From Clarinet to Coaching: Tonya Lawson's Path to Multi-Passionate Entrepreneurship

Tonya Lawson is a multifaceted entrepreneur, professional musician, and SEO specialist who empowers other entrepreneurs. We talk about her journey and the valuable lessons she's learned along the way. Here are three key takeaways:

1. The Importance of Diversifying Income Streams: Tonya shared her experience of relying solely on her music studio for income, which left her feeling vulnerable when her county considered discontinuing a program that allowed her to teach during school hours. This fear prompted her to diversify her income sources and explore blogging, online courses, and coaching. The lesson here is clear: don’t put all your eggs in one basket! As entrepreneurs, we should seek multiple revenue streams to ensure financial stability.
2. Mindset is Everything: One of Tonya's most powerful insights was the significance of mindset in achieving success. She emphasized that everyone has the potential to create multiple income streams, but many people hold themselves back with limiting beliefs. We can manifest our ideas into reality by empowering ourselves with education, a positive mindset, and doing the work. This is a reminder that our thoughts can either propel us forward or keep us stuck—choose wisely!
3. Authenticity Builds Trust: In today’s digital world, it’s easy to get caught up in social media's curated perfection. Tonya encourages entrepreneurs to be unapologetically themselves, sharing their successes and struggles. We can foster deeper connections with our audience by being genuine and relatable. Remember, people resonate with real stories, not just highlight reels!

Join us as Tonya shares her journey from a clarinet player passionate about music to a thriving solopreneur who helps others build diverse passive income streams. Discover how she transitioned from teaching at university to creating online courses, blogging, and coaching while emphasizing the importance of mindset and personal branding.

In this episode, you'll learn about:

• Tonya's unique background and how her childhood shaped her entrepreneurial spirit
• The importance of diversifying income streams and avoiding the "one income source" trap
• Strategies for niching down and building a strong online presence
• The key performance indicators (KPIs) to track for business success
• How AI tools can streamline workflows and enhance productivity

Whether you're a musician, a creative, or looking to escape the corporate grind, this episode is packed with valuable insights and actionable tips to help you on your journey to financial freedom.

Remember to check out Tonya's YouTube channel and website for more resources, and let's help her reach her goal of 1,000 subscribers!

LINKS

Follow Tonya on YouTube

Tonya's Website

Follow Kyle on LinkedIn

Transcript

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Hello there, welcome to the Maker Manager Money podcast. My name is Kyle Knowles and today's guest is Tonya Lawson. Tonya is a multifaceted entrepreneur, a professional musician, college professor turned SEO specialist, and a creator of passive income streams. She empowers musicians to break free from the starving artist lifestyle and achieve the success they deserve. Tonya guides creatives in building businesses that align with their desired lifestyles, generating income without constant self-promotion, and establishing diverse passive income sources for greater freedom. Tonya is also a go-to coach for those overwhelmed by ideas, uncertain about their next steps, or feeling stuck. Her one-on-one coaching helps musicians and creatives establish recurring passive income and create effective marketing strategies. Tonya understands the struggles of creatives having spent years pursuing a university job only to find that financial stability remained elusive. She now helps others avoid the trap of believing that talent alone is enough to succeed. Tonya's goal is to be a hype gal for her clients, cheering them on to success. Welcome to the show, Tonya.

Tonya Lawson: Thank you for having me. That was quite the introduction.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Where are you dialing in from?

Tonya Lawson: I am dialing in from the Nashville, Tennessee area.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Okay, how's the weather in Nashville today?

Tonya Lawson: Today, it's cold. Two days ago, we were in the 70s. Today, the high is barely above freezing.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Thanks for, thanks for being on the show today. And I wanted to start out with, because you know, my introduction and looking at all your websites and YouTube videos you've created, you've done so much and you're so creative. You're a musician as well. I guess I want to just start by asking what's your number one skill.

