How to negotiate and earn more money as a musician with Jessica Phillips

Michelle Lynne: Welcome back to the Fearless Artist Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Lynne, and today I’m really grateful to have on Jessica Phillips. Jessica, welcome to the podcast.

Jessica Phillips: Thank you for having me. It’s so great to be here.

Michelle Lynne: Yes, we had the chance to meet in New York because you graciously, spontaneously agreed to meet me. I reached out to you because, uh, among other things, you teach entrepreneurship at Juilliard. Um, you’re also a clarinettist with the Met Orchestra. I’d love for you to introduce yourself to the audience, and we’ll start from there.

Jessica Phillips: Hello, everybody. Um, it’s great to be here. I love Fearless Artist Podcast. I think y’all are doing such an amazing job bringing some of these great issues to the musician mind. Um, I have a little bit of a different journey to where I am today. I, uh, went to Barnard College, which is a part of Columbia University. I actually live five blocks away now, uh, so—

Michelle Lynne: Oh.

Jessica Phillips: —in my old, uh, college neighborhood, and I did a joint program with Manhattan School of Music. And, uh, then after that, I started freelancing in New York City for a couple of years and, uh, ended up winning the job at the Met, uh, which is a completely blind audition process. So I was—

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Jessica Phillips: —pretty young, uh, twenty-four. So I’ve been at the Met now for twenty-five years. So you can, um, guess my age from that.

Michelle Lynne: You do not look your age. That’s for sure.

Jessica Phillips: Thank you. Um, and, you know, I’ve done a couple of things, uh. I’ve led two negotiations at the Met, and then I, uh, went back and got my MBA. Kind of post-COVID, or during COVID, I wanted to, um, explore some other avenues. And so I ended up teaching at Juilliard. Now I have, I have a full-year course there, two sections of that course, actually. It’s really popular now.

Michelle Lynne: Oh, great. Okay.

Jessica Phillips: It is, which is awesome. And it’s, it’s the students; they want it. So, um, yeah, I think that’s, that, that’s it for me now. I don’t know, we can, we—

Michelle Lynne: That’s, uh, that’s a lot. That’s a lot. It’s very impressive. I love the impact that you’re making in multiple areas. I know we had talked in New York that you’re on a board, right? With the, is that with the orchestra?

Jessica Phillips: Uh, no, I’m actually on the board of a member services organization. So in the U.S., um, you know, nonprofits are something that you can, uh, become through the IRS, our, our tax, you know, agency. I think you have a lot of international listeners, so I’ll try not—

Michelle Lynne: We do. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Jessica Phillips: —to assume, uh, U.S. nonprofit knowledge here. But, um, a fiscal sponsor is a way that, um, individuals or string quartets or dancers or actors, um, can take on nonprofit status through this member services organization. And so I’m on the board of The Field, which is one of those organizations. So we help all kinds of, you know, artists, take tax-deductible donations, um, and raise money, and we help upskill them, do a lot of professional development, career services for them there. So I’m on the board there, and I’m on the board of the League of American Orchestras, which—

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Jessica Phillips: —is kind of a U.S. advocacy organization for orchestras, um, that does all kinds of, um, you know, education, advocacy through. One of the things that we’ve been working on is the pernambuco wood, so all the bows. Um, so traveling, you know, with that wood, we’ve had our, our, um, incredible advocate in Washington, D.C., Heather Noonan, she’s gone to Brazil to advocate for musicians and that wood and traveling with it, you know, we’re not part of the problem. Yeah, that’s one of, just one of the things that we do there.

Michelle Lynne: That’s amazing. Yeah. Like I said, you’re having an impact in so many different areas in the industry, but you’ve maintained your job as a clarinettist in the orchestra. Can you talk a bit about how you had, not just the time, but the energy, the space, the mental space to take on so many other roles, and, and what that looks like? And we talk a lot about portfolio careers, but this is, yeah, a little bit beyond, I think.

Jessica Phillips: You know, I think it’s, it’s funny, I am actually an introvert.

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Jessica Phillips: I guess I’m what they call an extroverted introvert. Um, and my husband is an introverted extrovert. So we talk a lot about energy, you know. And I think that when you do the things that give you joy and give you satisfaction, and do you feel like you’re helping make the world a better place? That’s, that really drives my energy. I have a lot of energy for it. I don’t need, you know, to come back and like, recharge my battery so much. So these things that I do are all kind of in line with my personal mission, and therefore are incredibly fulfilling and appeal to my sense of curiosity of how things work. And my sort of collaborative nature. I find myself a cross-aisle translator a lot, meaning, “This is what musicians mean when they say this,” and “This is…”

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Jessica Phillips: “…what management means when they say this.” And that kind of, kind of cross-aisle shuttle diplomacy is something I find really fascinating. It sort of, sort of draws on my, my college days when I was a political science major and, you know. So I do love that, um, sort of those subjects and topics. So it gives me lots of joy…

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: …and I think that gets you the energy to do all those things.

Michelle Lynne: That’s a great answer because more and more, like, throughout the podcast as well, I’ve met a lot of high-capacity people, a lot of people having large roles in a number of different areas. And so it’s great to hear how you’re thinking about these things because we are limited in a sense, but it sounds like a very full and rich life in a lot of capacities. What was one of the first things that you added past the performance career?

