Audra Queen: A dance CEO thrives every day with focus on gratitude, growth, and feeling aligned. Unapologetically putting themselves first, striving to become their best self personally and professionally, creating their own definition of fulfillment and success. Rejecting the starving artist mentality and competition mindset for one of abundance in all things, including the success of other dance business owners. Welcome to the Dance CEO Podcast. Hello, I'm Audra Queen. the dance CEO coach, personal development and business coach for dance leaders, business owners, freelance artists, and educators. I'm a lifelong dancer, choreographer and educator, happily remarried, part-time mom of two not-so-little humans and three bonus humans, proud thriver of adult-diagnosed ADHD and autism, lover of the beach, travel, houseplants, reading, dance history, and your host for today's episode. Thank you for being here. Welcome, welcome, dance CEOs. So happy to have you with me on this episode this week of the Dance CEO Podcast. And this week, we're gonna dive into something that I think is so crucial to know, if you are a dance business owner, a dance educator, you're an artist pursuing building your career in the dance world. And... to have this understanding of why it might be so challenging to sell to dancers. When I say sell, I don't mean the sleazy kind that doesn't feel good and you're just trying to trick someone into working with you. I really do mean serve, to serve dancers. But for the sake of business talk and what we're going into, I'm using the phrase sell. I think we already know that dancers are rarely an easy yes to buying your services or products. And the main thing that holds them back is their scarcity mindset, which is more commonly known in the dance world as the starving artist mentality. You know the one where the dancer believes that they should say yes to every opportunity because they don't know when the next chance will come, even if it's not aligned for them. Or the dancer buying into the idea that there is no money in the dance world and exchanging your hard earned skill and artistry is only worth offering in exchange for exposure. or just a chance to use your passion at all because you're told there's no money, or the dancer that believes that there are only so many opportunities and that you are replaceable. These limiting beliefs can be summarized as they don't believe they have enough time, money, or even deserve to prioritize themselves. And it's no wonder you struggle to grow your business or career with this type of mindset you're up against for those you're trying to serve. It's been taking you twice as much work to even get dancers on board with investing in themselves because of the scarcity mindset that plagues the dance world. And I'm just as guilty. I used to be the queen of scarcity mindset without knowing it. I bought into these lies and even perpetuated this thought process, passing it down to students I worked with, unfortunately. It took a few years of focused, intentional personal work for me to release the scarcity mindset with the support of coaches. And since we're being so open and honest about this, there's a strong chance that you too believe these limiting beliefs I shared, and maybe even run your business or dance career from a place of scarcity. One of the first examples I can think of for me in my business back when I started it in 2018 was teaching virtual dance lessons, and I had people interested, but their availability wasn't necessarily working with mine. So afraid, that I wouldn't have other people coming in to work with me and I needed the money as a newly single mom, I would say yes, even if it was extremely inconvenient to my sleep schedule or availability because I needed to be with my little kids. And that continued on for about a year and a half, even until when COVID hit and I started supporting dance business owners around the world to move their businesses online with my previous experience. I was working with people in Australia. and I'm across the world in the United States, and I would say yes to their availability, which meant sometimes I was up at two o'clock in the morning on these calls. And I did it out of fear of not knowing if there'd be any other clients or that there wouldn't be any other ways for income to come in if I didn't say yes to these people. And I didn't know at the time that what that was was a scarcity mindset. So what do we do about it? First, You need to understand that traditional business practices don't always apply to your dance business or career. For example, typical selling posts on social media aren't going to cut it when it takes an extra layer of mindset reframing for your potential dance clients to even consider saying yes to your services. So if you just post an offer you have and wonder why no one's responded, well, one, that process isn't really... normalized anymore anyways, but now we still have that added layer of people who are looking at it don't even think they have the time or the money ⁓ to invest in themselves to even do that, let alone believe that they are worthy of investing in themselves to accept what you have, even if it means it could be life-changing for them. Second, you're going to have to address your own limiting beliefs around money and selling. If you don't believe you have the money, time, or right to invest in yourself, Why are you asking someone else to do those things with your business? The most impactful way I have learned to serve my community and clients is to lead by example. And that starts with living and leading the way I ask my clients to. So for you, the most impactful way for you to serve your clients and community is for you to lead by example. And that starts with you living and leading the way you ask your clients to. And if you're asking your clients, to say yes to working with you and investing time, money, and energy into you, you need to also be able to do the same. I knew once I learned about scarcity mindset and I recognized that I had it, I knew that if I didn't take care of this within myself, I shouldn't be surprised when I wasn't getting many yeses from others who were being asked to do the hard things I wasn't willing to do, which was address those things. I will share that diving into my scarcity mindset was one of the most challenging but rewarding areas of growth I have taken on in my life. My entire life has changed because of it, not just in my business, but how I live day to day now, how I feel like I'm thriving, even though I don't have a massive change in my income. My thriving isn't from an amount of money in my bank account, it's from a mindset shift. The third step to learning how to work with dancers who are habitually a no is to learn the skills needed to work with that extra layer of mindset blocks dancers have. Unless you meet them where they are at, you have little chance of increasing the yeses you're hearing to work with you. Visually, how I picture this is that there are not one but two walls between me and the dancer, the potential client. And in an ideal world, there aren't any walls at all. And when someone sees my services and recognizes it's for them, it's an easy yes for them to sign up and there's no challenges or barriers. It's understood that there are people who have a wall up and need some extra encouragement to take it down to get to that yes. Well, dancers have at least two walls, maybe even more for some of them. So that's twice as much awareness and work to help them even strive to take their walls down. Again, a simple sales post is not going to cut it. It's not uncommon for