Tonya Lawson: Oh, wow. Uh, that's a really tough question. Um, I, I would like to say I have many, um, a clarinet is my, is a huge skill of mine. I went to university for 10 years studying clarinet. So I play it really well. But, um, over the last few years, I have really gotten into business. I love everything about business. I love the marketing. I love the thinking outside the box, all of that sort of thing. And that's what I like to help people do.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: So tell me about your background then. So I'm assuming you played clarinet from the time you were young. Right. And I'm all the way through university. Let's talk about, you know, your childhood and, and your music, musical career, and then how you ended up kind of not really pivoting, but, you know, continuing to teach music and clarinet, but also getting into business.

Tonya Lawson: Well, I, you know, it I've come full circle. So as a young child, my dad was an entrepreneur. He wasn't super great at it as far as the money side. Cause he spent it just as quickly as he made it and he didn't charge enough. But he did taxes, he built houses, he owned a gift shop for a while. He was the ice cream man. He drove the ice cream truck through the neighborhood. So he was just really a big entrepreneur in general. And even at such a young age, I was determined that I was going to make my own money. So I remember distinctly making these little figurines out of pipe cleaners and convincing my little sister using the cute factor to sell them in church for change. And, oh boy, did I get in trouble for that one. But even, even at such a young age in elementary school, I'm trying to, to make my own money and make my own way. And I always had the attitude of, oh yeah, you think I can't do that? Well, I'm going to do it anyway. And it was kind of that way with music. I was, I, I was not a good clarinet player at all. I didn't really, we didn't have the money for private lessons. I came from a family, like my parents struggled day to day. My mom was a teacher. My dad was an entrepreneur who could have been great, but he was not willing to charge what he was worth. I was like, you know what? No, I am going to make clarinet my career. So I went to college for clarinet. went to grad school for clarinet and I did it. I got my doctorate in clarinet and I landed that university job that I really wanted to land after lots of hard work and discovered I didn't really like it. Along the way, I had to make a living and I learned pretty quickly, I could teach clarinet lessons and make a whole lot more money than I could, you know, working in a grocery store or fast food restaurant. So that's what I did for work. So I learned how to run my own business early on. And that first tax bill, that was a doozy because I had, I think it was $800. which I laugh at now, but $800 was a lot of money for me at the time and I had no idea. I didn't know I should be paying quarterly taxes. I didn't know anything about it. So I learned a lot of my lessons the hard way. But over time, I fell in love with business and it is what I absolutely love. I know that I was not taught that in music school. I was not taught how to market myself, how to do any of that. But one thing I did learn in music school is how to develop a really thick skin. And anybody out here who's a musician, who's been through music school, you know, if you can survive music school, you can survive pretty much anything. And it just kind of kept me going. And that's where I landed now.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: So you started, you started a music studio, right? To teach clarinet students, but then how did you start getting into blogging and passive income and online courses and that kind of stuff?

Tonya Lawson: Okay. It all started out of fear. So I had my music studio and it was doing really well. I was making a full-time living out of it. Um, as a matter of fact, my music studio is doing even better now. I'm I replaced my university income a long time ago. The problem was. I live in one of two states that I know of in the US that allows music teachers to go into the school to teach music lessons during the school day. We get to pull students out of their band class to have their lesson. Well, the county I teach in decided they weren't sure they were going to continue that program. They were going to discontinue it. And I was terrified. It was my sole income source. What was I going to do if I couldn't do this? So I realized pretty quickly I was keeping all of my eggs in one basket and that was a really bad idea. And I needed to diversify my income stream. So I knew that I had a website. And I had toyed with like a health and fitness blog a long time ago, back when blogging was really popular. But I had this website and I knew I should be able to make money with it, but I didn't know how. So I took my very first SEO course. And it was taught by a bunch of bro marketers who instantly told me I would never make money with my website, that I needed a niche website so that I could write product reviews and make money. So that's what I did. I started my coffee website. And I started making money with it. And I was like, okay, this is working. But I'm not convinced that this model is going to stay successful. And it didn't. Google hit and that website is out in Google Graveyard somewhere. But I started taking the things I have been learning them, tweaking them a little bit and applying it to my own website. At the time I was offering music lessons through it and then that pivoted to offering all of my courses through it as well. All of a sudden, my website is now starting to get traction and get views and make money. And all of a sudden, I'm selling my services without having to constantly go out and make phone calls and send emails and market myself. People are coming to me. And I was like, I have something here. So that's when I started developing courses because I was like, I'm getting money from the website. What if I can sell evergreen courses on here to bring in yet another revenue stream? And it kind of grew out from there, but it all started with that seed of fear and that realization that all of my income was centered around this one income source. And if I lost that one income source, frankly, I was hosed.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Well, so I know that you've talked about, uh, I think it's in one of your blogs or videos, you talked about. I don't, I never know how to say it correctly, but niche or niching down. And what are your thoughts about that? Because I think a lot of people have, you know, especially creatives, right? They have a lot of different things they're interested in. So what would you say to someone that thinks they need to niche or niche down?

