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41. The Business of Dance: How I Make Money Doing What I Love
101 Plays7 days ago
In this solo episode, I’m going behind the scenes of the business side of the Brainy Ballerina to share the financial realities of being a dancer and business owner. From passive income to diversifying revenue sources, I share actionable advice for dancers looking to secure financial stability while pursuing their artistic careers.
If you're a dancer looking to supplement your performance career, transition into entrepreneurship, or simply learn more about financial planning in the dance world, this episode is packed with valuable insights!
Key “Pointes” in this Episode
🩰The importance of diversifying income as a dancer
🩰The difference between active and passive income (and why dancers should consider both)
🩰A detailed breakdown of my income streams, including mentoring, eBooks, content creation, and workshops
🩰How niching down caused my business to grow exponentially
🩰Why setting financial and time boundaries is crucial for sustainable success
🩰The value of investing in tools, education, and professional support to grow a dance-related business
Links and Resources:
The Power of Passive Income for Dancers Webinar: https://www.thebrainyballerina.com/digital-resources/p/thepowerofpassiveincomewebinar
Set up a High Yield Savings Account: https://ally.com/referral?code=6W6W3R2V4H (referral link)
The Brainy Ballerina Partner Discounts: https://www.thebrainyballerina.com/discounts
Related Episodes:
01. My Story (Caitlin’s Version)
12. Side Gigs I’ve Had as a Professional Dancer
Let’s connect!
My WEBSITE: thebrainyballerina.com
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thebrainyballerina
Questions/comments? Email me at caitlin@thebrainyballerina.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Aspirations
00:00:00
Speaker
I do also aspire to grow my business and I do aspire to make more money in my business. And that sounds like a dirty word. People don't like to say that, but it's okay to say that I aspire to get paid for my expertise, for the work that I am doing. I know that I'm good what I'm doing.
00:00:20
Speaker
I know that what I'm doing has value and it's okay for me to say that I would like my business to grow and I would like to make more income doing that.
00:00:33
Speaker
I'm Caitlin, a former professional ballerina turned dance educator and career mentor, and this is the Brand New Ballerina podcast. I am here for the aspiring professional ballerina who wants to learn what it really takes to build a smart and sustainable career in the dance industry.
00:00:49
Speaker
I'm peeling back the curtain of professional dance world with open and honest conversations about the realities of becoming a professional dancer. Come along to gain the knowledge and inspiration you need succeed in a dance career on your terms.
00:01:07
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Brainy Ballerina Podcast.
Podcast Reach and Audience Gratitude
00:01:10
Speaker
Caitlin here today with a solo episode chatting about all things finances, business, money, as a dancer, as a small business owner, as a dance educator, as anyone working in the dance field.
00:01:25
Speaker
Before I get into the episode, I wanted to share something really exciting with you all. I was just doing some research for a meeting I had today, and I was looking at my podcast stats.
00:01:36
Speaker
And the Brainy Ballerina podcast has been listened to in 40 countries, which I think is just so, so cool. We've also reached 48 of the 50 U.S. states.
00:01:48
Speaker
We have not had any listeners in Wyoming or Alaska. So if you know anyone there, send them the podcast. But I just want to say thank you for everyone who's tuned into this podcast.
00:02:00
Speaker
The fact that we have a global audience of dancers It's just so, so cool to me. I'm really passionate about what we're building here, and I want to say thank you and just celebrate that win today.
00:02:12
Speaker
I also want to give a huge shout out to all of my guests who have come on the podcast. They've all been so open and honest in sharing their stories, and I know it's making a difference for dancers. I get messages every week from dancers telling me how impactful hearing these stories has been for them.
Business Beginnings and Growth
00:02:30
Speaker
If you're one of those dancers, if you are tuning into this podcast each week and it is making a difference for you, I really do need your help. I have set a goal to 100 five-star reviews today.
00:02:44
Speaker
of the podcast in 2025. So if this podcast has made a difference for you, i would be so honored if you would take a few seconds today to visit your preferred listening platform wherever you choose to listen and hit that five-star button. It only takes a few seconds to give the rating.
