it fun?
00:30:44.420 --> 00:31:06.170
Does it build a community? And I genuinely mean every single thing you do that's related to show choir. Is it fun? Does it build a sense of community, and even for the most seemingly sort of inane and boring things and decisions you have to make, is it fun? Does it build a community, or whatever other values you want to have as your kind of real, real core things.
00:31:06.529 --> 00:31:17.450
Because then once that sort of cohesive and unitary, I it's the same across everything, then that's when it can become really strong, and people will see that.
00:31:17.900 --> 00:31:36.920
So when you go into a new a new town, a new city, people who are looking for fun, people who are looking for a sense of community, even if they're not looking for a show choir, yeah, your marketing will resonate with them, and you may attract new people. And then it's about understanding that community.
00:31:36.920 --> 00:32:06.950
So one thing we've not spoken about, and it'd be great to get your thoughts on the challenges you face with this aspect, is, once you've opened a new venue, how to then turn that into success and make it grow to its its fullest potential. And I think that's that's a nice kind of segue, actually, from from what you were asking around values and brand, is if you have a really strong brand based on some really good core values that resonate with people.
00:32:03.230 --> 00:32:11.150
Doesn't matter really where you go, because people will pick up on those things and then that will draw people in.
00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:13.220
Yeah, yeah, totally, yeah. That's really interesting.
00:32:13.250 --> 00:32:41.480
I think, I think a big believer that your best advertisers are people already within your business, people already that, already fans. They're kind of the people that that do the best marketing for you. So I think kind of a roundabout way of asking your question, but we've got that kind of drive for service, community and a sense of fun. And then I think the third thing for us that we have as as a musical organization is that kind of musical, musical element.
00:32:41.690 --> 00:32:44.869
It's not like a striving for musical element excellence.
00:32:44.869 --> 00:33:01.039
That's not really who we are, but it is, I think there's a firm belief that what we're singing and how we're singing, it helps us achieve the first two goals. So I think our marketing and our stuff often talks the most about that third thing about the music. This is something we've been singing.
00:33:01.220 --> 00:33:03.410
This is what we're doing. This is how we're performing.
00:33:04.069 --> 00:33:48.079
You know, listen to CD we've done, which is all great. It's all awesome. But I think the only time we really kind of talk about the values and fun and community is maybe within our singers, we're getting better at it. I think a lot of our trailers that leads me putting together do show like the community element and stuff. But I think, I think a lot of choirs kind of focus on advertising that musical element. So I guess growing our groups that we've we're established, and we're trying to grow and trying to make them successful. I think often we as a business, we focus on the musical side. So we like, we're going to go and do this bus. We're going to do, you know, be at the Bristol 10k or we're going to go and sing pride and things like that.
00:33:48.109 --> 00:34:21.320
Are all stuff that, to us, is really good for building. It's really good for kind of getting, getting our name out there, getting people to see us, getting people to see that we're having fun and hear, hear that it's a really, is a genuinely, really good sound. I'm just fantastic. But that kind of growing of a smaller choir that's quite new, is really, really hard. It's really, it's really tricky to kind of plant that choir and get people to get people to expand. We've always said that, like when a choir has got a call, when it's got that kind of like 15 members, 20 members that love it so much.
00:34:21.320 --> 00:34:25.940
They're there every week, and they're telling their friends, and they want their friends to come as well.
00:34:26.420 --> 00:34:40.639
So you get all these lovely links there. The quote really starts blossoming, and it really starts to get that lovely critical mass. You'll always have people kind of jumping in for a term, and then going away and then do something else, and then coming back in a few years.
00:34:37.159 --> 00:34:54.110
That's totally fine, and I think that's always gonna be part of a membership organization, but really building that core is something that we rely on so much, but that often takes a while to do. We started a new group just last couple of weeks.
00:34:54.110 --> 00:35:00.860
Actually, our third group in Bath, and it started off at the taste session. We had like 1520 people, but. And that's fine.
00:35:00.889 --> 00:35:09.829
That's a nice number to start with. It's really, really good, and we kind of got a lot of faith, I suppose, that those people there that call kind of grow and bring more people in.
00:35:10.010 --> 00:35:24.349
But it's always, always something we're looking to do better is that when we've started this choir, we've advertised it, you know, on whatever channels we're doing, print, Facebook, how we grow it when it's established is always, always a tricky thing for any for any choir.
00:35:24.409 --> 00:35:29.599
I think there's, there's certainly two kind of distinct phases of growth that you kind of touched upon there.
00:35:29.659 --> 00:35:35.150
And I would say that the first one is that development of your core, your core faithful.
00:35:35.599 --> 00:36:00.380
And I think that this is applicable to any type of activity, provision, really, when you go into a new a new location, and I said one of the best things you could probably do for that is tell everyone in your existing locations, the new location that you're going to so in in your example, looking at moving to chartman and Gloucester, which is a considerable distance from Bath and Bristol.
00:36:01.159 --> 00:36:12.619
But if you tell the people in both and Bristol, and they've actually got a friend who lives in Charlotte, or a family member, or a friend of a friend, or someone I used to go to school with that they write to every other week, they're going to tell them about that.
00:36:13.429 --> 00:36:33.769
And then that person has got a group of friends who are already their own little community. And then you might get lucky with one or two of those people then come down and start to build the foundation based on that kind of social proof element that you talk about, which is people will always respect other people's opinions if they know them.
00:36:33.949 --> 00:36:37.070
Yeah, totally, yeah.
00:36:33.949 --> 00:36:46.400
I think that's No. I completely agree with you. I think we So since we've started saying to people, so we're actually looking at kind of expanding into Cheltenham. People have gone. We've got a couple of people like, Oh, my mum lives in Shelton. Can she join?
00:36:46.849 --> 00:37:12.980
And then one of our members has just moved up to Cheltenham, and he's desperate to and then we've got some people that travel quite away from like Thornbury and North Bristol that would like to get to Cheltenham, because it's in work. It's really it's really lovely getting people in different areas that say, can we have a show quite here, please. It's really nice. We did a few we did a feedback form at the end of our last term. We had a big concert, the forum in Bath, which is a 1500 seater and we had 330 singers on stage. It was mental.