Tonya Lawson: When it comes to niching down, I think it is definitely helpful for getting your feet on the ground. I don't think it is 100% necessary. Used to, it was 100% necessary, but as times have changed and Google has changed and you see the rise of the multi-passionate entrepreneur coming out, you see a lot of things. Now, from a Google-specific standpoint, as far as getting your website to rank, the more niched, the better. And what I mean by that is let's say that you are a stay-at-home mom and you want to make extra money on your website selling knitting patterns or with recipes that you've come up for toddlers. Well, you could easily put together a mommy blog to do that and you can talk about mommy blog things. Now, say at the same time you have a separate interest on books and reading and then you also are really into fashion. You don't want the mommy blog books and reading and fashion on the same website unless they relate back to that mom niche. So it might be books on childhood education or raising good children and clothing that gets you through every day of the life. But you don't want to put all of those together because what happens is that confuses Google. Google looks at that and they don't know what your website is about. So when it comes to your website specifically, Google needs to look at it and everything needs to fit together like a puzzle. You don't want any odd pieces because Google gets a little confused. Now, once your website is established, then you can start putting in anything else you want, but you need to start in a relative niche to get that jumpstart to start ranking on page one of Google.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: That makes sense. So, so you would be considered a solopreneur?

Tonya Lawson: Yes.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: And what are the, what are the many ways that you make money?

Tonya Lawson: Okay. Well, I make money through my music lessons. I make money through selling online courses. I make money through, uh, one-on-one coaching. I make money through my membership. I make money through, uh, affiliate income on my YouTube channel and my, um, blogs. I used to make money through ad revenue, but I made the decision to take ads off of my website. They started annoying me, and I thought they might annoy my users, and I decided that that small revenue stream was not worth keeping it on there. I am very close to making money on YouTube through ad revenue. I am monetized on YouTube, but I have not yet hit that ad revenue. I am about 100 subscribers away from hitting that as well. And then I make money through investments.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: So how many subscribers do you need to start monetizing?

Tonya Lawson: Okay. So to start the initial monetization, I believe it was 500 subscribers and 2000 watch hours. And that opens up for you to be able to, um, have memberships and sell products on your YouTube channel. I'm choosing not to do that right now to get monetized through ad revenue. you need to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. And most people get the 1,000 subscribers pretty quickly, but struggle with the watch hours. I grew my YouTube channel in a very strategic way. I didn't buy subscribers. I didn't tell families and friends. I wanted pure organic growth. So I did it through SEO, my specialty. And I am well past the 4,000 watch hours and I am at, I believe like 898 subscribers. So I'm about a hundred subscribers away from having ads. And the reason I did it that way, because it helps with the algorithm, because the people who watch my channel, they who are subscribed, they watch videos as soon as they come out. And that tells YouTube they're important and sends it to the top. So I get more viewers and grow faster. I've only been actively growing it for a year.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: That's great. Let's let's go back and talk about your personal coaching, your one on one coaching. I guess who's your who's your target client and what are the services that you offer?

Tonya Lawson: I work with solopreneurs in general. I work with musicians. I have a client who is a psychic medium. I work with a systems specialist who helps build out systems, mainly with SEO, but also I've worked with many clients on business in general, how to build out a business. I've worked with clients who want to build up a full-time music studio. that makes a good living. And I help them do that. I help clients market their courses. So basically anything that involves like solopreneur, business and marketing, I'm your girl.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: So based on your coaching experience, especially with creative type people, when they're trying to build out a business, what are some of the common obstacles that they need to overcome to achieve some consistent passive income?

