The Importance of The 3 C's in ANY Performing Arts Business

This article was written by Sarah Gittins of The Den. Sarah is an award-winning dance business coach with 24 years of experience as a dance school owner. After successfully running her multi-venue school in Wales, she transitioned to mentoring and coaching other dance, theatre, and music school owners to empower them to gain more time, money, and life balance. She specialises in helping them create efficient, financially solid schools that align with their personal definition of success.

For more, visit her website or Facebook.

You may have heard about the 5 C’s or the 7 C’s in marketing, in fact there are 7 C’s in communication too.  There are many versions of the C’s, but here are my equivalent for the performing arts business.

In your planning, communication, marketing, in-fact--everything! Being sporadic and random does not help your business. A business thrives on consistency. Only then can you track and see what is working and do more of it. 

Let’s look at marketing. One day you are full on in the stories, reels and posts, next crickets… life gets in the way and then before you know it a whole week has gone by. The changing algorithms of social media may be a law unto themselves, but over the years I have been teaching marketing one thing has always stayed the same. Consistency!  

Whether it was 3 times a day or 3 times a week, it had to have a steady stream.

Clarity of your message, of what you are trying to communicate and of who and what you are and stand for. Imagine a school fete, it’s Christmas, lights twinkle, carols play and hidden in this room of stalls is one you have to get to. It’s the lucky dip...it’s surrounded by kids as that is always the most popular one. You pay your money, dig down amongst the multi coloured paper and find your present. You are all excited and eagerly unwrap its paper, only to be bitterly disappointed by the contents within it! 

Now, think of that as a message! 

Your message that you are trying to get out to a customer or prospective customers is lost in the confusion of messages. Is it clear? Does it make sense? Does it do what it needs to do? Is it as clear as Ronseal - does it do what it says on the tin?

Are there boundaries if there need to be some? Is it clear as mud? So that when the customer finally gets the message amongst all the other things they are bombarded by, are they confused by the content? Leading to further messages or emails clarifying what should have been clear in the first message. All of which leads to a waste of your time, their time and just sours the customer experience. These days, we live in a 24/7 world. People want answers and they want them yesterday. If clarity is not there in your messaging in marketing, in your communication to customers, staff or suppliers then this leads to frustration. Frustration can lead to a loss of sales and a customer to go elsewhere before they have even bought anything. 

Sometimes you just need to breathe and go for it! Believe in yourself and not let others damage your dreams. A mentor once said to me “Who are you living your life for?” It is a question I often ask of myself when doubt, perfectionism or both creep in.

What would they think of me?

What if I do xyz and it’s wrong?

What if no-one buys my stuff? 

What if…

What if…

Who is that person? You cannot change what someone thinks or says about you, they are going to say it anyway. So why should you let it affect your dreams?

I remember I held back from pursuing an idea for years because of someone else saying no-one will buy it! Well I proved them wrong, but it took 8 years before I launched it. That could have been 8 more years of helping people all because 1 person had an opinion on my dream. 

What if it's wrong, but my lovely what if it’s right?!?!

What if no-one buys it? That is why we have BETA tests, surveys and so on. Test the market before you create and if someone still doesn't buy it, then analyse why and move on to the next thing. 

All entrepreneurs have failure in their career at some point, you will be no different I am afraid to say. But I have always said, you never fail, you only learn. 

Are you going to carry these 3 C's forward in your creative business? 

Sarah is part of our Step Up Scholarship initiative, where we are providing financial assistance for dance schools by contributing £50 per month for up to two years towards the cost of education with some of the UK’s leading dance business coaches. 

Click here to apply.