00:37:13.099 --> 00:37:27.650
It was great fun, and I'd love to do it again. But one of the things we asked after that concert was, Is there anywhere that you want a show choir, or your family members or friends want a show choir? And so weird.
00:37:24.530 --> 00:37:27.650
Cheltenham kept on popping up.
00:37:27.860 --> 00:37:35.420
It's really, really nice. So we're trying to get kind of people to have these conversations. And I think our gigs are arguably the best marketing we can do for that.
00:37:35.630 --> 00:37:41.659
Because people bring their parents, they bring their friends, we only do, like, a couple of paid gigs a year. Is it's not much.
00:37:41.659 --> 00:37:49.219
There's not many chances to come, kind of buy a ticket and see us. When people come, they do, they they, they do like it.
00:37:49.280 --> 00:38:02.329
I'm confident we really do put on a good show. A few times of being inquiring, I like to say people, when they first come through taste and like so how did you hear about this? What's the link? And often people will say, you know, sort of magazine, you know, sort of Facebook, which is great.
00:38:02.329 --> 00:38:15.019
That's all cool. But the one I really, really like is when someone says, I came down a year ago to see see a concert, and loved it, and I've just moved to Bristol, and I couldn't wait to join and that's, it's so encouraging. Is so lovely when that happens,
00:38:15.260 --> 00:38:38.119
yeah. And I think, what and interesting, interestingly, given what we've discussed already, you've touched upon a couple of kind of corporate principles there that you've managed to apply on that community level. One is feedback form. Is market research. That's that's what you've done. You've done your market research there, and you've established where the right location is to go to, where you've got demand already.
00:38:38.329 --> 00:38:56.059
And this whole element of social proof and getting reviews and getting yourself out there and people seeing the value in what you do, because when people see 350 singers up on a stage or having a fantastic time, the kind of principle of community means that everyone else who's not part of that group wants to be a part of that group because they're having a great time.
00:38:56.420 --> 00:39:05.780
So certainly that when we talk about presenting your values and your branding. You've done that.
00:39:02.300 --> 00:39:39.710
You've done that in spades because you've demonstrated through the singing that it's fun and that there's a community, because there's 350 of them up on that stage all having a fantastic time, and that is very, very compelling for new people to join. So I think in terms of building that, that core element, if that is what I would encourage you to do more of, is building out that that social proof, getting friends and family, particularly when you're kind of relatively geographically similar, you can absolutely do that, and getting getting your name into other communities.
00:39:39.739 --> 00:40:00.050
So for example, if you're moving to Gloucester and you didn't have very many connections there is, if I were in your position, I'd be going to the local churches and going, we're launching it. Because, you know that they often have their own little community, and there's often singing elements and more traditional choirs in within churches, I would look at going, Oh, we're launching a different type of choir.
00:40:00.050 --> 00:40:19.730
Right, that you can do Alongside this, bring everyone along. We want to build this super choir within Gloucester, wherever it may be, and we'd love for you to be a part of it. And it's tapping into the existing communities and kind of CO opting them to to build your own bookkeeping, the values that that you've got as well.
00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:48.289
And then I think after that, once you've built that kind of core, is then going, Okay, how do we get that to that 80, 90% capacity, consistently? And that, for me, is through demonstrating the value of what you bring to people through often, through referrals as well. So getting those core people, to bring in other people from from their community, and then growing it iteratively from there.
00:40:48.500 --> 00:41:13.309
Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, no, I quite agree. I think it's really interesting. Just to kind of touch on the church that you mentioned. I think a lot of our singers knew someone in it before as well, which is really nice. So, like, we'll get a group of people, and they're, you know, they've got kids that go to the same school, or they live on same street, or, you know, they play badminton together badminton, and they decided they'd like to try singing. We get that a lot, which is really, really nice.
00:41:13.369 --> 00:41:41.389
I mean, it's like, all these lovely little links to kind of help build that. It's really cool. And we'll get, we get people who know someone in one of the other groups as well, which is really lovely, actually, because it means that when we we join up and do a joint concert, you've got these lovely links, and people get to stand next to each other and do do a different choir on a different night of the week, but in the same city, um, and doing the same music, so they're learning the same stuff. And then when they come together, you know, a few times a year to sit, to sing, that you really build these bonds. It's really lovely.
00:41:41.599 --> 00:42:06.469
Yeah, and I think that's, that's quite a universal thing, I would say, with group activities, where, when you can get everybody sharing that those same values and sharing that same passion for the activity that they're doing, that's naturally going to, going to create a forum that will drag other people in as well. It'll, it'll become almost magnetic, I would say, Yeah, cool.
00:42:06.559 --> 00:42:09.500
Well, that's, that's everything we've got got time for today.
00:42:09.889 --> 00:42:21.800
Thank you, Doug, for giving us some, some great insights in in the growth that you guys have done already, and kind of working through how you guys expand into the future. And I know I certainly can't.
00:42:21.829 --> 00:42:45.949
Can't wait to see what the future looks like for you guys and how big it can get. So make sure you subscribe to our step to success podcast to get more guided growth tips each month, and check out LoveAdmin.com/step2success for more information about how a one to one growth Consultation Service can work for you and your organization. Thank you for listening to step to success, guided growth.
00:42:46.190 --> 00:42:46.969
See you next time you.
00:00:01.679 --> 00:00:03.839
Hey everybody.
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This is James strategic business manager at love admin, and you're listening to the guided growth podcast, where we'll be taking you through the basics of growing your activity organization with real insights and real actions you can apply to your organization.
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Today we're talking about all things expansion with Doug watts at show choir, after starting with one choir in Bristol. Doug now heads up a team running nine choirs across the South West with ambitious plans for more.
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We'll be discussing the roadblocks Doug has been facing, turning his plans into reality, and how best to overcome them.
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Doug, thanks for joining us.
