Showing up in the world. Self-promotion, websites and insults, or what are we doing right?

Self-promotion can feel like a dirty word, but as a singing teacher, vocal coach, choir leader or vocal health worker positioned in the arts, how do you show up in the world?

How important is a website today? What should you have on it? How "big" should it be?

We've just updated and upgraded the https://vocalprocess.co.uk website (it's live today) and it's been a fascinating process.
We reduced our mega-website (250+ pages) to about 20+ pages plus blogs, AND we've now (for the first time) got everything we do in one place.
And it made us examine what our values, our focus and our as vocal trainers and as a voice training business.
Because make no mistake, we're all in the business of business.
If you are worried about "self-promotion" or you think it's a dirty word, you need to hear what we have to say about showing up in the world.

This is part 1 of a 2-part series on self-promotion. This episode of our This Is A Voice podcast is on websites - planning, building, populating, and the reason they are there.
Part 2 will be on your CV, your resumé, your Curriculum Vitae. How can you bring it up to date, who is it aimed at and what needs to be in it?


We've also got this! ↓
The 5 Days to Better Singing Teaching course online, with voice coaching techniques, vocal articulation exercises and a LOT more for the up-to-date singing teacher is here https://vocal-process-hub.teachable.com/p/5-days-to-better-singing-teaching

For the best self-guided learning check out the Vocal Process Learning Lounge - 16 years of vocal coaching resources (over 600 videos) for less than the price of one private singing lesson. Click and scroll down the page for the free previews
https://vocal-process-hub.teachable.com/p/the-vocal-technique-learning-lounge

For real 1-1 attention on your own voice, book a voice coaching session in the singing studio with Jeremy or Gillyanne
https://drgillyannekayesjeremyfisherinspirationsession.as.me/schedule.php

If you want to discover if our singing teacher training programme works for YOU, message us - we can share the process for joining Cohort23.

Sign up for the Vocal Process newsletter https://vocalprocess.co.uk/build-your-own-tilting-larynx/

Get the One Minute Voice Warmup app here, it's got a 4.9star rating
Appstore https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/one-minute-voice-warmup/id1212802251
Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.speechtools.warmup&hl=en_GB&pli=1

Check out our brand new Voice Journal, written with Rayvox's Oren Boder 
https://www.rayvox.co.uk/products/voice-journal

Find us - follow us on the socials!
🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/Vocalprocess
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/vocalprocess
📖 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/vocalprocess 