00:03:03
Speaker
If you do have a few more minutes and you want to leave a written review, those go a super long way. i know as a consumer, I'm always looking at reviews and I take them really seriously.
00:03:15
Speaker
So if you have a few words to say and you have some time today, that would be also a huge help. Thank you so much for your support as this podcast continues to grow in 2025. Okay, let's talk business.
00:03:26
Speaker
I had some really great questions from you that I'm going to get to, but first I want to give a quick dive into how I built my business. I talked about this more in the very first episode of the podcast when I shared my story in a sense of my journey, how I made these shifts in my life and how i ended up where I am now doing this work.
00:03:48
Speaker
But I'm going to talk about it more today from a really logistical standpoint. So when I first started the Brainy Ballerina, it looked a lot different than it does now, which is the reality of starting a business.
00:04:01
Speaker
You have to keep pivoting and changing. So when I first started, my goal with the Brainy Ballerina was to supply educational resources for dance teachers.
00:04:13
Speaker
I had ah found that when I was teaching full time, i was always looking for certain materials that I wanted to use in my classrooms. I couldn't find them. I thought I'm going to make those and sell those to dance teachers who are super busy and could probably make these things on their own, but they just don't have time and would rather just pick it up pre-made and ready to go.
00:04:36
Speaker
At this time, too, I was thinking about starting a family and I wasn't sure if I still wanted to continue teaching in the studio full time. So I kind of thought, OK, my life is busy. I don't know if that's going to change anytime soon. I still do want to teach full time for the time being.
00:04:52
Speaker
i want to add kids into my life. It's just going to get crazier. So let me add a more passive income stream into my life.
Transition to Passive Income
00:05:01
Speaker
And that was the other idea behind doing these printable resources was that I could put the work in upfront to build these streams of income. And then I could kind of set them in my mind on autopilots.
00:05:15
Speaker
So most income streams, when we're making money, we are trading literal time for money, right? So you teach a class for an hour and a half and you get paid for that time that you are there.
00:05:26
Speaker
The thing is that you have finite time. There's never enough time, especially as a dancer with our busy schedules. And so it really appealed to me to have an income stream that could make me money without me continually putting in the work.
00:05:40
Speaker
Not to say that it wasn't hard work to start off with. I had to put a lot of time and energy and research into creating these materials. But then once I made them, i could post them online. People could purchase them.
00:05:51
Speaker
And there was no more active work on my end at that point. So I thought that would be a nice supplemental income stream that I could build into my life so that if I decided I need to take a step back from teaching or something, I wouldn't feel like I was out there.
00:06:04
Speaker
completely that income. So when I first started the business, the three big things that I did once I decided on the business name was claim all the social media sites. I had run the social media for the School of Missouri Contemporary Ballet as the school director, and I really enjoyed doing that.
00:06:22
Speaker
And I felt like the path to build this business was going to be through social media as an online business. It just made sense to me. So I made sure to claim all those sites, set those all up. i started Etsy shop and that is how I initially sold all my resources. I did not have a website at all. It was all through Etsy because I didn't know how it was going to be received and I didn't want to invest yet into my own website. With Etsy, you're essentially renting their space.
00:06:48
Speaker
to sell your things and they take out a larger portion of your proceeds, but you're also not paying for all the infrastructure that goes into it. So that was kind of my segue into that portion of the business.
00:07:01
Speaker
And I set up a sole proprietorship so that I had my business set up as the Brainy Ballerina. Those were the big main things I did first. I really feel like going into business as a dancer is a very natural progression You really are treating yourself like a brand. You're presenting yourself for jobs. You are putting yourself out there continuously and essentially selling yourself as to why you are the dancer they should choose for these jobs.
00:07:26
Speaker
You're used to building an online presence. Many dancers have their own website. We're used to networking. We're used to getting out there and talking to people and putting our work out there. So it felt like a very natural progression to go from dancing and teaching to starting this business.
00:07:44
Speaker
And I really do think it's important to diversify your income as a dancer. As we all know, company contracts, freelance work, whatever it is, can be risky.