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Let's kick off by talking about show choir, how it all started, and the journey that you guys have been on. Cool. Yeah. So we started in 2017
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it was just myself and my business partner, Jess Jess Broderick at that point.
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And we kicked off with our first choir in southville, in the south, Southern bit of the city.
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And we started off, we had a taster session with like, 40 people, 50 people, and that was seven years ago. So that was our first one in Bristol. And then we kept growing. We got more choirs in Bristol, and we now kind of have four choirs in Bristol, in the center of Bristol. We've got three in Bath, one in Froome and one in Western supermare. Cool, awesome. It's, it's fantastic to hear the journey that you guys have been on and how you've turned it into this almost sort of superpower in in the southwest, is really great. So talk to me a little bit more about your your plans for growing into the future. What's, what's the goal? That's a really good question. And me and Jess talk about this quite a lot, actually. And the short answer is that we want to keep growing, as long as it's still fun. I think we're not really looking to be kind of a big corporate a big corporate player. We always say to each other that we're building communities, first in choir second. So as long as we can kind of keep the community feel we can keep people feeling valued, keep it fun, keep the music exciting, and we'll continue to grow. What that looks like. We're not really sure we've got so we've got nine choirs at the moment, and from our side of things, myself and Jess are the, the only two full timers. And then we've got a lovely administrator who works for us. And then we've got three, three conductors as well who run, run groups for us too.
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So our team's going to grow a little bit. We've got someone else we're looking to take on in January. We're looking at starting two new choirs in September, and then probably one in January, maybe two, we're not sure. So we know we want to expand. We know we want more choirs than what we've got.
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We're interested in this kind of community of singers growing.
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But how big that looks like it's going to get we're not quite sure yet. We know we want bigger and that it's fun now, as long as it stays fun, we'll continue to grow. And I
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think that's that's a really important point.
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And I think whenever you have plans for growth and expansion, keeping, keeping the core values of what make you you is a really important thing Not, not to lose sight of. And there are a lot of organizations that are guilty of that, that as they grow, they become this sort of faceless corporate enterprise. So I certainly would look to put some sort of tangible measure on your growth and on your expansion.
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That may not be, for you guys, purely the number of choirs that you get to, but it might be the number of people that you've got engaged, the size of your community. And then when you get to a certain size that is naturally going to fall into a bigger number of choirs, because you can't have a choir with 1000 people in it, certainly not within one room. It probably be quite cramped. So I think from from from that point of view, defining your goals doesn't need to be a linear thing. And quite often people look at the number of venues or the number of classes or or in your case, the number of choirs, look for a goal that follows the values that you want to still have in sort of response to your second point around again, that whole fun element and growing that team out you want to always have the foundation of your team to be At sort of 75 to 80% capacity. And if you grow without increasing your capacity, that's when it's not fun, because that's when everybody's working consistently at 100 110 120% of a comfortable workload. And then that's where you stray from this, this sort of virtuous path of wanting to keep those those values. So by getting the right structure in early, you can really keep that element of fun, because everybody's still doing the same thing. You've just got more people doing it, and they all know what they need to do. And I know Doug, we've already had a conversation around how we can start to build in that structure as well. Yeah.
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So if. No, I quite agree. No, I see that. That makes sense. Thank you. So we so we got to we were at four choirs in Bristol, and then one in Bath, and our administrator, who we took on when we started our second choir in Bristol, so some years ago, and we were all at the point where we were like completely at capacity. We had, at that point, we had about 202 50 members across our four going on five choirs, and we we got to the point when you simply can't administrate that number of people on a spreadsheet. So we were like, all at capacity.
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We're all, as you say, kind of 110 120% and it just wasn't feasible. We were trying to track everyone's payments, whether they paid us on time, who needed chasing, who paid for what, who done this bit? And that's kind of when we we worked out. We needed a CRM. We needed a platform like love admin, because when we jumped on board, our administrator quite rightly said, I've got too much work. I physically can't, can't do anymore. We're like, Okay, we need, yeah, we need to do something about that. So, so we'd always done, to be really funny. We'd always done all our registers and everything just on a spreadsheet, just on like a Google Sheets spreadsheet, which kind of worked, and we got away with it, but kind of tracking bank payments and stuff was just impossible. So we really did hit that wall where 110 120% capacity, and we needed to kind of streamline things to keep moving, and that's kind of where we're at now. So we took on working with the love admin system just every year ago. He was actually and we sort of put everyone through that system, of course, and it's been, it's been quite a process for setting up the notifications and and working out all the products and the shop and how it all works.
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But now we've got it. I think, as you say, in theory, we can grow, but keep our kind of, keep working at our capacity a little bit under 100% so we've still got, still got that, that kind of room to breathe. But we're getting there. We're getting there, yeah,
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for sure. And I think it is those iterative changes that will help to to keep that balance in checking and keep giving you that that time to grow. And I would encourage you to kind of keep looking at those sort of small iterative changes each time.
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People see expansion as this big thing that you've got to sort of build up to and have, kind of as a moment in time this is safe, like, for example, where you're talking about adding the two new choirs in in September and and the third in January. That that's the end result of, to me, what should be a series of kind of smaller changes to get you to that point where actually the expansion feels natural and it feels comfortable to do it, because you've you've laid all of the groundwork beforehand. So I certainly would encourage completing all of that type of stuff each time you go through a level of expansion and going, okay, how can I future proof myself? So like, for example, with what you were saying around joining love admin and the benefits that that's had for you guys, that was a reactive decision born from your administrator, and you guys going, we can't handle the amount of happen we've now got, now that we've got four or five full choirs, whereas with future decisions, if you were to go, okay, there is the potential for X, Y and Z down the track. What can we do to mitigate that risk now, and that that, I think will make expansion feel less intimidating and feel less like you're kind of growing beyond the core elements of why you're turning up to do what you do.