Jessica Phillips: The first thing I did was sort of step into, um, the orchestra committee, which is something I think not a lot of people understand about orchestras, is that there’s usually an orchestra committee and that orchestra is sort of tasked with the, um, not only governing the orchestra itself, but also negotiating on the orchestra’s behalf. And so much of that knowledge is passed down from colleague to colleague, from generation to generation. So I joined and, um, learned a ton about, you know, labor law and, you know, bylaws and, you know, our orchestra and the history of our negotiations and our contracts, um, for a couple of years. And then I sort of got thrust into the role of the chair, um, so, uh, at the last minute, which, you know, is a whole other story. But I don’t think I ever would’ve thought of myself in that way, but there just was nobody else there to do it at the time. So, uh, I took that on, and it was, the first negotiation that I did was extremely contentious at the Met. And then the second one in 2018, uh, was collaborative. We did a lot of interest-based bargaining, which is sort of a methodology, a lot of transparency and collaboration to get to that, um, second negotiation, which kind of made me interested in negotiation tactics and, you know. So then I went to Harvard to learn more about negotiation processes and, and just kind of, I, I think one of my, um, personality traits is just like lifelong learning. So it’s like, if—

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Jessica Phillips: —I don’t know something, I, I wanna like know more about it. So I really spent a lot of time kind of, I had all of these instincts as a leader, but I didn’t know why. And—

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: —I kind of went back to school, got these certificates and my MBA in Arts Innovation and Entrepreneurship. And that sort of gave me all the theory behind my instincts as a leader for both failures and successes. So,

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Jessica Phillips: It was, uh, a really interesting time. I think it made, it made me feel more confident as a teacher too.

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Jessica Phillips: You—

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: —when I came out into the industry, the landscape is very different than what my students, who are graduate students now, are facing. So, I really wanted to understand the foundational frameworks of business to teach them rather than like, “Here’s what you have to do,” you know, um, this like kind of prescriptive attitude, I think that I got when I was coming outta school. And so—

Michelle Lynne: Oh, interesting.

Jessica Phillips: —giving them with tools, not, I don’t want them to be like, we do a negotiation simulation, you know, we do all kinds of things in my class, but it’s all experiential learning, which sort of is the, the, the theory of adult learning is that you really need to do it. You need to do it—

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Jessica Phillips: —to learn it. That’s my focus in my teaching, but I kind of got that in my own learning after I kind of left the committee role in the orchestra. So that’s, that was sort of my journey there.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, I know. It’s amazing. There’s, I mean, there’s so many elements here that I’d like, like to unpack. Um, what’s something that you learned about negotiation? You said you did an MBA at Harvard, right? That—

Jessica Phillips: At, uh, the Global Leaders Institute, um.

Michelle Lynne: Right. Okay, yeah.

Jessica Phillips: Arts specific. Um, Harvard has, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Law School, and, and Harvard Business School all offer, um, you know, like certificates in specific learning modules. So I did three at Harvard Law School on negotiation.

Michelle Lynne: Okay. Okay. Amazing. Actually, I was just looking up the Harvard Business School one on entrepreneurship two days ago because somebody in our community wants to, is interested in that. So I knew about that. Uh, so coming back to the negotiations, what was something that you learned that you thought, “Every musician needs to know this,” but we don’t receive this training?

Jessica Phillips: You can get this in Getting to Yes, the book, um, the kind of seminal work by Roger Fisher and William Ury. But musicians tend to think in, um, positions, and they call that positional bargaining. Um, the kind of the thought of instead thinking about interests is a way to bargain and think about getting away from the scarcity mindset that I think we all have in the nonprofits and the arts, at least in this country, and and thinking about how we can work together to actually make the pie bigger, make value.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Jessica Phillips: That is something I really wish every musician understood because, you know, the theory, and I could go into it, but the theory is that over time, collaborative negotiations create more value for everyone. So I think we tend to get this really contentious negotiation atmosphere in many orchestras in this country, and it just doesn’t serve any side in the long run. So—

Michelle Lynne: That’s amazing. So when you say positional, that’s really like, “us versus them,” that kind of positioning.

Jessica Phillips: Yeah, exactly. And an interest is like, “We, we want a wage increase. We want to attract and retain the best musicians, you know, to our orchestra.” That might take the form of, you know, several different kinds of things. Whereas a position might be like, “We need to get, you know, fifteen percent, uh, wage increase, and we are not willing to talk about anything else.” And so that’s, that’s a position instead of an interest in getting that fifteen percent, but “How is the organization going to do that, and how can they do that?” Sometimes what I experienced in 2018, for example, is that, um, healthcare is very expensive in this country. And so by taking on a small percentage of the healthcare costs for each musician, um, that saved the Met an outsized amount of value. And so that’s an example of just creating a tremendous amount of value without us, you know, the musicians, uh, giving up something tit for tat. Kind of.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm. What stops musicians from thinking in this bigger picture, “make the pie bigger,” and keeps us stuck in this, as you say, scarcity mindset?