00:07:55
Speaker
One of the hardest parts about being a dancer, even if you have a company contract, is that you don't know if it will be renewed from year to year. So you have a yearly contract and you don't know what will happen the following year.
00:08:08
Speaker
And so if you have these other revenue streams, maybe those are freelance gigs, maybe it's teaching, doing choreography, content creation, whatever else you're doing, having other things supplement your income.
00:08:20
Speaker
And even if you do get your contract renewed, just having something to do on the off season is going to be really, really helpful.
Diverse Income Strategies for Dancers
00:08:27
Speaker
And I also do really think Being able to sell digital products and turning your expertise into that area is also a really great income stream for the answer. So I'm going talk about that more in a minute.
00:08:37
Speaker
But essentially, if you're thinking about wanting to almost start a business or even just diversify your income streams, just remember that you don't have to do everything all at once. You can start small with an Etsy shop or you can start really small with a social media page that you're sending out. You don't have to have a full website right away.
00:08:56
Speaker
Eventually, I did find the value in creating a website because my social media had been growing really well. But what I was realizing was that I wasn't getting as much return on investment in terms of ah SEO or search engine optimization. So the thing about social media is it's pretty fleeting.
00:09:15
Speaker
You put something out there and it can go viral, but then it's gone. Out of sight, out of mind. so With a website, you can optimize it for search engines like Google, whatever you use.
00:09:27
Speaker
And so when people are looking for something, they'll come across your website. For instance, I can write blog posts that I put lots of keywords into. So someone's searching for, when can I go on point?
00:09:38
Speaker
They might come across my blog, read my blog post about this, see my resources that are in line with that topic and continue to go through my website and find my business.
00:09:51
Speaker
So you're bringing more people into your business. So down the line, it's really great to be able to start something that has more longevity. But don't feel like you could do that right away. I didn't start a website until two years into my business.
00:10:05
Speaker
Another thing that really helped... my business grow was finding my niche. So at first I was really scared of niching down everyone says you need to find your niche, but I am a multifaceted artist. I am a teacher. I am a mentor.
00:10:23
Speaker
I have dabbled in choreography. I like admin in certain situations. I went to school for nonprofit management and worked as a grant writer. I've done so many different things. And so i felt scared of like, if I niche down, will i be taking away opportunities for me to find work and earn income?
00:10:44
Speaker
And I also like doing all different kinds of things. So that felt a little bit scary too. So I kind of hesitated to do that at first. But I will say that once I did decide where I wanted to focus my energy, my business grew exponentially.
00:11:00
Speaker
Because when I first started doing career mentoring, I was still talking about my products for teachers. I was reaching a different demographic. so people were confused. And people don't necessarily trust you if they don't really understand what you do.
00:11:12
Speaker
So once I decided I'm so passionate about career mentoring, I really feel like I'm making a difference in this field and this is what I want to do the most. and I focused my energy there, i saw my business completely explode because I was very clear about what I was talking about, who I was talking to.
00:11:32
Speaker
And I also relieved a lot of stress because I was saying yes to a lot of things that I didn't necessarily want to do out of fear of scarcity or feeling like another opportunity wasn't going to come along, even if it wasn't the opportunity that was right for me. And I knew that.
00:11:47
Speaker
So niching down and being really specific about focusing on working with aspiring professional dancers who are pursuing their career, i found that I was attracting my ideal clients.
00:11:58
Speaker
I was working with dancers who were exactly the people that i knew I could speak to and could really help. And it just all really fell into place. So there's nothing wrong with loving a lot of different things and wanting to do different things. And i very much get that. My brain likes that.
00:12:16
Speaker
But if you want to build that trust, it does help. to have a very specific niche of what you want to do and be really clear about what you're going to say yes to and what you're going to say no to.
00:12:31
Speaker
For instance, I have had some really amazing questions coming into my inbox from dancers and dance parents, and they're asking me very, very specific questions that they need help with.
00:12:43
Speaker
And I do try to post frequent ask me anything boxes on my Instagram. I try to give as much general advice as I can. But when someone's coming to me with really specific questions that I can't really do for free, i need to have a session with them to talk through their specific scenario and give them really actionable, great advice.