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Yeah, totally, I
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see what you mean. I think, I think there's definitely an element of proactive seeing it that we've not necessarily done. I think as we've grown over the last seven years, I think we've always kind of been hungry for that. We want more we want more of a community. We'd like more singers. We'd like to expand to different areas. But I think, I think you're absolutely right. I think a lot of our growth has been kind of reactive. It's been, you know, we want an area here that start acquire, well, that's not quite worked. How can we change that? I think it's been a lot of kind of, you know, learning on the job, as these things always are. But I think we've, we've always been reactive, kind of, in setting up our processes, rather than, rather than proactive, kind of as as, as we've learned we should totally, right? We're, we're going to kind of adjust our mindset on that slightly as we get bigger. Yeah, and,
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and I think in the early days, when you go from one choir to four choirs, that's that is how you do it. And there's kind of no other way, really, than the kind of suck it and see approach where you have to just get out there and try stuff and see what works and see what takes off. And I think now you're at a point of transition away from that, where you've got a pretty good framework, really, in terms of how each of these individual quieters operates, so you can start to build quite a uniform thing that you can then carry forward to other locations. And then it's a case of going, and this is why I stress and when my first question is. Is always, what's the goal? Once you have a goal is your is the very, very first thing you look at, you can then map back from there and go, Okay, what steps do I need to take to achieve that goal? Well, okay, so I want to have 300 new members by the end of next year.
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Okay. That means, in order to achieve that, I must open four new choirs. Okay, in order to open four new choirs, I need three new conductors, because two of the choirs are in the same city, so one conductor can conceivably do both. So in order to have three new conductors, I need to train them up, and I need to recruit them. And in order to do that, I need to have a framework on how I'm going to do that, and a consistent standard for a good conductor.
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Good conductor of a choir looks like there's your first task, because that's going to give you that framework. You do all of those things in order you achieve your goal. You still have the fun element, because you're not going, Okay, I've all of sudden, I've got three new choirs, and I'm working seven days a week and 100 hours a week to make it happen. But this isn't sustainable, so I've got to get three new conductors, but I've already launched the choir.
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So I'm, do you see what I mean it? That's when the fun stops.
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Yeah, no, I
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think that. I think that's absolutely fair. I think that's kind of kind of always, always how we've done it, kind of historically. We've, we've sort of gone to open something else. I'm like, Well, turns out we need someone to open that, and then and so on and so forth.
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I think this is the first time kind of as a business, we've we've had to start planning proactively. And, you know, beginning with the end in mind, as you say, like, we've never really had to do it with a team of two people. You can kind of, what, two, and then three, and then and then so on. Like, you you can kind of get away with working on things like WhatsApp and just, does this need doing that he's doing? Yeah, that's fine. You do it. I'll do this bit. That's kind of okay with the bigger teams the first time, we're kind of very much having to organize who's doing what.
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We're starting to project manage things as we grow, starting to work backwards from our big kind of concert dates, our big recordings, our big video shoots, and work out who's doing what and how and what we need to get get to that end point. But, but yeah, with in terms of growth, we've not really done that so much. I think we're, we're from a growth point of view, we're kind of focusing, or we, at least, we have been focusing on growing something from scratch in a new city and then letting it kind of organically grow on the grounds that it takes a while for people to kind of build those relationships and to build this kind of community. But I think, I think I totally agree. I think if we have more of a clear idea of how many singers we want, how many people we want to be involved with our business, kind of going forwards, we can kind of work back from that and see how many people we want in our choirs. Yeah, I
00:12:39.000 --> 00:13:39.149
think that will certainly just give you more of an element of control. And I know when you kind of look at blockers to growth, sort of knowing what to do and where to go is is often the biggest thing notice you mentioned quite early on around not wanting to be corporate. And I find that, I find that really interesting, because it's something we hear quite a lot with activity organizations that are all of a similar sort of size, is that being corporate is kind of a swear word, actually, I would argue that it doesn't need to be, and that there are elements of the corporate world that are are beneficial as long as you do one thing, which is to reference and frame every decision you make from one question, which is, does this thing that I'm about to do stay in keeping with what my core value is?
00:13:39.299 --> 00:14:12.960
So, for example, you mentioned quite heavily at the start there about it being fun and having a sense of community. So with every decision you make, ask that question, is this going to be fun, and is this going to build my community? And then actually, you can take some of the corporate elements, things like market research, for example, sound all very big and scary, but a lot of that could be going to a new city on a Saturday afternoon and just walking around the town center and asking people questions and spending a couple of hours doing that, or taking some of the element other elements.
00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:59.070
So I know Doug, we've been working on a job description for a conductor and a ways of working document, which can feel quite alien from a fun community organization, because that feels corporate and rigid. But actually, if you put in the job description, this is going to be fun. Well, then you're you're not going to lose that sense of fun. So I, I would encourage you not to see being corporate as as a swear word, as something that you must stay away from, that everyone's going to turn into sort of faceless mega corpse in skyscrapers and that kind of stereotypical definition of what a corporate company is, I would say, take elements of it, but keep in mind, what makes you you?
00:14:59.159 --> 00:15:16.200
Yeah, totally, I can see that. Yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, we've been working on this job description and ways of working document, and I haven't passed this back to you, actually, so we've been working on it going back and forth, and I managed to kind of squeeze the ways of working systems, you know, this needs doing on a weekly basis and a monthly basis, and this is how we'd like you to do it.
00:15:16.350 --> 00:15:43.379
Then the job description just, you know, half a half a side of roughly what being a show choir conductor entails, and how we'd like to do it. And interestingly, kind of to that point, our first bit of feedback from our conductors was that it was, it was actually too formal, that it didn't have enough of that sense of fun in it. So we sent it. I sent it to yourself, the first draft, and to our to our conductors. And we were in a really, really lucky position where we we we have people that we love working with already.
00:15:43.590 --> 00:16:15.570
We kind of got to work backwards from that. We weren't necessarily writing a job description for people we'd never met. It was like, these are the people we work with that we love working with. How can we kind of put on a on a side, what they do on a weekly in a monthly basis, and how they do it, so that when we do recruit we can say this is, this is how we do things. So I sent it over, and yeah, their feedback was much the same as yours, actually, that it was too formal, and that getting that sense of fun and supportiveness between the different members of the team, it wasn't really in their first first time around.