Jessica Phillips: I think that, um, these stories, these sort of entrenched systems, if you will, um, power hierarchies, they’re very sticky. They, they, uh, linger on. You said, you know, “us versus them.” Those kinds of things linger and become part of the collective, you know, mind meld because we tell them as stories and we accept them as true. Um, that emotional reaction to stories is something we know scientifically, like that. You know, when I tell you a story, we’re narrowly coupled. We’re entrained. Our brains are, you know, lighting up in the same way. And so that’s kind of the, the science of the stickiness. And so, um, you know, conservatories, higher music, uh, you know, elite music education across this country, we stand on the shoulders of tradition and there’s a lot of fear about innovating. You know…

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Jessica Phillips: …we don’t wanna alienate our, our traditions, uh, so we keep telling the same stories and they’re very sticky. So I think we don’t teach musicians that this is something they need to know. We just say, “Go to the practice room and practice, you know, ten thousand hours,” which has been debunked, you know, “and you’ll, you’ll be fine. You’ll be great.” And the reality is that most musicians do need to become entrepreneurs or solopreneurs or intrapreneurs, whatever you wanna call it, that at some point in their life, they need to have business skills. They need to know how to negotiate. They need to know how to collaborate. Um, they need group dynamic theory. They need to know how to work with other people. And that’s not really something we teach in conservatories and higher music education. I think it’s changing. I hope it’s changing.

Michelle Lynne: I know you’re part of that change. Yeah, exactly. Which is why I was thrilled to learn about your curriculum that you had shared with me. Um, going back to what you shared about, you were kind of taught a formula and instead you’re giving your students tools or business foundations. Can you talk about the contrast between maybe also what I learned in school versus what you’re now carrying into the next generation of musicians?

Jessica Phillips: Yeah, you know, I was very lucky. I, I mean, I think anybody who wants to pursue art is, is, is lucky. They’re privileged in some way. Somebody has helped them get there, right? They have a network and they have a support system. All of my early work was through somebody who my teacher had a connection to, said, “Oh, she’s, she’s good.” They spoke for me. And so that’s what I call relational capital. Somebody said, “Oh, she can do it. She’ll, you know, she’s learning, you know, but give her a shot.” And there’s just all of those gigs that I did early on in my career, some of those groups don’t exist anymore. And that sort of relational capital still is necessary, but you may have to do more to get it and to work for it. Or a lot of musicians leave the city and they go somewhere new, and so they don’t have those systems of support already built in. So learning how to network, learning how to speak for themselves, learning how to pitch an idea, uh, learning how to solve a problem, uh, learning how to see that even though we’re very privileged to be artists, our communities and our society needs artists to be healthy. And so we provide a service that is integral to our communities. So kind of flipping the narrative of like, “Oh, you’re so lucky to get to do what you love,” that we hear at Thanksgiving every year, you know?

Michelle Lynne: Oh man. How many times have we heard that? Yeah.

Jessica Phillips: I’ve worked a long time to be able to hone my craft and and to do what I do. And the reality is, is that nobody can do the things that art can do in terms of healing or, you know, any of these community-based, social prescriptions that, that we’re kind of starting to talk about in the arts. Only artists can do that, right? Only we can deliver that, uh, that learning and that healing. And so a lot of it is just empowering the students to understand that they have a valuable service. It’s not totally just selfish what they wanna do with their—

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Jessica Phillips: —lives, you know. I think—

Michelle Lynne: Thank you for saying that. I would love for you to expand on that ’cause I’ve heard that so many times. You know, we’re currently, yeah, because it’s about us. I think that’s the lie that’s getting twisted in there, because I have to talk about me to tell you to come to my concert, so it’s selfish somehow. That’s what I’ve heard from, from people.

Jessica Phillips: Yeah. We, we were just having this discussion in my class yesterday, actually. Um, uh, like, um, I, I try to get them to think about what is their unique differentiator or their unique value proposition. Some of them are like, get it, know what they know what it is for themselves right away. And some completely paralyzed by that. And, and, you know, so we talked about what it, what are some examples of that. And what marketing research surveys tell us, at least in this country, is that some of our audiences love new things. Some of our audiences wanna hear Beethoven over and over, over again. Wonderful, right? Those are, those are both wonderful audience members. And so it’s about kind of knowing where there’s a product-market fit. And—

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Jessica Phillips: —so I speak in these business terms with them to get them to understand, “You need to know your audience.”

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Jessica Phillips: If you are, you know, playing Beethoven all the time and your audience is really like, a sort of infotainment group where they, they wanna learn something new, then maybe you wanna put some Weber in there, you know. Um, and then people go, “Oh, that’s so interesting. I’d never thought of that pairing before.” They, you know.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: And if you are an edutainment, um, attractor, then, uh, you know, maybe you’ll, you’ll put something fun or you’ll play. One of my students, uh, love to use the, there’s a, a, a clarinet piece from the movie The Terminal. And it’s, and it’s wonderful little, uh, she uses it as a non-core, actually, and—

Michelle Lynne: Oh, fun.

Jessica Phillips: —plays it. And, you know, so, so it’s like that’s edutainment. They love that.