00:13:08
Speaker
And so in the past, I would have felt really bad about that. I would have felt awful about not being able to help every single person who came into my inbox, who came into my email, my DMs. But now I know that in order to serve my clients who I'm working with and to be fair to them, the clients who are paying me for my services, I have to also get paid for
Balancing Business and Boundaries
00:13:29
Speaker
that work. And so I've started offering almost like pick my brain one-off sessions where you can just book a time with me and we can tackle this very specific issue that you're having and give you actionable steps forward to deal with it.
00:13:44
Speaker
That's just an example of a way that I have set a boundary in my business, that I have decided to value my time in that way and realize that I do have a large amount of paying clients that And it's not fair to them or to myself to answer every question that I receive for free.
00:14:02
Speaker
And that's something really important for you too. As you're going through your dance career, we talk a lot about the fact that dancers are often asked to do work for free. And it's not that I don't do anything pro bono. I do volunteer for multiple organizations.
00:14:16
Speaker
We Are Queens, Second Act, And I work with dancers so for free in that capacity. So I do find the value in doing that work pro bono because I believe in these organizations specifically and I want to work with them and give back in that way.
00:14:33
Speaker
So that is where I set aside very specifically My time that I'm giving back in that way. But I can't give everything away for free or else I would not have a business. And it doesn't mean that I don't care about you or they don't want to help you. It just means that this is my work.
00:14:47
Speaker
Just like you as a dancer, this is your work and you deserve to get paid and you get to decide what you want to do for free and what you don't. and set those boundaries and stick to them. So that is what I've had to do in my business and has made me feel so much more peaceful and so much more calm to know that I have made a very clear decision about what I will and what I won't do.
00:15:09
Speaker
And I can stick with that and I can be consistent and And that makes me feel really good. And it makes me be able to do better work and not get resentful and not get burnt out. So I'm going to talk really nitty gritty now about exactly where are my money is coming from in my business.
00:15:26
Speaker
I want to give you guys a very clear breakdown. of where I'm seeing income coming so that you can have an idea of what this actually looks like. So I'm going to give you percentages.
00:15:37
Speaker
They might not add up exactly because I rounded. So if you're doing the math and it's not adding up to exactly 100%, that's why. But the biggest portion of my income is coming from one-on-one mentoring. 50% of my income is from working with my clients one-on-one to help them pursue their professional dance careers.
00:15:59
Speaker
That is the thing I am most passionate about, and I have felt very lucky to be able to support dancers in this way on a much deeper level.
00:16:10
Speaker
So what this looks like is I am working with dancers for usually about eight to nine months. And a lot of it tends to be surrounding audition season, although once we get into it, there's so much more that we talk about.
00:16:25
Speaker
But that's sort of the entry point because a lot of dancers, that is a stressful time. And so we start working together to make sure they're prepared for audition season. And as we go through the course of the year, we're able to talk about a lot of other things about their career too.
00:16:40
Speaker
And just really open up and be able to talk about everything that they're going through. i always send out a survey at the end of our time together when I'm working with a dancer. And I had a dancer say last year that the most impactful thing for her was the support she received for the whole process.
00:16:55
Speaker
not just the audition process, but also supporting other things related to her dance career. had another dancer say to me that she feels like a brand new person. The quote she gave me was, I feel like I have finally taken the reins of deciding what I want and I have the tools and resources now to make whatever I want to happen.
00:17:13
Speaker
I feel a lot more freedom now too, especially in traveling on my own, financially, and also in terms of being able to rely on myself to do the nitty gritty tasks instead of constantly asking other people to help me.
00:17:25
Speaker
In basically all aspects, I feel a lot more self-reliant, more like an adult, and I feel like I'm also able to voice what I actually want to others. That to me is so, so huge, and that is what is my driving force for the work that I am doing through career mentoring.
00:17:42
Speaker
So i love to see that this number here is at 50% of my income because I've worked a lot over the past years to build up this portion of my business, and I would love to see that part continue to grow.