00:16:16.049 --> 00:16:32.399
So that's what I've been working on recently. And you're absolutely right. I think my first paragraph in there was a little bit corporate, you know, we want someone with these skills and, you know, this, this kind of character, and this, this skill set and, and whilst that's fine, and that is valuable, you're totally right.
00:16:29.250 --> 00:16:51.090
I think it didn't sound like we'd written it initially, which it has to if we're growing this, this business and this community, and we want people to want to do it and to grow these communities. We need it to sound like us, and we need to to get to get that kind of vibe distilled into into a document.
00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:55.049
So that's what we're working on on this week, actually, is how we send that out, and what, what thatlooks like.
00:16:55.230 --> 00:17:17.640
Yeah, and, and I think that's that's really important, and a really great example of how the word corporate is, is misused almost, yeah, and people just sort of assume this stereotype of needing to be super formal and kind of speaking legalese, I think, is the phrase where it's this kind of jargon of words that don't really mean anything.
00:17:18.089 --> 00:17:38.250
It certainly doesn't need to be that case. And actually, you know, your your conductors are completely right in the if a job description doesn't match the way they work, but then the job description is not right, and it absolutely needs to convey how you want people to be when they're in your organization.
00:17:38.700 --> 00:18:34.140
And that's a really, really important thing. And I think the easy thing to do in that situation is just to go, Well, that doesn't really work. So we won't do it because a job description is overly formal. A job description is just a title of a document. What you put in it is up to you. And I think you're kind of going through that process now of almost releasing the shackles of what you thought you had to do in that startup document to going actually, what is going to be, what is going to be most valuable. And again, that's how you're sort of processing that step in unlocking future growth, without you having to manage a team of 20 conductors, all of whom are doing their own different thing. And then those core values and that core identity starts, starts to wander, I think, as well, from what you've mentioned around not wanting to be this, this massive organization, have you considered at some point in the future franchising at all?
00:18:34.380 --> 00:18:53.039
Yeah, we've had conversations about it, and we, we kind of, we kind of come back to the same, same thing about it being fun and whatnot. And whilst I think, you know, we'd really have to work at being under, under our capacity, like 80, 90% capacity all the time, so we can grow comfortably, and so we can enjoy doing it franchising.
00:18:53.039 --> 00:19:08.460
We decided, when we had a conversation about it last that it wasn't for us now, because we're really lucky that we're working with the people we're working with, and we're growing, and it's fun, but franchising, it doesn't quite work, because we're not really ready to hand that over.
00:19:08.640 --> 00:19:37.019
I think at the point when we are kind of up to capacity, and you know, me and Jess and Sean, our administrator and our team, by the time we're working kind of all the hours we can, we're not able to grow because of that. I think that'll be at the point to kind of take back 10% of our workload and start looking at how we can maybe franchise, franchise that out. But I think in terms of numbers of people and how much we're doing, how many choirs we've got, I think we're probably a long way off.
00:19:37.109 --> 00:19:59.970
We think I'm sure it would be physically possible to kind of put the business in a box, to sell it out and to to get different people doing our music and using our values in different places, in different areas. But if we don't think it's for us now, I think, as well as kind of the capacity limitations, I think the geography is going to play a massive part in that we've been really lucky that we've grown kind of geographically.
00:20:00.029 --> 00:20:32.309
We started in Bristol, we sort of spread out gradually, and we're looking at going going north into Cheltenham and Gloucester next, and then kind of going south east into chippenham and that kind of area of the country. And whilst we can do that with the conductors we've got, we think if we did decide we wanted, you know, to look at the northeast, because there's no musical theater, musical theater choirs up there, we definitely need to franchise and look at having that being kind of led by someone else, because we wouldn't be able to do it. We're really nice position where our conductors we can all kind of cover each other.
00:20:33.109 --> 00:20:48.799
The way we've run our nights of the week is so that there's always at least one of us free on every night to cover. And it happens we get ill. I'm a bit ill at the moment. I'll still teach tonight, but, you know, a lot of us have got kids. We get bugs all the time. You know, we're ill, that's fine.
00:20:48.829 --> 00:21:18.349
We can always cover but we decided that franchising and kind of handing the baton on someone else, we wouldn't be able to work quite so closely and have that kind of community feel. I think the other element of that as well is that so far, our conductors that we work with and our staff, they've all been friends we've known before, and which I realize is pretty rare in a business, and I think we're really, really, really lucky to do that, but the people we've known that we've worked with, that we sung with for years, and kind of got them on board.
00:21:18.410 --> 00:21:51.829
And there's, there's a lot to be said for our vibe and our values being carried forwards because of that, because we've known each other already, and we know how we work, how we like to work, what we're trying to what we're trying to create. So in a sense, we've never had to like structure, our values or what what we want to do, and our ways of working, I think, which is why you and I were discussing the job description and ways of working, because we're starting to look at people and we don't know so well, and that will kind of in volve a lot of shadowing, but I don't think we're ready tohand that over someone yet.
00:21:52.009 --> 00:22:16.190
Yeah, no, I think, I think you touch upon a really, really excellent point there. And I, I would say absolutely franchising is, is growth when, to my mind, is growth when you you don't want to grow organically anymore, when it starts to get to that point where you're going to lose control. And geographically, for example, as you described, you simply can't, can't cover it.
00:22:16.430 --> 00:22:51.740
But there is also that element of when you franchise you do you do, naturally relinquish some element of control in the organization, because you're entrusting someone with with the keys, effectively, to part of the business, to go and to go and run within the framework that that you've set. And I think I'm kind of circling back around to to how we started today, but by setting those goals, short, medium and long term, that can give you that plan that can include organic growth and potentially franchise growth in the future.