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Jessica Phillips: Um, and, and it’s interesting to see something modern and relevant put next to Beethoven and people feel, “Oh, you know, it’s relevant. Classical music is relevant,” if you still even call it classical music, you know. So, um, they start to kind of see, “Oh, actually, yeah, there’s, how would I think about a recital or a concert or a product?” I think with musicians, we don’t, nobody has CDs anymore. So we don’t have like a piece of art that we’re handing you, not like an artist. So there’s no product. They don’t under, they don’t always think of themselves as the product. And so that’s, that’s what we try to do. We try to kind of put them in those situations, um, and then also kind of think about, uh, what, what problem are you solving?

Michelle Lynne: This is so good. I love it.

Jessica Phillips: Like, and it’s a little bit, um, uh, Clay Christensen, you know, milkshake marketing, if you’re familiar with that. And, uh, but yeah, what problem are you trying to solve, and, and make no assumptions about your customers. So the milkshake marketing theory is that, um, you know, McDonald’s has this milkshake and they didn’t really, I’m giving you the very, very brief version, so please, nobody at home kind of go, “Oh my God, she doesn’t have this.” Right. Um, but the, the very brief story is that, you know, they didn’t really under, they wanted to understand more about why people were buying milkshakes and, uh, what they found through a lot of marketing research surveys that people are actually buying milkshakes for breakfast because they were—

Michelle Lynne: Oh.

Jessica Phillips: —driving to—

Michelle Lynne: I think I’ve heard this.

Jessica Phillips: —work. So it—

Michelle Lynne: Yes, yes.

Jessica Phillips: —helped them. Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: I was just thinking the sugar. The sugar high. Yeah.

Jessica Phillips: But there’s, that’s the kind of idea is that like, what problem are you solving? And, and it could be that people just want more joy in their lives. That’s—

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Jessica Phillips: —a problem to solve. That’s—

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Jessica Phillips: —so it’s, um, thinking about these tools and these business tools to kind of then make a more informed decisions. And I don’t expect any of my students to feel like they have an MBA. I expect them to kind of say, “I know what I don’t know,” instead of, “I don’t know what I don’t even know.” Like.

Michelle Lynne: And those are the four phases of learning, right? So the complete ignorance, “Don’t know what, I don’t know.” Yes. Okay, love that. How receptive are they to specifically the business jargon that you’re bringing in? And I, I mean, I, I really appreciate it ’cause I think it helps musicians to realize like, there are other worlds out there than ours, and we should use the language of the world if you wanna come into these collaborations or negotiations or looking for corporate sponsorship, it would be helpful to speak the language of the people that we’re speaking with.

Jessica Phillips: Yeah. You know, I think that, um, the feedback that the students, for me, and I stay in touch with a lot of my students, like I’ve been teaching for five years now, and a lot of them say, “Oh, I got this job and I, can you help me look at this contract and, and how should I do this?” And, and I always tell them, you know, “You’re, once you’ve been in my class and you’ve had to listen to me talk for as long as you all have had to listen to me talk, you are part of my family and whatever you—”

Michelle Lynne: Aw.

Jessica Phillips: “—you know, um, email me and, and, uh.” So a lot of them do and, at different points in their life and their career trajectory, certain things start to make sense for them. And that’s great. That’s really what I want them to know is like, “Oh, I don’t know enough about this contract. I need to get a lawyer,” or “I should get some advice on this.” Like, not being afraid to ask for help is super important, like, because I think, um, and I say that I don’t say “failure” because like the first assignment they do in my class is talk about a time where they had success or achievement or failure, you know, and they, they, they realize right away that their failures are a lot more interesting than their successes and taught them—

Michelle Lynne: Oh, wow.

Jessica Phillips: —yeah. So that, the idea that we, that this is an experimental lab, an incubator, um, you know, that, uh, is is totally devoid of anything that they might feel in their everyday lives of having as we all are as perfectionists and as musicians, you know, wanting to put our best foot forward and that. They’re still in that phase of realizing that perfection is something we strive for, but never achieved. And so it’s—

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Jessica Phillips: —giving them permission. Like, “We’re gonna play and have fun and do different things and you’re not gonna have these skills necessarily.” I find that instrumentalists are very, for the most part, not very interested in talking. And so there are—

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Jessica Phillips: —no papers in my class. I don’t have time to read any of them anyway, but there are no papers in my class because I really want them to talk. That’s the outcome I want for them is to be able to speak, to advocate for themselves, for the art…

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Jessica Phillips: …for the industry, and to be able to, to, um, you know, speak in that way I think is really important. And that’s, that’s the, that’s the kind of the feedback that I get is that they have a different confidence leaving than they had coming in. And I think also I see each class get really tight and very psychologically safe. And so as a place where they can talk about—

Michelle Lynne: Oh, yeah.

Jessica Phillips: —all of these things that are like, “Yeah, why? Why is it done that way?” You know. So they can kind of start to play around with innovation in a way that they can’t really do anywhere else.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. That’s amazing. I, I love that. And we also see that in our groups that people get, once there’s safety in the room, then people can really be vulnerable and share and learn from one another. Um, I love the environment you’re creating. Can you talk about the negotiation simulations and how you set those up? And some of the, maybe if you have any fun stories about some, something someone learned in them.