#thisisavoice #vocalcoach #singingteacher #voice #choir #vocalhealth #promotion

Transcript

0:11

This is a voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher. This is a voice. Hello and welcome to, this Is A Voice, season seven, episode three, the podcast where we get Vocal about voice. I'm Jeremy Fisher. And I'm Dr. Gillyanne Kayes Are we there yet? I think so. Uh, it's been a long gestation period. It's been nearly seven months. It's a long time to sit on an egg. Is it really seven months? It really is. What are we talking about? We're talking about a new website. Yay. We wanna talk to you about the whole process that we've been through to build this new website. Basically to bring everything. This is gonna be the first time in 23, 24, 25 years that we have had everything that we've done all in one place. Can I just say something? You had a lovely email from a musician colleague the other day, didn't you? Who I think had landed on our old website. Yeah. And they wrote to you and said, oh, your website's fabulous. There's so much in it. And we didn't say anything because it was lovely or, you know, to receive that feedback. It was. But. As we got up to 2019, the problem was there was way too much in it. Well, if I tell you that there was a minimum of 250 pages on that website, and that was a smaller version of our original website, which went up to 500 pages, people just don't have the time now. And the website was a Leviathan really. Oh, yeah. Uh, we've actually, fingers crossed we've got it down to 29 pages plus blogs. Mm. Which is still a relatively, it's quite a, quite a big number for contemporary website. We've been around a long time. We, and we've done a lot of stuff. Mm-hmm. Um, so why are we talking about website? This whole episode is about how do you promote yourself? Is self-promotion a dirty word, dirty phrase? That's so interesting, isn't it? Because you know, when you and I were first out there in the profession and we started running a business. Oh yes. Oh my goodness. We used to get criticized. Oh, you are running a business. Oh, trade. You're trade. Yeah. Yeah. This was the mid to late nineties. Mm-hmm. your trade. I mean, how, how disgusting that you don't just, your pupils just don't turn up. And I know one, I remember one colleague saying, I never have to advertise. And I thought, okay, your hanging around stage doors to greet your clients when they come out of the stage door at the end isn't advertising? And everybody else's clients., everybody else's clients as well. Come on. I mean, net networking is self-promotion and networking is also connection and collaboration, which is wonderful. So one of the things we wanna talk about is, first of all why we decided to do a, a new website. And obviously it's because the old one was just so outta date, is we were ashamed. I'm afraid there was shame in there. You know, we didn't tell people about our website cause we didn't want 'em to see it. Well, actually, truth, someone who came on one of our courses and we were chatting about, you know, we would've loved to have doubled the numbers for this particular course. And somebody kindly said, well, I love your stuff and what you do, but I can't send people to your website. And we thought, Hmm, okay. That's not good. This needs our attention. Of course, we all know what happened next. We had the pandemic and we didn't have time to deal with it. We dealt with things in a different way. Yes. Um, essentially without a website. Yes. Highly successfully. Yes. And it kind of taught us what we needed to do to scale down so that, you know, if we're gonna talk self-promotion in terms of a website, it's just for a window for people to look in and see you and see what you do. I mean, I think the fascinating thing nowadays is that a website is not that important, whereas when, when we first started, it was absolutely vital. It was like the calling card that you had. Um, and so in a way, my question, my first question to us really was what's the website for? Yeah. And in a way, The website that we've got now, first of all, it actually allows us to say to people, this is what we do. This is who we are. Mm-hmm, this is how we work. And these are the sort of things that we've done. And I think really that's the point of a website is is it's like, it's still like a calling card. It's just got less importance in terms of social media. Yeah. I mean, it's just a mechanism for showing up. It is. It is. Oh yes. We're gonna call this series showing up. Mm. Um, so DIY or done for you? I've done a DIY website. It was our very first website back in 1996, I think. No, it was a little bit later than that. Was it? Oh, yeah, because the internet didn't really get going out into the public. I'm so old. Until a little bit later on, but I do remember that first website. We didn't have the internet when I grew up. I didn't know what it was. I think it was 2000. Well, I remember buying my first computer, so I, I actually did not touch a computer until I was in my mid thirties. That's how old I am, 1995, I think. Anyway. So I did the diy. You did. It was lovely. I built the first one. I designed the logo. I drew the logo, I did everything on it. I swore I would never do it again. It was a horrific experience. Yeah. But you know, we did do something, which we started in 1999, which was we did a regular eZINE. We did, well it wasn't even an eZINE, it was actually a postal. Oh, it was a newsletter. Oh my God. Stuffing those envelopes. Can we just talk about that? Do you know every