00:22:52.009 --> 00:23:23.390
By going, I know in roughly three to five years, I want to look at franchising, because we will have, based on all of the other short to medium term goals we will have looked and expanded to the maximum that we could possibly expand. Now that doesn't need to be hard and fast, and you don't need to get to the exact point of it being five years from you making that decision to go right after franchise now, because five years ago, I said that that was my plan to do it, but it starts to plot out a bit of a timeline for you.
00:23:23.390 --> 00:23:44.180
So again, you can work back and decide what actions you need to do. And certainly it sounds like there's loads of opportunity and for your type of organization as well, to be able to grow organically and to retain all of that control yourself. But just because you don't want to do it now doesn't mean you shouldn't think about it at all, is probably why I would say.
00:23:44.180 --> 00:24:07.609
And I think a crucial part of expansion is knowing what's next. So what's now is, in September, going to be launching two new choirs. In January, going to be launching another new choir. It's going to take, take us up to 12. That will probably mean that you start to look at bringing in people that aren't from that initial sort of core group of friends, which so many activity organizations start with.
00:24:07.609 --> 00:24:12.079
And to be honest, is often where that initial success comes from.
00:24:12.259 --> 00:24:36.829
Is that real close knit group of people, and that's where where you get that real strength of value from. But then after that, you kind of then end up falling off a cliff until you decide what the next thing you thing is you want to do, whereas actually you want to kind of bounce from from one to the next and split up your time. So you've got day to day operation making expansion successful that I've already done. So, for example, growing out those three choirs.
00:24:36.829 --> 00:24:59.000
Because that's that's not going to happen overnight, unless you're really, really, really lucky, and you've sort of hit, hit the golden egg. And then the other portion of time is, what's the next expansion I need to start working on, and how do I need to set up my organization to be able to accommodate that really easily? Does that kind of make sense, or does that seem like quite a kind of scary way of looking at things?
00:24:59.210 --> 00:25:26.839
No, no. That does make sense like, yeah, I can, I can see what you mean. I think we, we've always had, I say always recently, we've had the first two levels of that going on. We've had the day to day expansion, sorry, day to day running, what that looks like in terms of starting the next few choirs, but I think with taking on new staff and joining new choirs, that kind of third level of what does this look like in a few years, and how can we work backwards and look at what size we need to be in and how we start moving that out?
00:25:26.869 --> 00:25:51.500
If franchising is there a role, if always we've not done that so much recently, I think we've had big projects, and we've kind of focused on those as we've done them, but, but, yeah, you're totally right. I think the slightly more long term, long term strategy we we've not spent so much so much energy on. I mean, I think it's something we'll need to, need to incorporate into our into our kind of business plans going forwards.
00:25:51.829 --> 00:26:27.109
And I think it is something that I champion with everyone I speak to, is that owners and kind of founders and managers shouldn't be immune from from the working structure piece of work. So we've looked at doing the job, job descriptions and ways of working for your conductors. It may be a useful exercise to kind of self reflect on that and look at what your working week and your yours and Jesses working weeks look like. And how do you facilitate having time to do those three things each week or each month?
00:26:27.319 --> 00:26:49.160
Now, yours is going to be more varied. It's not going to be as structured as at the start of the day, I'm going to do this, that and the other but over the course of a week, you should broadly be able to say, Okay, I need to spend X hours doing this with the day to day Corporation, and I need to spend, Y was doing this, managing those three new choirs that are about to go live, and making sure that they're successful.
00:26:49.400 --> 00:27:31.759
And then that leaves Z. And then you can, sort of, I would, then put that bit of paper down that you've read it all on, leave it alone. Leave it alone for a week, two weeks even, and then come back to it and reflect on what you've written and go, Is it urgent? Is it important? Is there someone else that can be doing those things and then that can free up your time? Because, again, whilst you don't want your team to be working 110 120% it's important that you're not as well, because it's got to be fun for you. But don't forget that element of it. And I think that's something that's very easily forgotten. And I've spoken with other activity providers who work 100 hours a week, and, frankly, are miserable half the time, and they don't enjoy it anymore.
00:27:31.789 --> 00:27:50.089
They've been doing it for 20 years, and it's it's mutated into this thing where, whilst it's commercially successful, it's not fun, and that's because they've not taken themselves as part of that process of adding structure and growing with the growth of the organization.
00:27:50.150 --> 00:28:04.250
Yeah, that's super interesting. We started building lists of what we all do, like who's doing what, but I think the kind of the second level of that, of how much of that is urgent and important, how much of that needs to be a priority.
00:28:04.730 --> 00:28:13.880
So we can kind of hit those, I say, bigger targets. If the feels a bit, you know, bit cooperative, doesn't it is not so much a target. It's kind of a way in which we'd like to grow.
00:28:14.630 --> 00:28:22.460
We've not really looked at how much of each of those details is a priority on a day to day basis. So, yeah, that's definitely something, something we need to do.
00:28:22.759 --> 00:29:15.829
Yeah, and I think it's, it's all about building in those, those processes and having that kind of chain of thought with the end goal, the end ambition in mind. And it kind of has three sort of strands, really, which is, what I want to achieve. What do I need to do? And what do I need to do to achieve it, kind of in in one what are the values that are most important to me that I cannot deviate from, regardless of what I choose to go and do, and how am I going to alter the way I work and the way we work as a team in order to achieve the values that we want to have, that we're not going to deviate from, and the ambitions that ambitions that we've got and the plans that we've got to achieve them. I think if you could do those three things, that will make the growth and expansion process much easier, because you're always sort of self reflecting, yeah, especially
00:29:15.829 --> 00:30:01.759
I see that. I think that's really interesting. I think if I can just kind of, like, flip it briefly, in the sense that, like we're talking about how we want to work and our values and our staff, and how we expand and how we want to grow. How To what extent do we throw that out to our I suppose you know, using corporate language, you say, our clients, like our singers, our communities, how much of like our values and our kind of how we want to grow should be there, there on our branding, if that makes sense, like we've taken on someone to do our marketing, our marketing management. It just he, just so happens to be my business partner's husband, and he is absolutely wonderful. But how much of that vision and that those values should be in our.