00:17:54
Speaker
as I
Income Streams Overview
00:17:55
Speaker
move forward. The next highest income that I'm bringing in actually is tied 13% for eBooks and 13% for my printables. These are examples of my passive income.
00:18:07
Speaker
So a quarter of my income is coming from these things that are passive, which is really cool too, because it does allow me to set those boundaries and make decisions that are best for myself and my family and know that I am still bringing in that passive income that I worked really hard to set up, but that is now a little bit more coming in without me having to do ah work over and over and over again. So eBooks, those are my resources such as the Ultimate Audition Guide, the Dance Company Database, the Intentional Career Handbook.
00:18:46
Speaker
And yeah, I do go back and update those every year. so it's not that they're completely set and forgets, I do make sure that they are still relevant, that they are still accurate, that I'm making updates, adding things as new questions come in.
00:19:01
Speaker
But overall, that is pretty much set. And those are things that now I'm selling on my website because I've established the business enough. That makes way more sense now. I do still have the Etsy page up just for discoverability, but I direct people always to my website because the fees that are taken out through there are much, much lower. I use Squarespace for my website and I really do recommend Squarespace.
00:19:27
Speaker
I felt like it was very user-friendly and easy to set up for someone who is not that tech savvy. I did have a question come in from someone asking, what platform do I use to host and create my guides? So I am hosting them mainly through my Squarespace websites also through Etsy and a little bit through Teaching Artist Exchange.
00:19:51
Speaker
And I create everything through Canva. I pay for a Canva Pro subscription and this is maybe the most important investment in my business that I've made. I use Canva every single day.
00:20:05
Speaker
is just dream technology for me. I use it from day to And I really recommend using Canva to create and anything. I use it for printables. I use it for e-books. I use it for social media.
00:20:18
Speaker
I've directed the dancers to edit their audition videos on Canva. I think it's so, so easy to use. I really, really recommend it. The next portion of my income, 9% comes from content creation. So that's content creation I'm doing for other people and they're paying me to create social media content for them.
00:20:38
Speaker
So that's been a really cool extra stream of revenue that I've been able to create. 8% of my income comes from doing studio workshops. So that would include all of my guest teaching,
00:20:50
Speaker
either teaching technique classes or teaching a workshop. And some of this is done over Zoom. Some of it's done in person. I do a little bit of both. This is not including my weekly teaching hours. I don't have this in my calculations because I'm just talking strictly Brainy Ballerina right now.
00:21:07
Speaker
So I'm not including my weekly teaching hours in this. This is just when I am hired out by a company to come do more of a one-off class or a workshop. I do want to start traveling more and doing more of this in the coming years.
00:21:20
Speaker
I had to back off a little bit over the past years because of my growing family. I had my daughter and it just wasn't super feasible, but I am starting to add more of this in. And I really do love getting to meet more dancers. And I do find that Especially in the summer, I'm typically working less one-on-one with dancers because they are having time off, they are going to summer intensives, they're a little bit busier in that way. And so I love being able to add the studio workshops into my schedule during that time to give me that extra in-person or even on Zoom, that communication with other people instead just sitting in my basement feeling kind of alone.
00:21:58
Speaker
Like right now, I'm just sitting in my basement talking into a microphone all by myself, which I feel like I'm talking to you. So it doesn't really feel like I'm solo, but you get the point. Okay. The next part of my income is from affiliate streams.
00:22:12
Speaker
3% of my income is from affiliate streams. This is another pretty passive income model. So i have a few different affiliate streams that I online. One would be just through something like Amazon or like to know it where I'm just tagging products that I use and I believe in a lot of times in blog posts.
00:22:31
Speaker
Sometimes I'm sharing things on my social media. I don't do this a ton, but this does bring in extra money for my business. And if I'm recommending a product that I use and love, I do think I should get paid for doing that.
00:22:44
Speaker
So if I share my link, someone purchases it through it, I get paid. I'm also an affiliate for some of my favorite small business brands in the dance world like Orza and DanceEnd.
