Building Community as a Small Business Owner
The rat race of chasing profit catches us all sometimes. We live in a world that requires money just to exist and it is easy to get lost chasing a never ending goal of more. Community has always been an aim of mine in everything I do, but recently I have been making an even more intentional effort to keep my focus on community in every move I make. Here are just a few ways we have prioritized people over profit in our business model.
Starting our pricing model with high pay rates for our musicians
Any time we are considering restructuring our pricing, the first thing I start with is ensuring that we are offering competitive compensation to our musicians. Prioritizing fair wages for our musicians means that we have loyalty from our team that translates to consistently excellent performances.
Hiring administrative employees
Many live ensembles rely on musicians to fulfill logistical roles on site and operate alone on logistical details ahead of events. This leads to burnout on the part of the business owner (trust me, I have been there!) and it draws the focus of musicians on site to logistical details rather than making great music. We have set up countless checks and systems with our administrative team to ensure that once we arrive on site, we can focus on making music! On top of our competitive pay rates, musicians get to also focus on making music which is what we all entered our professional lives to do!
Prioritizing community performances
Since the beginning of the Blackstone Valley Quartet, we have made it a priority to schedule a number of community performances each year. We are primarily private event musicians, but it has always been important to us to stay connected to our local communities. We love testing out new music and working on more “heavy duty” music for our public performances!
Holding non-working events for our team
We have started hosting non-work hour events to thank our team and get to know each other outside of performances. Some of our cellists had never met each other because they are never at the same performances together! I am always struck by a wave of gratitude when we are all able to get together. We get to work with such incredible musicians on a daily basis and often we are spread out all over New England on any given event day. It has been important to me as a business owner to foster a sense of belonging in the organization as a whole.