00:29:58.309 --> 00:30:02.269
Message to our customers as well,
00:30:02.359 --> 00:30:35.990
I would say it needs to be all over it. And your values and your branding, to me, are two sides of the same coin. I see, okay, sure, because it is what makes you you. And before your customers come in to meet the conductor and to take part in a session, all they can see is what you show them through your marketing effort, and you want them to see that it's fun, and you want them to see that it's a community. So your branding and your marketing has all got to sing that same song, if you Pardon, pardon the unintentional pun there.
00:30:36.650 --> 00:30:37.250
No, I like that.
00:30:38.029 --> 00:30:43.880
So certainly when you're looking at your marketing again, going back to this central question, is it fun?
00:30:44.420 --> 00:31:06.170
Does it build a community? And I genuinely mean every single thing you do that's related to show choir. Is it fun? Does it build a sense of community, and even for the most seemingly sort of inane and boring things and decisions you have to make, is it fun? Does it build a community, or whatever other values you want to have as your kind of real, real core things.
00:31:06.529 --> 00:31:17.450
Because then once that sort of cohesive and unitary, I it's the same across everything, then that's when it can become really strong, and people will see that.
00:31:17.900 --> 00:31:36.920
So when you go into a new a new town, a new city, people who are looking for fun, people who are looking for a sense of community, even if they're not looking for a show choir, yeah, your marketing will resonate with them, and you may attract new people. And then it's about understanding that community.
00:31:36.920 --> 00:32:06.950
So one thing we've not spoken about, and it'd be great to get your thoughts on the challenges you face with this aspect, is, once you've opened a new venue, how to then turn that into success and make it grow to its its fullest potential. And I think that's that's a nice kind of segue, actually, from from what you were asking around values and brand, is if you have a really strong brand based on some really good core values that resonate with people.
00:32:03.230 --> 00:32:11.150
Doesn't matter really where you go, because people will pick up on those things and then that will draw people in.
00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:13.220
Yeah, yeah, totally, yeah. That's really interesting.
00:32:13.250 --> 00:32:41.480
I think, I think a big believer that your best advertisers are people already within your business, people already that, already fans. They're kind of the people that that do the best marketing for you. So I think kind of a roundabout way of asking your question, but we've got that kind of drive for service, community and a sense of fun. And then I think the third thing for us that we have as as a musical organization is that kind of musical, musical element.
00:32:41.690 --> 00:32:44.869
It's not like a striving for musical element excellence.
00:32:44.869 --> 00:33:01.039
That's not really who we are, but it is, I think there's a firm belief that what we're singing and how we're singing, it helps us achieve the first two goals. So I think our marketing and our stuff often talks the most about that third thing about the music. This is something we've been singing.
00:33:01.220 --> 00:33:03.410
This is what we're doing. This is how we're performing.
00:33:04.069 --> 00:33:48.079
You know, listen to CD we've done, which is all great. It's all awesome. But I think the only time we really kind of talk about the values and fun and community is maybe within our singers, we're getting better at it. I think a lot of our trailers that leads me putting together do show like the community element and stuff. But I think, I think a lot of choirs kind of focus on advertising that musical element. So I guess growing our groups that we've we're established, and we're trying to grow and trying to make them successful. I think often we as a business, we focus on the musical side. So we like, we're going to go and do this bus. We're going to do, you know, be at the Bristol 10k or we're going to go and sing pride and things like that.
00:33:48.109 --> 00:34:21.320
Are all stuff that, to us, is really good for building. It's really good for kind of getting, getting our name out there, getting people to see us, getting people to see that we're having fun and hear, hear that it's a really, is a genuinely, really good sound. I'm just fantastic. But that kind of growing of a smaller choir that's quite new, is really, really hard. It's really, it's really tricky to kind of plant that choir and get people to get people to expand. We've always said that, like when a choir has got a call, when it's got that kind of like 15 members, 20 members that love it so much.
00:34:21.320 --> 00:34:25.940
They're there every week, and they're telling their friends, and they want their friends to come as well.
00:34:26.420 --> 00:34:40.639
So you get all these lovely links there. The quote really starts blossoming, and it really starts to get that lovely critical mass. You'll always have people kind of jumping in for a term, and then going away and then do something else, and then coming back in a few years.
00:34:37.159 --> 00:34:54.110
That's totally fine, and I think that's always gonna be part of a membership organization, but really building that core is something that we rely on so much, but that often takes a while to do. We started a new group just last couple of weeks.
00:34:54.110 --> 00:35:00.860
Actually, our third group in Bath, and it started off at the taste session. We had like 1520 people, but. And that's fine.
00:35:00.889 --> 00:35:09.829
That's a nice number to start with. It's really, really good, and we kind of got a lot of faith, I suppose, that those people there that call kind of grow and bring more people in.
00:35:10.010 --> 00:35:24.349
But it's always, always something we're looking to do better is that when we've started this choir, we've advertised it, you know, on whatever channels we're doing, print, Facebook, how we grow it when it's established is always, always a tricky thing for any for any choir.
00:35:24.409 --> 00:35:29.599
I think there's, there's certainly two kind of distinct phases of growth that you kind of touched upon there.
00:35:29.659 --> 00:35:35.150
And I would say that the first one is that development of your core, your core faithful.
00:35:35.599 --> 00:36:00.380
And I think that this is applicable to any type of activity, provision, really, when you go into a new a new location, and I said one of the best things you could probably do for that is tell everyone in your existing locations, the new location that you're going to so in in your example, looking at moving to chartman and Gloucester, which is a considerable distance from Bath and Bristol.
00:36:01.159 --> 00:36:12.619
But if you tell the people in both and Bristol, and they've actually got a friend who lives in Charlotte, or a family member, or a friend of a friend, or someone I used to go to school with that they write to every other week, they're going to tell them about that.
00:36:13.429 --> 00:36:33.769
And then that person has got a group of friends who are already their own little community. And then you might get lucky with one or two of those people then come down and start to build the foundation based on that kind of social proof element that you talk about, which is people will always respect other people's opinions if they know them.
