We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joslynn Cortes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joslynn below.

Alright, Joslynn thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

There are so many risks that come with running your own business, but the most recent risk that I’ve taken would be quitting my financially stable 9-5 job as an Assistant Office Manager, to pursue my performing arts career full time as well as operate Vocal Love FULL TIME!! For context, I had been working for my former employer for 2 years and had been promoted to assistant Office Manager 1 year in. The promotion was incredible. The money was giving, the owners were super supportive of my performing arts journey and understood that my performing arts career was priority for me and encouraged me to audition and book, and the cherry on top was they allowed me to rent their studio space to run my business out of. It truly was such an incredible set up for me.
As time went on, I realized that I was working 40+ hours a week for this 9-5 job, 10 hours a week with audition prep/training and 20 hours a week running my Vocal Love business. Needles to say, I was burnt out. After months of trying to manage my time, talking to my mom and boyfriend about it and trying to make it work, I took it to God. In my conversations with God, I realized that I was super comfortable in a position that was not the goal because my bank account was growing. So I asked God if he could make it super obvious for me that it was time for me to leave my 9-5 and He did. Literally the next day at work, a huge structural change was being made which would require more hours and work on my end all while my office team was dwindling down. I brought my concerns to upper management and while they were honest and understanding of my concerns, their solutions and my solutions just weren’t lining up. I realized that I was working so hard to help operate someone else’s dream, but I was letting my dreams get stale on the side.
So that’s when I took a huge risk.
I put in my two weeks at my 9-5 and starting planning for life as a FULL TIME Performer and Business Owner! Now here I am 3 months out of that 9-5 job and my business, my VOCAL LOVE business where I teach people how to sing, where I set my own hours, where I make my own schedule, where I impact the lives of artists for the first time in its 3 year old existence has officially made more this past week than what I was making weekly at my 9-5 and I did it with way less hours! I also signed with my dream Musical Theater Agency and I was able to spend over a month visiting ALL of my family in Jersey and Hawaii! Oh and the Owners and Supervisors from my previous job let me keep the key to the studio so I could keep operating my business out of! To say the risk was worth it, is a gross understatement.

Taking Risks is terrifying, and sometimes it doesn’t work out in your favor…….but sometimes it does. and when it does, it’s worth every ounce of fear it took for you to take that risk.

Joslynn , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hola, I’m Joslynn Cortes! I am the Founder, CEO and Vocal instructor of Vocal Love!! I’m originally from New Jersey, but I moved out to Cali in 2017 to finish my degree at AMDA. During my studies, I was paired up with an incredible Voice Teacher, Victoria Lavine, who taught me about proper technique, but most importantly vocal health. Honestly, she was a tough instructor, but her wealth of knowledge quite literally changed my life. Post graduation, I was singing on a cruise ship, so my vocal health and stamina was up to me to train for the entire duration of the contract. During that time, I ended up giving lessons to other entertainers on the ship as well. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it, but now I know it was preparing me to open up Vocal Love!
Once the cruise contract was done, I got home to find that the pandemic was a thing (living on the ocean, I had no idea what was happening on land). The entire entertainment industry shut down 13 days after I landed in Los Angeles, so I decided I was going to take the “short” time we were on lock down and get back into voice lessons. Little did I know, Voice lessons are EXPENSIVE especially in LA so that was a bust. After a couple conversations with my best friend and my boyfriend, I realized oh wait a minute, I kept my voice afloat on the ship, I can do the same thing for myself on land, so I started training myself again. Then during my devotion time, God told me about Vocal Love. A business that would help people train their voice to be strong and healthy, technically stunning yet unique to each vocalists sound. I wanted no parts. I was not a business girly. I didn’t go to school for business and just because I could sing didn’t necessarily mean that I could teach people how to sing, or so I thought. Nonetheless, I followed through, believing wholeheartedly that God would provide since this was his Business plan anyways. On May 4, 2020, I gave my first voice lesson via zoom, to my best friend who lives in Dubai, the time difference was brutal. That was the first time, someone paid me to give a voice lesson. After that, we kept meeting up weekly for months and then eventually I had a new client, who got word from my best friend and then a new client would pop up, a person I went to school with and then word got out in LA and before I knew it I was doing virtual voice lessons for people I had never met before. Since then Vocal Love is a registered LLC in the state of California, we offer Virtual lessons as well as In person lessons in Studio City, and Vocal Love is currently partnered with two Theater Companies in California!

I am so proud of Vocal Love. It’s grown so much and its helped so many artists find their voice, build their confidence, and build their technique. I can guarantee you, when you book a lesson with Vocal Love, you are booking custom vocal routines for your specific voice and a supporter for life! My goal as a vocal instructor is to make sure my students have the tools they need to sustain their vocal technique, vocal health and vocal stamina on any endeavor they find themselves in.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I love this question! 1000% my students. I have been so fortunate enough to teach vocalists from all over the world and not only that, but vocalists who take the risk and perform in front of people. A lot of my students are Musical Theater performers and that community is tiny, so if one of my students is in a show, I know someone in their cast or in the audience will hear them, open up their playbill and read their bio and usually you can find a shout out to Vocal Love! If the shout out is not on the playbill, then it’s on their Social Media stories. Honestly, I have the best students. We do not gate keep at Vocal Love. Someone else’s growth does not diminish your own.
Also word of mouth is a great tool especially when its partnered with social media tags, posts, stories.
I want to make it clear that it’s not mandatory to shout out Vocal Love, my students just do it because they believe in Vocal Love and for that I am forever grateful!

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

Great question! Earlier in my career I would schedule all my lessons personally via text, email or phone call. I would write out individual emails confirming lessons as well as 24 hr prior reminder emails. This worked until my clientele started growing. Since Vocal Love is a one woman operation, my time management was slipping, my emails were getting sloppy and the customer service was suffering, so I looked into online systems that would essentially act as my Administrative team and I found a great one that was already apart of my Website package. Crazy the things you can accomplish when you actually know what resources you have at your disposal. Now I use my website to sell Vocal Love merchandise and I also use my website to schedule lessons. Its been an incredible time saver. I just edit/add my work schedule, set my hours and now all clients can go to the website sign up for a specific service, date and time and then the payment is collected via the website. The client then receives a confirmation email, terms and conditions and receipt/invoice and a reminder email the day before their scheduled lesson. This system makes rescheduling and collecting payments and giving refunds super easy! 10 out of 10 would highly recommend!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.vocallove.shop
• Instagram: @vocallovexoxo
• Facebook: @vocallovexoxo
• Other: @joslynn_cortes

Image Credits
Huebner Headshots