00:22:55
Speaker
I'm going to link in the show notes. I have a whole discounts page of all the discount codes that I have for some of these amazing companies. And some I'm affiliate for, some I'm not. Some are just... They gave me a nice discount code, which is amazing for our community.
00:23:10
Speaker
So I'm going to link that in the show notes for you to check out if you are interested. But that's another way I'm able to supplement my income without too much heavy lifting. In 2024, only 2% of my income came from judging.
00:23:23
Speaker
That was a really low judging year for me. I just couldn't make it to that many events for a 12. So I only was at the regional competition in Indianapolis last year, just the one.
00:23:34
Speaker
So this year, I'm doing quite a few more events. I think that number will be a little bit higher this year, but that can kind of fluctuate based on my schedule and their needs. Less than 1% of my income came from things like webinars, audits, earning interest in bank account, things like that. So really, really small portion. But honestly, when you're a small business owner, when you're a dancer, every single penny Counts makes a difference.
00:23:59
Speaker
One thing that I would tell dancers right now is set up a high yield savings account. If you do not already have one, it is free money. And I know, especially when I first started my career, I did not have a lot of money to put into my high yield savings account, but I put something in there every single month and I got money back. My high yield savings account is currently at 3.8% interest, which is a pretty good return on investment for really doing nothing. Just putting money in there. There's no risk either, right? It's not like investing where
00:24:32
Speaker
You could lose money. No, you're just gaining interest. And for many these accounts, you can open them with zero dollars. So you don't even need to have a certain amount to put into the account to open it.
00:24:43
Speaker
So I'm going to put a link in the show notes for the high yield savings account that I use. I have used it for over a decade, have been super, super happy with my experience and have gained a pretty decent amount of interest.
00:24:54
Speaker
I'm going to put that in the show notes. If I would give you one action item from this podcast episode today, it would be to go and set up a high yield savings account for yourself, for your future. It costs nothing and it is just free money.
00:25:07
Speaker
So when I've been talking about these different income streams, I talked earlier about active versus passive income. So active is when I am actively trading my hours for money. Passive is products that I have previously made and I am now selling or my affiliate links, my interest.
00:25:24
Speaker
So my income breakdown in that way is 70% active and 30% passive, which I think is a pretty good breakdown. I'm happy with that. The passive income just allows me a little more freedom in my business for the times that I need to take time off. Like when I was postpartum with my daughter and I needed to take a little bit of time off from doing mentorship.
00:25:45
Speaker
when my family has ah vacation, when we have something going on. I've been able to travel all over the world and I'm still getting notifications that I'm selling resources while I'm traveling. So I am bringing money into my business, whether I'm traveling, whether I'm sleeping, whether I'm doing other work, that money keeps coming in without me having to actively keep pushing it. Now, do I post about these things on social media?
00:26:11
Speaker
Do I have other things in place like my blog and my website set up to help facilitate this? Yes, of course. I don't want it to get twisted that passive income is completely passive and you're doing no work. Like you do have to do work.
00:26:25
Speaker
But when I see a notification come in that I've sold a resource, I don't have to do anything else for that, right? Someone has gone my website. They have bought this from me. They get an instant PDF download and that's that. They've got the resource in their hands.
00:26:40
Speaker
So it's a great way for dancers to like think about when you're in a busy season of maybe it's tech week. And I remember this as a
Webinar Promotion and Business Operations
00:26:48
Speaker
dancer, I had to take time off of my side gig during a tech week to be in the theater more.
00:26:53
Speaker
But then I was really suffering because i needed that money to support myself. So imagine if I had had this passive income stream set up to be able to help support me in those times.
00:27:04
Speaker
I have a webinar, The Power of Passive Income for Dance Business Owners. But honestly, it's for any dancer because truly, if you're a dancer, as we said before, you are your own brand. You're essentially a business owner and you can create these kind of streams.
00:27:17
Speaker
So I have this webinar. It's a $15 webinar and it will teach you all the different things I did to set up my passive income streams, what kinds I have. It will break down everything that I kind of touched on in this podcast episode super granularly and give you actionable steps to be able to set up your own passive income streams.