newsletter that we did cost us a thousand pounds. Mm. In the late nineties. That is a lot of money. Yeah. And that's basically because we had to get it printed and then we had to pay for all the postage around the world. Yeah. So that was a lot of money. Those, those newsletters were gold. Mm. It's like, we are not gonna waste this experience. Mm-hmm. And we used to hold stuffing parties. We did. We did. I remember. Yes. Yep. So, um, this one done for us, definitely done for us. It has been a fantastic experience because we have had to rework and rethink and redescribe everything that we do in order to fine it down, to let people know what it is that we do who don't have the same amount of free time to wander around a website. Mm-hmm. Which is really fascinating. As they used to. Yeah. And um, the next question is self write or copywriter. Well again, we write all of the blogs, we write all of the copy, we write everything that you see coming from us. I write all of the emails. Well, we're professional authors. We are professional authors as well. We've written 11 books so far. And so was it a no-brainer to self write or did we hire a copywriter? And the answer is we hired a copywriter. And it's partly because when you are doing something like this, you are often too close to what you do to be able to describe it really well. You need someone else to see you. It was a, and that was, even, that was a really fascinating process because mm-hmm. When you have somebody else looking from the outside and, um, it was Kirsty, who I hired, Kirsty Young, who I hired, who did a fantastic job on everything. Kirsty Young, invaluable resources. Yes. Yeah. Invaluable resource. Mm-hmm. Check her out. Yeah, please do. Because she's very good at what she does. Mm-hmm. And so she knew me, she's known me for years. Mm-hmm. And it was a really fascinating process because she's known me in a certain capacity, but not necessarily on the one that's being described on the website. Mm-hmm. So there was quite a bit of back and forwards going, here's what I've written. Here's some great SEO phrases, you know, how is this? And I'd go, that's really good. Can we change that? So there's a lot of backwards and forwards with the copywriter, which is great. And she managed to take the essence of what was on the 250 page Leviathan and break it down. And we, we, we had to do a lot of work saying, take this out. We don't need this. Yeah. You know, we, we did a, a, a mind map, a route didn't we? A pathway as to what we're offering right now. Yes. Yes. So the whole process of us going through what's going to be on the new website was so fascinating because we had to rethink how we were talking about things, what order they came in, what was available. It was just fascinating. And I think the feedback that you get from your copywriter, if they're good at what they do, and it's not just about SEO, it's about really clarifying what it is that you're offering. And I think, you know, because we're creatives mm-hmm. We have very much in our head, we do this in the Accreditation, this happens on the 12 Hours. This is going to happen in the 12 More Hours. All, there's all this stuff in the Learning Lounge, Mm-hmm. And you have someone from outside who says, yeah, but what is it ? What is it that people are gonna get from it? What level is it in the pathway that they're doing? What's the, if you like, the, the, the top down and what's the bottom up? Yeah. And that really helped us. We did a whole thing on top down and bottom up, didn't we? It did, yeah. We did. Highly recommended. Yes. Um, and in fact, the whole process started with the new logo, which we got designed in a competition. Mm. Um, and the new logo's been with us about eight or nine months. Mm-hmm. um, love, have to say, love the new logo. And the designer for the new website has taken the logo and embedded it in all sorts of places, which is looking really good. He loves it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so all being well, the new website is live today. Yeah. So, um, go on to www https://www.vocalprocess.co.uk and if you see something that's black and red, it's the old one. And if you see something that's blue and green, it's the new one. So why is the old one still up there? Is that to do with gurgle? Gurgle? Gurgle, gurg? Definitely to do with gurgle. I say this every time, every morning I get up and I go, what can we do to feed gurgle? Did you understand what I was asking? And would you like to answer the question,? Yes. Uh, yeah, it is to do with Google, but also we want to maintain the old site right up until the switchover. Mm-hmm. So there'll be a couple of hours where it's not available. So if you don't see anything that we are right in the middle of the switchover please come back in a couple of hours. Mm-hmm. So yeah. The normal, you know, yes, we're, yes, we're doing today. Oh no, just spotted a glitch. Oh no. Just spotted a problem here. So there was one tiny thing that we just had to change, which we knew was gonna take a couple of days. So in theory it's going live today. So hopefully, fingers crossed, it will all It would be amazing. So what is on the new website? Well, We've got, we are, we basically, it is a collection of everything that we've done. So we have the app there, which is the One Minute Voice Warmup app. Uh, we have all of our books and eBooks reference there with links to go and buy them and they can get 'em all on Amazon. Uh, we have all of our courses and we are launching two new courses via the website. Mm. We