We all tend to consume a lot of information. But how much of that information sticks with you? Are you applying what you learn?

In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I talk to Ian Temple of Soundfly, who’s an expert on the topic of how people learn, and how we can learn more efficiently and retain more of the information we take in.

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Podcast Highlights:

00:14 – Introduction

00:28 – What is Soundfly, and how does it help musicians?

01:45 – What types of courses can you find on Soundfly?

03:50 – What are musicians missing about setting goals and achieving what they desire?

06:39 – Customized or personalized curriculums for music students

07:47 – Different styles of learning

10:27 – Self-directed learning

12:48 – Mentorship and accountability

15:35 – Why build a business serving artists?

18:29 – The opportunities music offers

20:43 – What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned about leadership?

24:57 – With knowledge being as commoditized as it is, how do you build interest in your business?

28:26 – Learning through repetition

30:10 – How do you market your business, and what’s working for you right now?

34:13 – Content marketing

35:42 – What have you learned from your recording and performance career?

39:19 – What are some of the biggest struggles you’ve encountered as an entrepreneur?

40:30 – What are some of the biggest victories you’ve experienced as an entrepreneur?

43:14 – Are there any books that have helped you on your journey?

47:10 – Providing value for your customers

49:21 – What tools and apps are you using to run your business?

50:36 – Is there anything else I should have asked?

Transcription:

David Andrew Weibe: Today I am chatting with CEO and founder of Soundfly, Ian Temple. How are you today Ian?

Ian Temple: Good. Thanks. How are you?

David: I'm fantastic. Thank you for asking.

Ian: Thank you for having me.

David: Oh yeah. No, it's an honor. So, what is Soundfly and how does it help musicians?

Ian: Yeah. Soundfly is basically a different kind of online music school. We exist to help musicians meet their goals. That can be many sorts of musical goals whether producing a professional sounding track from scratch or composing your first-string quartet or booking your next big tour. That's what drives us to do what we do.

And the way we do that is we have free daily articles that are of interest to musicians. We have free mini courses that take you through a kind of single musical topic in a sitting. And then, we provide mentor services to musicians either paired with content or not in which we help musicians by pairing them with a personal trainer. Basically, someone who has knowledge and expertise in their field who works with them for a month or more to help them meet their goals. So, multiple levels of helping musicians achieve things and learn new things.

David: It's fascinating and there's a couple things you touched on that I definitely want to dig deeper into. I think the first thing is what types of courses can musicians expect to find on your website? You just mentioned a few different subjects, but it sounds like you offer a lot and most topics are covered in a sense.

Ian: Yes. It's funny because when we started out we started... I'm a pianist myself so we started just by kind of messing around with like some beginner piano content to try and learn about the market. One thing we discovered pretty quickly early on was number one, there was already a glut of bigger piano content out there.

David: Of course.

Ian: And number two, you know I like to say going from zero to one as a musician if you know nothing about music it's really hard because it's not that much fun to practice when you don't know anything. Right? And yet that's kind of the area that so many people are chasing. I mean there are some amazing resources out there like [Usician 00:02:53] or Playgroun...