00:27:39
Speaker
This webinar is only going to be available on my website for one week. This episode is coming out on March 3rd. you will have until the end of the day, March 9th, to grab that webinar before it flies away again.
00:27:52
Speaker
So if you're interested at all in setting up these kind of streams that will help you be able to just take a breather from the stress of having to always be trading your time for money, check out this webinar. It's only $15, super low cost, but super high value.
00:28:10
Speaker
it will walk you through how to set all this up, really organize your thoughts and get it going. Some more questions that I got from my Instagram story I posted about this topic were surrounding the help that I have as a business owner. So someone asked if I have a team and I also got asked if I have an accountant or do I handle it all by myself still?
00:28:29
Speaker
Overall, the Brainy Ballerina is one-woman operation. I would love to expand and have a team in the future, but I struggle to delegate And I just don't quite know how I want to do that yet.
00:28:42
Speaker
And I haven't grown to the point yet where I really feel confident being able to bring somebody on on a consistent basis. I do hire people for specific jobs here and there. For instance, I don't have an accountant to do all of my finances.
00:28:57
Speaker
throughout the year but I do hire someone to do my taxes at the end of the year. I hired help from Releve Marketing for social media for a few months when I had my daughter so that I could keep my social media going without feeling like i need to be on my phone all the time.
00:29:11
Speaker
I have a few resources that I have collaborated with people on to create. so I have flashcards that are exercises to help strength train for specific things you need to do in dance. So there's an exercises for pirouettes, exercises for jumps, exercises for extensions, flashcards.
00:29:28
Speaker
And I collaborated my friend, Catherine Millis over at Accelerate PT to create those. So she is a physical therapist for dancers. Incredible what she does. So we collaborated together to create this resource that I couldn't have done on my own for dancers to be able to have a nice bite-sized resource to help them increase the strength they need for specific areas of their dancing.
00:29:51
Speaker
I also collaborated with my friend Jessica Winter Tratwine on the guide to stage makeup. And she's an incredible dancer and makeup artist. And she runs a company called Beautifully Balanced to Makeup Artistry. And so I wanted to create a guide to stage makeup for dancers. So we worked together to do that.
00:30:08
Speaker
If there's something in my business that I want to do that I don't know how to do or that I don't think that I could do as well as someone else, then i will reach out to somebody for collaboration.
00:30:20
Speaker
And even just spending money on courses or those kind of things, I bought a course to learn how to podcast when I started this podcast. I figured that making an investment in doing a course would be more efficient than figuring everything out on my own.
00:30:38
Speaker
And it's not to say that I couldn't have probably learned at all from Google, but when I weighed the time it would take me to do that versus learning from somebody who's really good at this, it made sense.
00:30:48
Speaker
That person's course, that's their passive income. That's what I do too. like I have my ultimate audition guide. I have my dance company database. I have these things that I know that dancers could figure out on their own. They could spend a long time Googling it, finding all the answers.
00:31:04
Speaker
But there's a lot of unspoken stuff, first of all, in the dance world that you just kind of need someone on the inside to tell you. And what is your time worth, right? You are a busy dancer. You have a lot going on.
00:31:16
Speaker
If there is a resource that could tell you exactly what you need to know wouldn't it make more sense to use that resource than to spend all your precious time trying to figure it out.
00:31:27
Speaker
So that's kind of where I will invest my money if I need to learn something new that I don't know. i weigh how much is my time worth and would it make more sense to pay someone to teach me this and to try to do it all on my own.
Balancing Business Growth and Personal Life
00:31:42
Speaker
Another question that I got was how many hours a week am I dedicating to my business? This has grown like crazy this year. i would have used to say maybe like 10,
00:31:53
Speaker
to 15 hours a week. Now I would say it's a more like 20 to 30. And I'm not saying that I'm getting all those hours solo to work on the business. A lot of times it's stealing ah half hour here when my kids are eating lunch or taking a nap or something. like I'm piecing together hours after they go to bed at night, on the weekends.
00:32:17
Speaker
But my business has grown a lot this year and I've needed more hours to get everything done. And I will say that like starting the podcast, it is very time consuming to record the episodes, edit them, all of that.
