We were lucky to catch up with Patrick Worley recently and have shared our conversation below.

Patrick, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

In my opinion there’s a lot of factors that go into it and if I were to say one thing like “Drive and grit”, “The ability to adapt”, “Passion”, etc. my answer would not be sufficient. But I suppose all of the things which are required to be successful fall under the umbrella of “Commitment”. In other words, one must be totally committed to making their success a reality and that includes all of the previously mentioned facets as well as many others.

Patrick, 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?

Well I used to just say I was a musician when asked this question but I found that people didn’t really understand that and thought that means you live off ramen and out of your van LOL. So now I say I have a bunch of entrepreneurial endeavors with music. I’m a classically trained guitarist but I studied outside of Nashville TN for my undergraduate degrees and worked in the country and rock scene there through my 20’s. Now I’m based in Las Vegas and have built a large and successful teaching business of 100 students with a waitlist, play weddings and corporate gigs around town, etc. For some of the entrepreneurial projects I have a travel video project I’ve just started this year as well as an agency for local gigs, but my biggest project and the one I’m most proud of is my directory of music teachers Music Lesson Las Vegas (www.lessonslasvegas.com). This used to be my website for my own teaching business but I got so many students off of it that I flipped it into an online database of local musicians that teach. I’ve had it placed on several local and national news outlets and it’s been recognized by the State of Nevada for its work helping musicians through the COVID pandemic. MLLV functions as a method for local musicians to advertise their services as a private teacher for the local market. Those interested can visit the site and see media of local musicians teaching and performing, read bios and reviews, and even see a map of their location to find a teacher close to them – and much, much more.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

In addition to local advertising methods such as print and partnerships/sponsorships with local businesses, Music Lessons Las Vegas has very high search engine placement – sometimes beating out big national companies and coming in at the very first spot on search engines depending on the keywords used. If you’ve never done SEO (search engine optimization) advertising before let me tell you – it is NOT cheap. So I pulled the funds for this company from my teaching business to get it working. Basically I budget expenses for this business and support it with another business. Now that it’s up and moving my plan is to continue this model with other business ideas I’d like to get going, all focused around providing other ways for musicians to generate income.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I think that as with most business owners (or anyone who is extremely focused on something) we tend to think that others “get” our ideas and plans as we understand them. We have a tendency to lose sight that not everyone understands what we do as they have not invested the time and resources that we have. As such I find that in trying to explain lessonslasvegas.com to other musicians they don’t always understand it value initially. I work with a lot of artists and creative types and not to stereotype but often times they’re not the greatest business people; that’s the acumen they’ve put time into developing in other words. So I’ve found that I’ve had to unlearn the business verbiage of things like cost-benefit breakdowns, breakeven analysis, etc when explaining the service to them. I believe that we as business owners have to develop the ability to see our product or service from our client’s perspective and tailor our presentation accordingly.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lessonslasvegas.com/, https://patrickworley.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musiclessonslasvegas/, https://www.instagram.com/patrickworley82/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MusicLessonsLasVegas/, https://www.facebook.com/patrick.worley.3/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@musiclessonslasvegas9292/featured, https://www.youtube.com/@sickofthepick/featured