Jessica Phillips: So, the negotiation simulation is actually a Harvard simulation that they, they designed, um, called Sally Soprano.

Michelle Lynne: Sally Soprano. Okay.

Jessica Phillips: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: I love it.

Jessica Phillips: I generally have them break up in either groups of two or four. And so there’s Sally Soprano and her manager, and then the, the Lyric Opera Theater, uh, so, um, you know, kind of artistic and, and CEO, and, and if it’s a group of four they have information about each other’s needs and, and, um, interests and positions. They then have to go and prepare and then negotiate a deal, which basically is, um, a term sheet, right? Like, “What are the things that you agree to?” And I give them parameters of like, “You need to agree on her salary,” and, you know, “but other than that, everything else is up for grabs,” you know. And they’re like, “Where is she from?” It’s like, “Where is she from? I don’t know,” you know, “you get to decide.” So they do come up with amazing things. And some of it depends on the guests that I’ve had in class. But, um, I remember Ben Balter, who’s, uh, Y, Unique N Guns, like, um, he’s his kind of artistic manager in a way. He runs his whole business. He came to speak to the class once, and he was saying, “You know, um, you know, the, the bands,” and I think it’s, I can’t remember if it’s like Ozzy Osborne or, they, they, they always had this contract that had blue M&Ms had to be in the dressing room. And, and he said to them, “You know, it’s not because they need blue M&Ms in the dressing room. It’s because they wanna make sure that the presenter is reading the contract and—”

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Jessica Phillips: “—all their needs will be met.” And so, you know, they take, they take that and, and so sometimes it’s like “no lilies in the dressing room” ’cause Sally Soprano is extremely allergic. You—

Michelle Lynne: I love that. Yeah.

Jessica Phillips: —know. One—

Michelle Lynne: No lilies because there’s an abundance of flowers in my dressing room at all times.

Jessica Phillips: They really get into it, you know. Um, one was the Blue Parrot clause, um, which really was the most funny. Um, Sally Soprano had a parrot, and, you know, they had to allow her to have this emotional parrot in her dressing room.

Michelle Lynne: Oh, man. That’s so great.

Jessica Phillips: I think the thing, though, that they take away from that is that they are negotiating a contract that at some point they will be doing themselves, right, for themselves.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: And the fact that they’re doing it, and really have to, and they have to, they have to do a press release announcing—

Michelle Lynne: Oh.

Jessica Phillips: —yeah. So the fact that they do it, and it’s not for them personally yet, they, uh, the, the reflection on the assignment is, you know, “I thought this would be so much scarier. You know, I thought that I wouldn’t be able to do this. I wouldn’t be able to advocate, but because I could advocate for Sally, not myself,”—

Michelle Lynne: That’s interesting.

Jessica Phillips: “—it was easy for me to think about and I learned like, ‘Oh, I should slow down. I don’t have to answer right away.’” You know, they really do learn a lot about themselves as like, when they get agitated and, and having to, uh, speak again, you know. So they, they get a lot out of that. That’s, that’s the first kind of, um, time that they probably thought about, you know, actually, “How do we get to this contract phase?” And then—

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Jessica Phillips: —when I debrief the project, I show them the range of deals that the whole class got and I go through kind of, so they see, “Oh my—”

Michelle Lynne: Possibility.

Jessica Phillips: “—salary is this and—”

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Jessica Phillips: “—this.” But actually the aggregate of the deals are very fairly similar.

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Jessica Phillips: There are a few outliers here and there, but the way people go about thinking about value is how they interpreted Sally’s or the Lyric Opera’s needs and their, their value needs. So—

Michelle Lynne: This is fascinating. So interesting. Be able to see also the possibilities of what other people could have thought of to negotiate. Um, what would you say to like our musicians listening who are afraid of negotiation? Because if you ask for, let’s say, a higher rate, and the other person they say no, they can replace you because there are so many pianists, let’s say. How can you put yourself in a mindset of, “There’s a possibility here. We’re gonna negotiate and see what’s better,” rather than thinking, you know? ‘Cause we’ve heard so many times, like, “I can’t ask for more money. They’ll just get someone else.”

Jessica Phillips: Yeah, there, that’s, I think that’s the crux of the issue, isn’t it? Um, I think that when artists know their value and they know their unique differentiator, or we, or we might say unique value proposition, what they’re bringing to wherever they’re going, whether it’s soloing or teaching artistry or, um, working on a gig, and let’s put working on a gig, let’s put a pin in that for a second. When it’s a personal contract that you are negotiating yourself, presumably the approach to that is with your, your value in mind and your, you know, the person that you’re making the contract with their value in mind. So everybody wants to get a deal. Everybody wants to work together, and so the process of asking for what you need or asking for something that the other person says, “I cannot meet you on that,” or, you know, “Can you explain how you got to that number and, is there any other things that you’re willing to negotiate with?” trying to open the box of tools that you have. So whether it’s, okay, maybe you, you are not getting paid the amount that you want, the wage that you want, but perhaps they’re gonna provide free airfare or perhaps they were going to provide, um, cartage for your instruments.