00:32:31
Speaker
And so that has also added to my workload. So I'm starting to go to a place where this is starting to become closer to full-time hours than it was before. And so as that happens, I still have to be really clear with myself about my goals for the business, my goals for my family and for myself.
00:32:49
Speaker
How much of my time I want to give to this and how much I want to keep safe for my family and having that dedicated time. My son's going into kindergarten in the fall. And so my husband and I decided that we were going to have my daughter in daycare a few more days next year because it is getting to the point where I am trying to multitask too much.
00:33:07
Speaker
I'm doing way too much at a time. My kids need things from me. My business needs things from me. I need some alone time. I need some self-care. it just made sense at this point. to think quality over quantity and have a little bit more separation there and have my daughter in daycare a few more days so that I can do dedicated work. And then when she's home and my son's home, I can really focus my attention on them and not make them feel like they're second to my business, which is never true. But I think sometimes that can feel that way because I have something that's really pressing I need to take care of, or my mind's just elsewhere.
00:33:42
Speaker
i do also aspire to grow my business and I do aspire to make more money in my business. And that sounds like a dirty word. People don't like to say that, but it's okay to say that I aspire to get paid for my expertise, for the work that I am doing. I know that I'm good at what I'm doing.
00:34:02
Speaker
I know that what I'm doing has value it's it's okay for me to say that I would like my business to grow and I would like to make more income doing that.
00:34:14
Speaker
And I tell this to dancers all the time. I've said it before on this podcast, but you are allowed to love what you do and also make a living. I love my business. I love my work. And I am actively working to increase my income in my business and in 2025.
00:34:31
Speaker
I feel like this episode might be bringing up more questions because it's just so much information. So if you feel like from this episode, you have more questions and you want to hear a part two, please send me an email, send me a DM on Instagram.
00:34:47
Speaker
My doors are open to potentially talk about this some more. But I think the biggest takeaway for dancers, somebody who's actively performing or somebody who's transitioning out of performing is that it's never a bad idea to have diverse income streams as a
Future Opportunities and Closing Remarks
00:35:05
Speaker
dancer.
00:35:05
Speaker
Things happen that are out of your control. So being able to have some things that are more in your control is going to make you feel less stressed and be able to do better work as a dancer.
00:35:16
Speaker
The dance industry is really evolving. There are new opportunities. There's so much more possible that you can do through social media and online that you couldn't necessarily do before.
00:35:28
Speaker
If I was dancing now, i would definitely look into setting something like this up. I wish I'd done this earlier in my career, but I just really couldn't see the pathway i didn't really occur to me.
00:35:40
Speaker
All I knew was to work 14-hour days and be honestly completely exhausted. I wish that I had had this insight into how to create more diverse income streams that were not as hard on my body that I could really have dedicated more to my dancing and not felt like I was always kind of swimming upstream to make ends meet.
00:36:02
Speaker
So if this is something that is starting to turn in your brain and you're thinking, maybe I should consider how else I could bring in income, My action items for you today from this episode. One, set up a high-yield savings account. I linked to the one that I use in the show notes.
00:36:18
Speaker
Two, grab out the Passive Income for Dancers webinar and start thinking about other ways you could supplement your income as a dancer. And three, if this brought up more questions and you want some more specifics about anything you want me to expand on any of the topics I touched on today, subscribe.
00:36:34
Speaker
Send me an email. Send me a DM. Let me know and maybe I can do a part two. Thank you so much for tuning in today, dancers. And again, remember that you are allowed to love your job and also make a living.
00:36:48
Speaker
Thank you for tuning into the Brainy Ballerina podcast. If you found this episode insightful, entertaining, or maybe a bit of both, I would so appreciate you taking a moment to leave a rating and hit subscribe.
00:37:01
Speaker
By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode. And you'll join our community of dancers passionate about building a smart and sustainable career in the dance industry. Plus your reigns help others discover the show too. I'll be back with a new episode next week.
00:37:16
Speaker
In the meantime, be sure to follow along on Instagram at The Brainy Ballerina for your daily dose of dance career guidance.