also have for the first time our full accreditation pathway. Yes. Um, this is really important actually, because we've had a lot of inquiries recently about it. I mean, I think as a result of some of the, um, social media that we've done about our registered teachers yeah. Can I just at this moment do a shout out for the YouTube Playlist which is the accreditation interview playlist. And this is all the people who are currently accredited with us. We're still interviewing people. Mm-hmm. Uh, who are, who have actually now graduated. That's from cohort 21, isn't it? And they got together with us and talked about their journey while they were doing their journey. Yeah. But these social media posts that I'm referring to now are more about, um, what now that they, they've become Vocal Process Registered Accredited Teachers. Yes. And where they are, Jeremy, I can't believe it's almost two years Yeah since they started that journey. Yeah. Um, and in fact, I'm seeing the growth that's happened with them, um, very much as, as individuals. They, they've all grown in specific directions and I think so fascinating. It's the result of that, that people have got in touch and said, well, what is it? What is this program? What do we do? Yeah. So we have the whole process on the website. Yep. And you can click through and read about every part of that process, which is brilliant. So the, for the first time you can lodge an inquiry to say, I'm interested in this. Yes. Mm. Um, and actually in a way, this was also one of the reasons why it took seven months to put this together, is because behind the scenes I was creating the courses on Teachable, which is our hub for all the courses that we run online. This is the platform, our online learning platform. It is, teachable.com. Um, and so I was also editing, creating pages, doing images, doing all sorts of things to get all of those courses up. Mm-hmm. So in fact, the first two courses are, um, self-guided. So they are 24 7. Whenever you want to do, you drop in, every course is cut up into videos that are between three and 20 minutes. So if you just literally want to drop in and do, I'm gonna do three minutes today, plus the fancy captions. Fancy captions, everything is captioned. So if English is not your first language, you see everything written down. Mm-hmm. We also have transcripts of everything. So again, if you are not quite sure what we said or I talk quite fast, this has been pointed out mm-hmm. um, then you can go to the transcript and see what I've said written down. Mm-hmm. Um, the plan for the future, and we haven't quite got this up yet, is to actually translate mm-hmm the transcriptions into other languages and we're aiming for six different languages. Yeah. So, fingers crossed on that one, but that will take me a few months to do. I'm really excited about that though. Oh, me too. Mm-hmm. Um, and we already have people, we have people from Germany, we've got people from the Netherlands, we've had Swedish teachers. We've had all sorts of people who, English is not their first language, but they are very good at it. And, um, they're saying it's so useful to have the transcripts of every single video on those courses. Yeah. Yeah. So that was that. Um, we also have the podcast, obviously. Mm-hmm. So you have links to this podcast. Mm. And the blog. Uh, what happened with the blog? Oh, talk about the blog. How many blogs were up there, do you think? Well, it was interesting. I think I made an error of judgment because the web designers said as Tony in Akira studio, um, really great guy and very, very good to talk to. Really interesting guy. Yeah. Tony said, do you want me to transfer everything over or should I just transfer the live blogs and then you go and collect the drafts? And I went, oh no. You know, I'll go and collect the drafts. Well, we transferred, I think it's 180 blog posts over, and then I was left with downloading by hand, 97 of them. Mm-hmm. And it was very funny because he said, um, a couple of days ago, he said, oh, you know, we're going to switch over today. And I went, oh, you can't. I haven't downloaded the other, the others yet. Mm-hmm. and I spent three hours frantically downloading photographs and blogs and SEO and all sorts of things. So all done. So did we really have almost a hundred waiting in the wings or Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Uh, some of them I published before and taken off. Some of them are now in the book and I'm going to, in the, um, book behind us, Why Do I Need A Vocal Coach? Yeah. Uh, and that I'm going to rework very slightly. And there were several that I just went, nah, we don't need those anymore. Mm-hmm. But you know what was so fascinating is. The newsletter, the paper newsletter that we talked about earlier morphed into an eZINE mm-hmm. And the eZINE, I think we were up to episode 90 something. Yeah. Of the eZINE. And I went back and I was looking at some of the eZINEs that we'd written and I thought, these, this is really good. We were the first voice people in the UK to produce an eZINE. And it was another of those. People loved it. There was so much in the easy, and we had offers, we had interviews, we had, you know, course things, we had book reviews, we had all sorts of things. And the only reason in a way that I had to scale it back was that it was so labor intensive and I was doing everything mm-hmm. uh, it took me three days to write it and it's like, this is, this is great and I love it, but you know, we have courses to do. Mm-hmm. You did