Michelle Lynne: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: What are the things that you value? Um, perhaps they’re gonna provide free social media content, like they’re gonna, you know, so are you getting the wealth of their network online as you build yours? There’s different ways to think about value. And value isn’t always money. It could be reputation. You need bigger network, uh, so somebody’s contacts or, um, uh, knowing that maybe you came in a little bit under, uh, than what you may have felt your value was, um, that as long as that’s a decision you made knowingly, and I’m a person who believes in, in no matter what, providing more value than I think somebody actually paid for. And the reason for that is because word of mouth is twelve times more powerful than any advertisement, anything that you could say about yourself on social media. And—

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Jessica Phillips: —”I worked with this amazing clarinet player and, and she was terrific,” um, that means more coming from them than anything I could say. So when you leave somebody happy and thinking, “You know, oh, this was a wonderful experience,” then, you know, maybe they’ll invite you back, you might say, “My rates have gone up a little bit. Are you able to meet me here?” Um, “Is this negotiable?” I think people are afraid to ask those questions because they’re afraid that they’ll be turned away immediately. And I think—

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Jessica Phillips: —a curiosity, “Is there room here?” Um, you know, then it signals to the other person, “I know I have value and I am value.” So, then they, they get to say, “Unfortunately, this is our budget, you know, but tell us what, what you’re thinking.” And so, you know, then, then it’s a conversation and that’s really what you want. You don’t want somebody to shut you down. I think that’s what people are afraid of, but generally when you make demands, again, that’s sort of that positional bargaining piece. When you say, “I have to get this,” then people say, “We can’t do it,” and they, they—

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: —shut down, right? So it’s, it’s about keeping the conversation going and, and finding value when you listen very closely to what they’re saying. And you might say, “You know what? I can do a masterclass for those group of kids that you’re gonna have there during that weekend. I, I hear you saying you’re gonna have this, you know, uh, school come visit. I’m really great with fifth graders.” I’m not. But, you know, like that. Maybe that’s something you can provide. So when you listen to what they are doing and where, where their interests are, maybe you can provide something else. And then they go, “Oh, yeah. Well, then we can pay you to do that class.” So when you kind of listen to the underlying interests, they’re not always clear. So you really have to kind of what I call active listen or trampoline listening, really like bounce it back and forth and, and, um, have a curiosity. Don’t shut down right away.

Michelle Lynne: That’s fantastic advice. I love that. The art of thinking in possibility, seeing how else you can serve, giving extra value because you will, uh, get that back eventually. Reciprocity effect. These are all great tools that you’re using. Uh, we also believe in giving a lot of value, but I didn’t like connect it with like the word-of-mouth piece. Of course, we know word of mouth is so helpful for, for bringing people into our world. Um, what else have you noticed your students leaving with after they’ve taken your, not just the negotiations, but is there anything else that you guys play out in real life?

Jessica Phillips: Uh, yeah. I do a lot of like little, um, a big believer in icebreakers. So we do a lot of games. And, so one of the, one of the things that I do before we talk about communication and sort of, how they communicate, what their communication tendencies are is they have to line up in the room, um, in order of birthday without saying—

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Jessica Phillips: —a word.

Michelle Lynne: Oh, what? Okay. That’s so fun.

Jessica Phillips: And they can ask, they can ask me questions, that’s it. And—

Michelle Lynne: Can ask you questions.

Jessica Phillips: They—

Michelle Lynne: Okay. Okay.

Jessica Phillips: —um, and then another, another one that we do, and these, this is all kind of, um, putting their body, too, in, in the space and getting them—

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: —to actually move around. So another kind of warmup exercise I do is that, they have to, we stand there in a circle and everybody has to look at two different people and they have to stay equal distance to those two people. And if, you know, if you remember your geometry, that can be many different places. So when we start moving around, then it becomes this like really chaotic, you know, space of people moving around until it finally settles. And, uh, it’s a very interesting experience because I think they start to understand, “Oh, it’s a complex adaptive world,” right? And “I’m focusing on these two people, but somebody else was focusing on me, and if I moved over here, that moved the whole room around.”

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Jessica Phillips: You know, things start to happen. They start to feel that, that one thing can set off something, uh, but they’re not in control of everything, too. But it’s okay.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: You know, it can be this, like they’re giggling and bumping into each other and, they kind of are feeling that in their bodies. And then the next thing I do is something that’s called Forum Theater. It’s also known as—

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Jessica Phillips: —Theater of the Oppressed. And it’s a sort of improv theater. We do it as a whole class. And we identify issues in the industry, and then they sort of self, we kind of uprank those issues to like four, four issues. And then they, they select which group, which issue they wanna work on. And they have about ten minutes to come up with a skit. And then they act it out. And the idea of this is, um, this is a really a South American, um, I can, you know, give you the, the resources at the end, but it’s, um, something that was kind of a healing tool during authoritarian regimes or coming out of that where people got to kind of like work through. Um, so it’s kind of a democratic way of giving everybody a voice and also thinking about interventions into the system. So they’ve already had all these complex systems and they see that these happen. And Forum Theater is about really empowering them. So they come up with a skit, they act out the skit in front of the class. They feel so silly doing it. And it’s really fun. Uh, I think they start to get comfortable. They’re in a safe space. Then, what happens is the people who are watching, they’re called spect-actors, so they’re spectating, but then somebody can tap in—