00:36:33.949 --> 00:36:37.070
Yeah, totally, yeah.
00:36:33.949 --> 00:36:46.400
I think that's No. I completely agree with you. I think we So since we've started saying to people, so we're actually looking at kind of expanding into Cheltenham. People have gone. We've got a couple of people like, Oh, my mum lives in Shelton. Can she join?
00:36:46.849 --> 00:37:12.980
And then one of our members has just moved up to Cheltenham, and he's desperate to and then we've got some people that travel quite away from like Thornbury and North Bristol that would like to get to Cheltenham, because it's in work. It's really it's really lovely getting people in different areas that say, can we have a show quite here, please. It's really nice. We did a few we did a feedback form at the end of our last term. We had a big concert, the forum in Bath, which is a 1500 seater and we had 330 singers on stage. It was mental.
00:37:13.099 --> 00:37:27.650
It was great fun, and I'd love to do it again. But one of the things we asked after that concert was, Is there anywhere that you want a show choir, or your family members or friends want a show choir? And so weird.
00:37:24.530 --> 00:37:27.650
Cheltenham kept on popping up.
00:37:27.860 --> 00:37:35.420
It's really, really nice. So we're trying to get kind of people to have these conversations. And I think our gigs are arguably the best marketing we can do for that.
00:37:35.630 --> 00:37:41.659
Because people bring their parents, they bring their friends, we only do, like, a couple of paid gigs a year. Is it's not much.
00:37:41.659 --> 00:37:49.219
There's not many chances to come, kind of buy a ticket and see us. When people come, they do, they they, they do like it.
00:37:49.280 --> 00:38:02.329
I'm confident we really do put on a good show. A few times of being inquiring, I like to say people, when they first come through taste and like so how did you hear about this? What's the link? And often people will say, you know, sort of magazine, you know, sort of Facebook, which is great.
00:38:02.329 --> 00:38:15.019
That's all cool. But the one I really, really like is when someone says, I came down a year ago to see see a concert, and loved it, and I've just moved to Bristol, and I couldn't wait to join and that's, it's so encouraging. Is so lovely when that happens,
00:38:15.260 --> 00:38:38.119
yeah. And I think, what and interesting, interestingly, given what we've discussed already, you've touched upon a couple of kind of corporate principles there that you've managed to apply on that community level. One is feedback form. Is market research. That's that's what you've done. You've done your market research there, and you've established where the right location is to go to, where you've got demand already.
00:38:38.329 --> 00:38:56.059
And this whole element of social proof and getting reviews and getting yourself out there and people seeing the value in what you do, because when people see 350 singers up on a stage or having a fantastic time, the kind of principle of community means that everyone else who's not part of that group wants to be a part of that group because they're having a great time.
00:38:56.420 --> 00:39:05.780
So certainly that when we talk about presenting your values and your branding. You've done that.
00:39:02.300 --> 00:39:39.710
You've done that in spades because you've demonstrated through the singing that it's fun and that there's a community, because there's 350 of them up on that stage all having a fantastic time, and that is very, very compelling for new people to join. So I think in terms of building that, that core element, if that is what I would encourage you to do more of, is building out that that social proof, getting friends and family, particularly when you're kind of relatively geographically similar, you can absolutely do that, and getting getting your name into other communities.
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So for example, if you're moving to Gloucester and you didn't have very many connections there is, if I were in your position, I'd be going to the local churches and going, we're launching it. Because, you know that they often have their own little community, and there's often singing elements and more traditional choirs in within churches, I would look at going, Oh, we're launching a different type of choir.
00:40:00.050 --> 00:40:19.730
Right, that you can do Alongside this, bring everyone along. We want to build this super choir within Gloucester, wherever it may be, and we'd love for you to be a part of it. And it's tapping into the existing communities and kind of CO opting them to to build your own bookkeeping, the values that that you've got as well.
00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:48.289
And then I think after that, once you've built that kind of core, is then going, Okay, how do we get that to that 80, 90% capacity, consistently? And that, for me, is through demonstrating the value of what you bring to people through often, through referrals as well. So getting those core people, to bring in other people from from their community, and then growing it iteratively from there.
00:40:48.500 --> 00:41:13.309
Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, no, I quite agree. I think it's really interesting. Just to kind of touch on the church that you mentioned. I think a lot of our singers knew someone in it before as well, which is really nice. So, like, we'll get a group of people, and they're, you know, they've got kids that go to the same school, or they live on same street, or, you know, they play badminton together badminton, and they decided they'd like to try singing. We get that a lot, which is really, really nice.
00:41:13.369 --> 00:41:41.389
I mean, it's like, all these lovely little links to kind of help build that. It's really cool. And we'll get, we get people who know someone in one of the other groups as well, which is really lovely, actually, because it means that when we we join up and do a joint concert, you've got these lovely links, and people get to stand next to each other and do do a different choir on a different night of the week, but in the same city, um, and doing the same music, so they're learning the same stuff. And then when they come together, you know, a few times a year to sit, to sing, that you really build these bonds. It's really lovely.
00:41:41.599 --> 00:42:06.469
Yeah, and I think that's, that's quite a universal thing, I would say, with group activities, where, when you can get everybody sharing that those same values and sharing that same passion for the activity that they're doing, that's naturally going to, going to create a forum that will drag other people in as well. It'll, it'll become almost magnetic, I would say, Yeah, cool.
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Well, that's, that's everything we've got got time for today.
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Thank you, Doug, for giving us some, some great insights in in the growth that you guys have done already, and kind of working through how you guys expand into the future. And I know I certainly can't.
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Can't wait to see what the future looks like for you guys and how big it can get. So make sure you subscribe to our step to success podcast to get more guided growth tips each month, and check out LoveAdmin.com/step2success for more information about how a one to one growth Consultation Service can work for you and your organization. Thank you for listening to step to success, guided growth.
00:42:46.190 --> 00:42:46.969
See you next time you.