all the formatting, so we generate ideas. Yeah. I mean, Jeremy tends to write most of the blogs. I've written a few. Yeah. But, you know, the, the kind of the blog article is very much your thing, isn't it? I love it. You get an idea. Yeah. And then he's, he's written it in half an hour. I wanna, I mean, this is very interesting. You know, over the years I've been enrolled in various people's courses and they're going, oh, well all you need to do is, you know, you go out, you look around, and then you come back and you write a blog post and I'm going, how do people do that? And the answer is lots and lots of practice. Mm-hmm. What was so interesting is that it used to take me three days to write an article, and now, because I've written so many of them, I can go from idea, to finished, finished blog post in half a day. Yeah. I have to say, we might be sitting up in bed having a cup of tea together and we'll just be riffing around an idea and I'll say to Jeremy, that's a blog. Mm-hmm. And then we audio record it on Otter. Mm-hmm, which is a nice little AI device. Yeah. Audio record. He then sits down, transcribes, tweaks, shapes, blah. It's done. Done. And it's, and then I just look for a photograph that's gonna work for it. And in fact, we have two of those blogs waiting to go up on the new site. I haven't published them yet. And do you know what I think I, I, if you start thinking about a blog as, oh, this is, I, I've got to promote myself, don't, don't do that. Write about something that interests you. Yeah. That inspires you, or that irritates you. Oh, the irritation one is really interesting. There's a brand new phase coming in, which is the anti influencer, the uninfluencer. Mm-hmm. And this is very interesting because basically an uninfluencer will take something that they dislike and say exactly why they dislike it. Uh, now what happens with the influencer is that they will often do that and then suggest something of their own that replaces it which is called promotion. Um, but this, it's the sort of negativity thing. And we've not really ever been good with negativity. Mm. In a way. There's not a lot of point. Well, also I think we always are very clear if we're having a rant, we will call it Jeremy's third rant. Jeremy's whatever. Yep. So people know there's a little bit of a rant factor there. I think it's quite nice. I think you should talk about wading through the testimonials next. Oh, the testimonials. Um, this is very interesting because the web designer said, you know, we'd like some testimonials. Uh, do you have any? And I went, we actually have 500 testimonials. Gillyanne's just splurted. You should've warned me you were going to say that! We actually have 500 testimonials. And people say, do you make your testimonials up? And the answer is absolutely not. Never needed to. Never needed to. Because we, we started our testimonial collection, if you like, very early on. Mm-hmm. And people send us completely unsolicited. It's like, I love what we did in that course. And I, in fact, we had one a couple days ago. So we have a formal, um, gathering feedback process, you know, like most good companies do, but people will also put shoutouts on Facebook. Yep. People will send us emails. I mean, in those instances, we then have to contact them personally and say, I love this that you said, may we quote you. That's the other thing is that we have permission from everybody that we quote mm-hmm. to, to do that quote. Yeah. And we have, we always get permission to do that. And we feel really strongly about that, don't we? Yeah, we do. You know, if someone sends a personal share, you have to ask permission to use it. They may not want you to. Yes. They may just want that for your eyes only. Mm. And if it is, then we don't use it. Yeah, it's fine. We still value it. Um, yes. So the testimonials so I ended up putting them all in various spreadsheets. So I mean, I don't, it's just a few. I don't love a spreadsheet, but they're very useful sometimes. And then I discovered Canva and its bulk import, and I went, oh, this is what Canva is made for. Mm-hmm. So I designed, um, several visuals that Templates. Yeah, visual templates. I think I've got five or six that we then imported the testimonials. And you will see them, you'll see them on our website, you'll see them in social media. They're on our Facebook page. They're always, there's always something on the Instagram page. Yeah. And every one of those testimonials is genuine. It's really fascinating that one of the things that we like doing is clarification for people. And then they go, oh, I've heard about this. I've, I've used that exercise. I've done it, but I've never really understood why it works, or I've never really understood when to use it. And that's what we love to do. Can I just say something about testimonials? Because it would be easy, you know, maybe for someone who's just starting out to go, oh my goodness, look at all that bragging. And of course, as Brits, we don't like bragging, do we? No, certainly not our generation. No. Good Lord no. We appreciate humility. Yes. We're ever so humble. No, no. I mean, you're gonna digress. There's a wonderful definition of humility that I heard on a podcast recently, which is humility, genuine humility is about understanding your place in the world and in what you do. Yeah. Um, and also having the wisdom to see the things, the, the levels that you're not at, and to feel admiration and inspiration from those who are perhaps more skilled, more knowledgeable, whatever than