those dancers they serve with one-on-one coaching, having taken on an average of a year from when we first connected to them saying yes, or even being open to that area, or recognizing that they needed my services. And that's the average for me. Not all take this long, and some take even longer. What's happening during that year is the walls are slowly being taken down. And if you think about all the years you've spent building up those walls and reinforcing them with this scarcity mindset, it's gonna take time for them to come back down. It's not gonna just happen overnight. And usually when someone is a yes to letting me support them, their final wall isn't down all the way, but I can talk to them over it. And it's during their time together that the wall finally goes all the way down and doesn't return. And there are some who... are able to say, I don't even know how to bring the walls down. I'm willing to take a risk and try this. Can you help me bring the walls down? And there are some that I support in that regard. This is the type of transformational work I do in addition to supporting you with your business when I support my community and clients. And we dive into all of this in the Dance CEO Society, which is our community focused membership for dance business owners, educators and artists who desire connection, not competition. while also releasing their own scarcity mindset and building their sustainable businesses. I'm gonna leave you with one quick applicable tip. Having mentioned that one of the core scarcity mindsets is not having enough time, it can mean that your daily life is packed full with tasks and things supporting others' goals and not necessarily prioritizing yourself at all. And probably regularly thinking that, just don't have enough time for that, or when I accomplish X, Y, and Z, then I'll focus on myself. Well, focusing on shifting your mindset around time can then help with the other areas like money and such. There's actually a specific skill I use and I teach my clients regarding scheduling and planning my weeks. That approaches it in a way of still achieving my commitments while also approaching it from a place of having enough time instead of not enough time. And I'm actually going to teach this skill that I teach all my clients for free. ⁓ at this upcoming Balanced Dance CEO Schedule Reset workshop on April 7th via Zoom. It was previously scheduled for ⁓ beginning of March, but it's been rescheduled. And this is free and meant to honor your time. It's only two hours. While also helping you shift your mindset block into one of embracing your schedule instead of it wearing you down. And by learning the exact process I myself use and my clients to help achieve success in. creating that space of time to allow then more opportunities of yes to enter and come our way. All you have to do at this point is just reserve your seat by clicking on the link in the show notes today and then make sure to block off this time in your calendar and then show up. I know you may be thinking right now, but I really don't have time for that. I promise you that if you keep on the path you are on, you will be forced to have time due to burnout, but not have the energy to do anything with that time. Why not be proactive and honor what can be done now instead of waiting until it's too late? And once you have learned this skill and experienced a shift from applying it, it will become easier to then learn how to approach your community and support them with their double walls up and help them become meaningful yeses to working with you. So as I believe in fully, why not lead by example to help others learn what's possible for them? And you might be saying, this is a lot of work. just to make some money. And yes, that's true. We are in the business of service. We serve others to help them have transformations in their life, whether that's through actual contact working with you, through a product, through another format you offer. But at the end of the day, it's a service and we happen to have it structured within a business model to be compensated for our expertise and time and the transformation we're helping them achieve. And the last little tidbit I'll add, is that someone investing time, energy, and money into something that's going to benefit them, they'll be more committed to doing the thing because they have some skin in the game. So it goes both ways. It's for us to honor our time and investment into supporting them, and it's also for them to have some skin in the game to actually want to show up. I do know that my workshop is free because I do understand that double wall. If I were to charge this, the people I know I can support wouldn't be ready to say yes to pay even a fee for this workshop. It's been my professional experience. So I do create this space just to connect and help people on their journey of taking their walls down. And I suspect that a lot of people will come onto that workshop with no intention or desire to work with me and within a paid capacity. And I understand that. But I continue to offer these services even in this capacity. understanding that year-long timeframe that people take to get to the point where they have enough wall down for me to talk with them over it, for them to then be ready to say, yes, I'm ready to invest in myself with time, energy, and money to then enhance my life and release fully the scarcity mindset that's been holding me back. If any of this resonates with you today, first of all, please know that I completely empathize. Like I said, the majority of my life has been spent in scarcity mindset and it has impacted every aspect of my life. not just the money making in the business. And that shift then into the abundance mindset, the gratitude mindset, releasing the scarcity mindset has been the game changer. I didn't know it would be. I thought it would be making a ton of more money, but instead it was how I thought about things. And at that core is why my life changes have been sustainable and what I help my clients with and why I believe it's possible for you. I really appreciate you taking the time to be open to this today. ⁓ So a reminder that how things have been going probably aren't going to continue to work for you if they haven't already been. There are some changes that need to happen. And just being aware of what I shared at the beginning, those things that you need to be mindful of when trying to sell to dancers and understanding where they're coming from, that you need to understand that traditional business practices don't always apply. So people tell you to market a certain way, but that's designed for traditional business. It's not going to apply to your business. You're going to have to address your own limiting beliefs around money and selling. And that ⁓ is learning the skills needed to work with the extra layer of mindset blocks dancers have. So I really appreciate your time today. And if you have any questions, any follow ups, any comments you want to share, any other topics you want to hear, just DM me on Instagram at the dance CEO coach, or you can email me at the dance CEO coach at gmail.com. Thanks so much again and I look forward to having you with me on our next episode. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the Dance CEO Podcast, where aspiring or established dance business owners and entrepreneurs learn to become the CEO of your life and business. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review and rating. To stay up to date and get all the behind the scenes content, you can follow me, your host, on Instagram at the Dance CEO Coach. Until next time.