Tonya Lawson: It is all about mindset. It is 100% about mindset. It is within every person on this earth, everyone listening to this podcast to have multiple income streams and build them out. But so many people think they can't or think, Oh, that's too hard. Or, Oh, my brain doesn't work that way. But in reality, we're all capable of learning. You just need to empower yourself with the education. and the know-how to make it happen. Because every single person out there has a great idea in their head, and they are perfectly capable of manifesting that idea. And when I say manifest, I don't mean that woo-woo stuff. I mean put specific building blocks in place to achieve their goal.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: And some of your courses and videos that you have on your website help people understand how to do that. Is that correct?

Tonya Lawson: Yes, absolutely. And then I also have my membership, which gives you access to my courses, and it gives you access to me every single month. So in a one-on-one, we're in a group coaching call to where we can do all of that together. So yeah.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: And I know you emphasize a lot the importance of building a personal brand. What are some strategies for entrepreneurs to create a strong online presence and connect with their audience in a meaningful way?

Tonya Lawson: Don't be afraid to show who you are. That's the biggest thing. Social media is so curated. Media in general is curated. You only see the high points. And people know that, and they see through it. They know when you're being fake. So you need to be genuine. You need to be who you are unapologetically. So I am unapologetically myself. I am an entrepreneur. I am also Catholic, and I make that very clear on my platforms. I also am a musician. I also am liberal. All of those things are part of who I am, and I don't hide them. I make it very clear. Now, that said, I'm not going to go out there and stir the pot every single day, but I just let people know who I am, and I think that builds trust. All of my stuff is not curated. Some of my YouTube videos, I show up no makeup or, you know, I look a little rough because that is reality. Sometimes in my stories, if I have something that I feel like I need to stay, I don't, a lot of people will go, I've got to go get my makeup on. I have to change clothes. I have to, no, I'll just open the phone and just talk because it's like, I'm your friend and your friend doesn't always show up looking their absolute best. But it is real. It is me. I talk about my own struggles with business. I talk about, I don't, I don't hide that. I just told you my, my first blog that was super successful is in the Google graveyard because it's based on old SEO. Now I could spend a lot of time trying to revive that, or I could just say, you know what, that is a lesson that I've learned and I need to not listen to everybody else and go with my own brain, my own intuition and do what I think is best. because those blogs are still thriving today.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Nice. How can entrepreneurs effectively measure the impact of how successful they're doing? What are some of the metrics that you're looking at to see that the efforts they're putting in, they're getting some ROI besides just making money?

Tonya Lawson: Besides making money. Okay, so I'm a big proponent of tracking your KPIs, your Key Performance Indicators. So that's going to vary for every single business owner. For me, that's how many YouTube subscribers I make, how much I'm earning in affiliate sales. Is my Instagram growing? What does my email list look like? I have what I call my small but mighty email list. My email list is not filled with thousands and thousands and thousands of people, but I have more than 50% open rate. So people are actually reading my emails because they care about what I have to say. That number to me is more important than how many I have, because if I had 10,000 subscribers and the same amount of people, we're opening it, that I'm paying more for an email client that's not giving me the return on that. See how many DMs you're getting. How many people are you actually talking to face-to-face? All of these are indicators because when you start as an entrepreneur, it starts small. And then it starts to grow. And then it starts to grow. And for me, one of my big trackers is how many people I hire. I just hired another team member to contract out and work with me. And to me, that's a sign of success. The fact that I am able to hire people to help me out, which helps my business grow more.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Okay. And, you know, speaking of helpers, what kind of AI tools and AI workflows have you adopted?

Tonya Lawson: Oh, I am a huge I'm a huge fan of AI. I have been using AI writers since before ChatGPT. So for four or five years now on my blogs. Now, AI has to be used the right way, but it can be very beneficial to help streamline your workflow. I taught an AI intensive the beginning of this month, showing people how to do just that. How you can use AI to generate kind of a content plan that you can run with. and save a lot of time. So I use AI as part of my system to create ideas. So if I have a good idea for a YouTube video, I'll sketch it out on paper and then I'll run it through AI and I'll read through there. And AI may give me two or three more talking points that I didn't even think about. So I'll pop those on as well. then I'm the one that does the talking. Because I'm the expert, not AI. If you let AI be your expert, it's not going to go well for you. Because it can be wrong. Then I will take that same AI and take my YouTube video and upload the script into AI and you know, say, you know, come up with five Instagram posts on this or come up with an outline for a blog post on this. All of that is a great way to use AI in your business to make things go a little faster, to kind of brainstorm with you, but don't let AI run your business for you or your business is not going to go well.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Okay. Are you doing any kind of automation with AI or any kind of workflows?