you are, and to feel inspired by them rather than envious of them. I love that. Mm. I think it's really interesting when I see somebody, um, less fortunate that I. No, so that's a quote. Uh, when , that's, well you all know that song. Um, When I see someone doing a job that maybe I could do or I have done in the past and they do it so well and I just go, thank you. Because it's like, I don't need to do that job. You do it so much better than me. Please will you do that job with me for me, or just be out there in the world doing it for other people. So, love that. Going back to testimonials. Yes. Testimonials do two things for us. It gives us acknowledgement and feedback, and that's important because it is very human to want to know that what you do is worthwhile. Yes. And is making an impact. And that's important because that kind of, it motivates you to carry on doing what you're doing. It does. It gives you satisfaction. But for people who might be interested in finding out more about what you do, it allows them to see themselves, to see how they might benefit. So, um, I encourage, you know, anyone who's sort of newish wanting to grow their practice to grow in what they do. Um, you know, if you get some nice feedback, don't be afraid to use it. It's a good thing. It is a good thing. And I think it's really important that people see themselves in other people's feedback. Mm-hmm. And that really helps. It helps everyone, frankly. Mm-hmm. Because the person who has written the feedback has influenced somebody else's life in a positive way. And the person who reads the feedback goes, oh, what I am doing is okay. Or, I recognize myself in that and also can work the other way. Which is if you see a testimonial and a testimonial and somebody is talking about something that you think, oh, well, I already know that. Then, you know, that course isn't for you. Yes. Or if the flavour of it doesn't really feel right for you and you think, no, I don't think I wanna work with those people, that's not my kind of thing. Yes. That's also valuable. I wanna, I just wanna pick up on that because I think it's really interesting. If you try and, and promote yourself to everyone to do anything and everything, you will fail. Yeah. And I think it's, it's taken us quite a long time to understand this. And then you look around and you see people who are micro nicheing or nicheing in America. Uh, and you go, oh, that, okay, that's really interesting. And what happens when you find where you fit is that you, you live there and then you can move out from that place, but you still get the bulk of what you do, the bulk of your enjoyment, the bulk of your finance, if you like, from that thing. I think this is so fascinating because in Successful Singing Auditions in 2002, I wrote the FOAL process. So You did, which is the Falling Off A Log. And the FOAL process does exactly this. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm with your repertoire, with your voice type, with your personality type. And we are so prolific and we are so able to apply our knowledge and skill set in different situations. Mm-hmm. that it's actually been quite hard, I think for us to see the core of what we offer, and also for other people to see that, you know, what are we doing this spoken voice, are we doing voiceover? Are we coaching for performance? What are we doing? Are we academic? Yeah. You know, um, what are we doing? Are we teaching teachers? Are we teaching performance? What are we doing? And if you're not careful, if you're so eclectic, you can, um, actually fall out of the niche and people don't see what it is that you're offering. And they go, oh, that's lovely. Oh, I feel really good about that. And then they just don't do anything. Yeah. That, oh, they're amazing, uh, now what do I do? Oh, I go there because I can see something really, really clear. And that, I mean, I think that's bugged us for quite a while. You know? Um, full disclaimer to anyone who sort of follows us and thinks, wow, they're so successful. It's a journey. It's a journey to move from that creative output to creating a work environment that is gonna work for you and also an envelope, let's say that's gonna work for you. And also at our time of life, the amount of, energy one puts in, because we're so old in order to receive that, um, satisfaction and balance, you know, life and work goals. Are we gonna share what, what the focus of the, the new website actually is? Yes. Or are we not gonna bother? Well, first of all, we are voice educators and we're very clearly in that position, but there is a specific focus on the website. Mm-hmm. And I'm pleased to say that we are focusing on singing teachers, choral leaders and coaches. Yeah. And this is about passing on the information that you have to other people. We are working specifically with teachers and leaders. So we are the educators educator. Absolutely. Yeah. If that makes sense. So, and once you see the website, you'll see that that trajectory is on the new, the new layout. And the way that we work through the information. We still coach performers, we still coach, you know, privately, we still do one-to-one consultations. We still do master classes, which we absolutely love doing. Nevertheless, we are singing teacher Vocal coach, choral leader trainers. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So you'll see there's a whole, um, section of the website dedicated to the teacher pathway. Yes. Mm-hmm. So, and the teacher pathway is, um, well, you'll see it. You'll go and have a look. Yeah. Let them go and look. Go and have a look. I'm not gonna describe it. Uh, the other thing that we've done, which was another area that suddenly we had to go, let's deal with this. Mm-hmm. Is the Learning Lounge. Now the Learning Lounge has over 600 things on it now. and it was again, starting to be a very major thing and people were getting lost in it, going Well, I want to see it all and I want to do this all, but I just don't have the time. So we have decided to split the Learning Lounge into two and it just went live last week. So we, now we have Learning Lounge Level 1 Essentials, and these are the things that we think every singer, performer should know about. Mm-hmm. Um, and that has about 200 and something resources on it. Yeah. And most of them, a lot of them are videos, aren't they? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We, but we've also got this on databases. Mm-hmm.. Um, we've got CD stuff, we've got all sorts of things on there. Little, um, little kind of learning videos. Yes. Yeah. And then Level Two is the Deep Dive. And the Deep Dive is much more geared towards the teacher. Mm-hmm. The teacher and the coach. So we have our courses like Mastering Musical Theatre and the bonus ones, which talk about performance techniques as opposed to Vocal techniques. We have the Best Practice Update for Teachers. So this is all about how you pass information on. We have all of our DVDs, um, I mean all sorts of things. We have plans that we have courses that are in the background that we're gonna be able to launch. Yeah. Uh, probably mostly in the Deep Dive. Yeah. I would say there are other resources that we could also put into Level 1 Essentials. Yes. Because we have a lot of content after all these years that we've been working as voice educators. Absolutely. So, um, Level 1 is a lot cheaper and Level 2 is slightly more expensive. And of course it's a monthly subscription. It is. You come and go as you please. Absolutely. Yes. You can do one month and leave. You can do a year. It's entirely up to you. Uh, do you want to just give them a heads up for maybe the end of this podcast about the Registered Teachers' CVs under Meet The Team? Yeah. Okay. Well, this is, and again, this is the first time that we've done this and we felt very strongly about this, is that with the, um, we have 19. Uh, Registered Accredited Teachers. And we also have Anne Leatherland, who is our Associate Trainer. Mm-hmm. And we very much wanted them to have CVs on the website. Mm-hmm. We wanted them to have a presence. We wanted photographs and CVs so that people could find them links to their websites mm-hmm. Links to their social media. And this was a really fascinating, just the whole episode really. And we are going to do, the next episode is gonna be on exactly what happened and when we did this. Mm-hmm. But we wanted them to have CVs that reflected their new status, having gone through the whole process. Mm-hmm. And every one of them has changed What they do in some way, come to an understanding of where they fit. And I think this is really important is mm-hmm, one of the things that comes out of doing accreditation training is that you understand on a much deeper level where you fit in the world. Yeah. So important because when you know where you fit, you sort of relax, you sort of don't work as hard as you were doing going, well, I've got to do this, I've got to do that. I, you can relax and you can blossom. Yes. And watching that blossoming over a two year period. Yes. I mean, it's just been amazing. I know people, it's, it's an overused word, privilege, but it is a privilege to see that growth. It really is. Mm-hmm. Because one of the things that we do is we recognize where people are when they start, and we recognize where they want to be when they finish. Yeah. And we help 'em get there. Mm-hmm. And the CVs, writing the CVs for them was really interesting because we had to take what they'd already got, but change it to reflect where they were heading. Mm-hmm. And we are gonna do a whole episode on your resume, your CV, what is it? What does it represent? Who's it aimed at? How do you rewrite it? What's going on? And I'm gonna give you examples of some of the ways that we've rewritten the CVs. Fun. That's the next episode. Okay. So I just wanna go back to the original question, which is self-promotion. Is it a dirty word? And the answer is, if you think of self-promotion as selling yourself, then yes, absolutely. It's really uncomfortable. Mm-hmm. If you think of self-promotion as being, letting people know who you are and what you do, then No, not at all. It's actually, I almost feel it's like a duty that if you are there and you are helping people and you are sharing your, your skills and your wisdom and your experience, It's like a duty that you let people know what it is that you do. Yeah. I mean, most teachers, choir leaders, um, you know, performance facilitators they want to create and they want to make a difference. Making a difference is one of the things that comes up over and over again when people are describing the process that they're going through and why they're doing it. Mm-hmm. So making a difference. And if you don't let people know how you could make a difference, then you're, you're shooting yourself in the foot. So, on that happy note. Mm uh, let's wait for the next episode, which is always gonna be about your resume and how you work it. So we'll see you next time. This is a voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher.