We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Allie Gardner a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Allie, thanks for joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

One thing I think people who are interested in creative careers get stuck on is this idea that you always have to make your income in the same way, every time.”If you’re a voice teacher, that’s all you can do.” which is just not true. If you’re a session musician, artist, social media marketer, venue management, etc. that doesn’t mean that’s all you have to do. They say that freelancers today that actually make a full time income have on average 7 different streams of income. I think as a creative it’s really important not to put yourself in a box. You have a lot to offer and as a result can absolutely work in several parts of the industry all at once. I think it’s also really important to allow yourself to have a “day job” if that’s what you want. You can do half-and-half and there shouldn’t be a stigma towards that. You get to decide how you allocate your time and resources and even if you could quit your day-job and support yourself full time on your creative work, doesn’t mean that’s always the right choice. Only you can decide what balance you want to work out. I personally have been making my full time income from creative work for about 5 years and I absolutely love it and feel really blessed to be able to do what I love for a job. Sometimes, I still crave the percieved stability of a day job that you can go half-way on and still get paid. As a creative, you have to be all-in or it just won’t work. The key to making it in your creative career is going all-in! Give it all your effort and passion! Working in a creative career is amazing because you get to reinvent yourself, reinvent your career and your situation as often as you want.

Allie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Over the years, I have worked in many different parts of the music industry. I’m a contemporary christian recording artist mainly performing in Spanish, I get to go on tours all over the world, do humanitarian work and service along the way. I’m a session musician/voice over professional. I get hired to use my voice for demos, commercials, jingles etc. I also get to teach other people how to have effective music careers. I’m an International Voice Teachers of Mix Singing Certified Vocal coach and get to teach my students to be vibrant performers and great vocalists. I am a serial entreprenuer, always coming up with something new to create and do – but overall, I just love to use every talent that God has given me to bless and serve and uplift other people. Whether I’m performing in latin america, consulting on social media marketing for local artists, teaching vocal technique, singing for a jingle or taking youth on sing n serve trips – I just feel blessed to be about doing good and serving my community.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

About 2 years ago, my husband got a job that required us to do a big move. At the time, I had a music school that was doing very well. I was loving being a voice teacher, was loving building my solo artist career – life was good. Unfortunately, we had to close down the business to make the move and I was taken away from all of my students and poof! there went my income. The new area I live in is small and fairly rural. It wasn’t conducive to my business model as it was. So I decided to re-tool. I enrolled in Berklee College of Music to learn Music Production skills so that I could produce my own music entirely without having to commute to a studio and I really dove deep into the voiceover career. I made a big investment and purchased a whisperroom and set up a very nice recording studio for myself. That investment has been so worth it. I work with clients every day now in a steady stream! My clients are rarely from my city – mainly from bigger areas and out of state but it works out great beacause I have the studio at home and can work with people from any where in the world! It was a big risk to pivot, but it has turned out marvelously well.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

For me, the biggest thing that built my audience was going live on Facebook. I was able to show my audience that enjoys my music that I genuinely care about them, build genuine relationships with them and serve them in a more personal way. I think building that connection on livestreams is what really made me grow from 10k followers to 30k followers. My biggest piece of advice would be to treat each and every follower as an individual person. Answer their comments, engage with them personally, show them that you actually care and that it’s not about you, it’s about what you can do to help them and more people will join in your journey with you.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.alliegardnermusic.com, www.allievox.com
• Instagram: @alliegardnermusic_, @allievox
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/amgmusic101
• Youtube: youtube.com/@allie-gardner