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Jessica Phillips: —and then they restart the skit, and this person is supposed to intervene in the system. And they’re supposed to actually, you know, do something that can be helpful. And it usually works. Um, sometimes they don’t know, right? These are problems that are so entrenched in, in the industry that they’re not thinking. So I do it later on in the semester when they’re already starting that we’ve done a design thinking sprint in one class, where they need to seek wild and, and, you know, unusual ideas and strive for quantity. Nothing, say no to, you know, nothing. So that they, they can be really kind of ridiculous. And the idea is that they’re seeing that they can intervene in the system. And that in doing so, they’re empowering themselves—

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: —in that process. So then we take those problems and then we start to actually work on them as, um, of the final, final project for the last month of the class.

Michelle Lynne: It’s incredible that you’re using creative play to teach these really valuable, important lessons. Like I think that geometry exercise is also just teaching empathy because they have to think about other people and how they might be feeling in that moment, having to move around. And, and again, coming back to giving ’em the power to speak, you have a, you have a voice to be used in the industry. So what problems do you see? There’s so much ownership that you’re teaching them in a seemingly simple exercise.

Jessica Phillips: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Uh, what are, what are some of the problems that they’re coming up with for the skits?

Jessica Phillips: Sometimes it’s “no hire” auditions.

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Jessica Phillips: Sometimes it’s, um, body shaming. Sometimes it’s the, the audition itself.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: Is it, um, does it do anything? Does it show you anything, right?

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: Sometimes. One year it wa we did, there was one that was interesting. That was, um, the DMA graduate versus the kind of soloist getting hired at a university. So they did the actual like interview, um, of these two different types of trained musicians. That was really interesting. One was, um, about artistic, like talking to people about classical music and using a lot of jargon words. And so they spoke completely in like music jargon for the whole time. And, and people were like, you know, uh, so they, they acted that out and it—

Michelle Lynne: Oh, that’s something.

Jessica Phillips: —like when you read the theory of this and it’s supposed to be a bit over the top, you know, it’s supposed to be a bit overemphasized. Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Jessica Phillips: Thank you. Yes. So that it, it is supposed to kind of feel so ridiculous that then, uh, some, small intervention can kind of bring the level down. So sometimes it’s, it’s about, um, feeling that their teachers or their, the faculty are not speaking the same language as them. So, you know.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: They, they feel safe enough to do that in the room at—

Michelle Lynne: It’s amazing.

Jessica Phillips: —that point. So, and then it, then that can morph into, for example, “Is the Master of Music degree,” what, you know, what we call it here in the U.S., “um, or Bachelor of Art, is that degree transferable?”

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: “Can they go on and do something else—”

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: “—with that degree? And are they a failure if they do?” And, and—

Michelle Lynne: Oh, boy.

Jessica Phillips: —a lot of times, the one really interesting one, they, they were like convinced the degree was just a piece of worthless garbage. And by the end they were like, “Did you know we had a career services office here?” You know, like, and you can go and they, you know, understood. “Absolutely. This degree is transferable to anything that you do.” In fact, the World Economic Forum just said like, “The skill that employers wanna see in 2030, you know, you’re getting them all in a, in, in music education.”

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Jessica Phillips: They, they kind of, sometimes their minds are really changed ’cause they go through that process. So they have to interview some stakeholders. I connect them with people in the industry. Um, I’m, I’m thinking about trying to actually make it even more where they get a mentor through this month who is not just a stakeholder, but can help ’em really pass some ideas around. Uh, but the, the thing that’s really great about doing the Forum Theater and acting first is they get to play around with the problems, and sometimes they don’t like that problem, we’re working on it. So they always, I always have them self-select into their final project. And—

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Jessica Phillips: —I do that because then they’ll be, then they’ll work for it.

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Jessica Phillips: And they’re accountable to each other. So we give them, they do, you know, some, a strengths assessment at the beginning of the semester, doing a conflicts assessment and a communication assessment. So we give all that information back to them once they form these groups so that they can really think about the group dynamics and then how they show up in that group and, you know, but, but the understanding is that everybody cares about that issue and everybody wants to see some sort of resolution or some sort of change. And so they’re all on the same page of trying to get to that. And that’s what makes, um, it a really powerful project for them.

Michelle Lynne: It’s incredible how many skills and tools you’re giving them in these open environments within the classroom. I’m just, I’m hearing so many possibilities and thinking, “Oh, yeah, this is so great for when they’ll be in that situation later,” that you’ve taught them, not, not just giving them the information or told them, “This is how it works,” or from your own experience and authority, but you’re letting them learn, and that’s just incredible. Um, if you had to choose one thing that these kids know finishing your class that you wish your colleagues knew, do you know what that would be?

Jessica Phillips: Oh, you know, I think, I think that it would be, and this is from my perspective in the orchestra world, you know, the idea is like, “You get a job and you get tenure and you’re set for life.” For a lot of musicians, that’s not enough. You know, they can, they get to, I, I get so much joy from performing. And, and every time I perform, uh, I also need to use the other parts of my brain, too. And so, it’s never too late to keep upskilling yourself, to keep thinking about what, “What lights me up? Where’s my energy? What brings me joy?” Um, a person I routinely bring into my class is a colleague of mine who’s a violist in the orchestra, um, Zoe Martin-Doike, and she went to go get her accounting certificate or like degree during COVID, and she still does do like tax prep and helps, um, musicians. And I love bringing her in because she’s a musician who understands the accounting life that—

Michelle Lynne: God bless her.

Jessica Phillips: Exactly.

Michelle Lynne: We need more of her.

Jessica Phillips: Like, you can always keep upskilling. Like, it’s never over, right? The, you know, you get a job or, or you have your freelance career. You can still keep learning and applying and doing things and advocating for art in the very best ways that you, that you know how to do that. Um, only you know how to do. So, uh, keep, keep getting education, I think. I would say, and there are many, many avenues for that, and I can give you lots of resources, too.

Michelle Lynne: Absolutely. Yeah, that would be wonderful. This has been such an inspiring conversation. Thank you for all of the ideas that you’ve shared, the wisdom that you’ve shared. I, I just fully agree with everything you’ve been talking about, what you’re teaching in your class. I think it’s incredible to train the next generation, but also the people around us. Because I know from experience that when we can think in vision and when we think in big ideas and possibilities, it inspires other people to say, “Oh, wait. Like, it doesn’t have to be what we’ve been told.” So, yeah, thank you for, for being an example for that. Um, if you had an action point for, uh, our listeners today, one thing they can do after listening to you today.

Jessica Phillips: Uh, well, I, let’s see. If you’re interested in negotiation or learning more about that, um, Getting to Yes is an incredible book. Um, you are interested in thinking more about your value, your kind of unique value proposition, how you think about what you charge, or maybe you’re in that period where you wanna raise your rates, um, there’s a terrific book, um, called Name Your Price by Kate—

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: —Treston, which I—

Michelle Lynne: Oh.

Jessica Phillips: —a friend of mine. So I had, but—

Michelle Lynne: Perfect.

Jessica Phillips: —transparency. Um, but I—

Michelle Lynne: I love it.

Jessica Phillips: —do recommend it ’cause it’s for freelancers and consultants, kind of just thinking about how you actually yourself provide customer service and how you deal with your, you know, students or clients or whoever.

Michelle Lynne: Oh, that’s a good one.

Jessica Phillips: Yeah. A lot of people get tangled in that. They’re afraid, like you said, um, to kind of ask for more. So, just kind of thinking about what are your own policies, your own H.R., uh, kind of, values and things. So that’s a terrific book. And I would say that, uh, there’s another resource called Navigate Well, um, it’s by my very dear colleague, Susan Eldridge, and the Arts Collective in Australia. You can download it. It’s a free PDF.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Jessica Phillips: Springboard for the Arts is another one that a fiscal sponsor organization in Minnesota, and they provide a really great career resource for anybody who’s sort of, kind of, kind of trying to work through all these layers. I think that just sometimes sitting down and writing it out is so important to kind of just pulling out of your head what’s important to you.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Jessica Phillips: Not your teacher, not your parents, not your spouse, you know, partner, whomever, friend who’s also a violinist, right? But you, yourself, and really, um, connecting to that sometimes, hand to paper is good. So.

Michelle Lynne: Absolutely. Thank you. That’s wonderful advice. Definitely gonna put those resources in the show notes for everybody listening. Jessica, how can we find you, follow you? What’s the best way to keep in touch?

Jessica Phillips: Oh my goodness. Okay. Um, I think LinkedIn is probably the easiest thing for me right now. I did tell my class, I tend to answer more LinkedIn messages, but you probably reached out to me on Instagram, I think. Right? And—

Michelle Lynne: Yes. And then you didn’t answer, so then I found you on LinkedIn, and then you answered immediately. And I was so grateful because, I mean, I just cold-wrote you and I was like, “She’s never gonna have time to meet.” And then it was just such a wonderful conversation that we had and, and it was just, yeah, very inspiring.

Jessica Phillips: I—

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, it was, yeah.

Jessica Phillips: LinkedIn is probably the, the place where I do answer those messages because I love, um, you know, when people say, uh, like write and have an ask, then I answer. There I am on Instagram. I think I’m just Jessica Phillips Clarinet on Instagram. I, I really had to go off Instagram to get my MBA complete. Um, but I—

Michelle Lynne: Yep, I get that.

Jessica Phillips: —that’s the place to find me and we can put that in the show notes as well. And I’m also at jessicaphillipsclarinet.net. That’s my. Yes.

Michelle Lynne: I love it.

Jessica Phillips: Cheeky and my, uh, you can contact me through my website, too.

Michelle Lynne: Perfect. Thank you so much for your time today. It’s been a pleasure.

Jessica Phillips: It has been so much fun.

Michelle Lynne: Okay, everybody, make sure you share this to your stories and go check out Jessica’s LinkedIn and we’ll see you in the next episode. Be fearless.