Tonya Lawson: Yeah, technically I am. I just started using a CRM called High Level. And it does use AI to put things into a workflow. I just released a new funnel that starts with a super low ticket $7 SEO checklist. It's like a swipe file. It has chat GPT prompts, et cetera. So I have that in there so that it's all set up in the background so that when someone purchases this, they go into a lead tracking system where then I can then manually move them around based on where they are in the business. So yeah, I do use AI workflows for stuff like that.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Nice. So I want to move into some, uh, some personal questions, but the first, one of the first questions I have for you is what's the book that you recommend the most to people?

Tonya Lawson: The one thing by Gary, I do not remember his last name off the top of my head. Uh, in it, the whole premise of this book is instead of thinking about all the things you need to do. Think about what one thing you can do right now that will lead you toward your goal and focus on that one thing, just one thing at a time. It's a great book. I highly recommend it.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Awesome. I'm going to add it to the queue for sure. What's one thing you'd like to change about yourself?

Tonya Lawson: I wish I were less lazy when it came to health and fitness. I wish I had a little more motivation to get out there. I've been struggling with that lately. But other than that, I'm pretty happy with who I am. Like I said, I try to put myself out there as uniquely myself, and I'm constantly working on myself through journaling and that sort of thing. And one thing that I've done a lot lately is I've learned to let go of the little things, and that's really important to me. But overall, I'm pretty happy with who I am in general.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: That's awesome. Who has had the most significant impact on your life?

Tonya Lawson: Oh my goodness. You know, I would have to say my dad. I think watching him be that entrepreneur. And when, when a business didn't work, he just dusted himself off and he just started a new one. And then he started a new one and he had an insane work ethic. which I definitely picked up and I'm working on losing a little bit of that. I've had to set boundaries with myself. I'm not allowed to work more than 40 hours a week because it's, that's just ingrained in me to constantly be working. But my dad had a huge, huge impact on me.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Okay. Now I have a lightning round of questions. Uh, these are, these are, uh, easy ones, but, uh, let's start with, uh, what's your favorite candy bar?

Tonya Lawson: My favorite candy bar. Twix.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Favorite music artist.

Tonya Lawson: Oh, can it be classical?

Kyle Ariel Knowles: It can be.

Tonya Lawson: Brahms anything written by Brahms?

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Favorite cereal?

Tonya Lawson: Grape nuts. I know it's weird. It's it's a childhood thing with my grandma.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Do you put sugar on it? That's the question.

Tonya Lawson: I you know what I do put a Splenda on it when I was little my my grandma always put put a little a teaspoon of sugar in it for me.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: I called that the rock cereal when I was growing up, but I still ate it. I would put a lot of sugar on it though. Mac or PC?

Tonya Lawson: Oh, Mac.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Google or Microsoft?

Tonya Lawson: Google.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Dogs or cats?

Tonya Lawson: Both. I have both. I can't, I can't choose. Okay.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Phantom or Les Mis?

Tonya Lawson: Phantom.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: Okay. And the last question I have for you, it's a dual question. What's the worst thing about being an entrepreneur and what's the best thing?

Tonya Lawson: The worst thing is definitely taxes. Taxes and health insurance in America. The best thing though is living my best life. I am living my dream life and I'm loving every moment of it.

Kyle Ariel Knowles: I love that answer. So thank you so much, Tonya, for being on the podcast. I love having solopreneurs on. And I think we're kind of moving in this direction where people are actually escaping corporate and figuring out how to be a solopreneur, whether it's consulting. You know, a lot of people have skills. And like you said earlier in the podcast, They just need to figure out how to turn that, you know, to monetize it basically. So I think your, your podcast is going to inspire a lot of people to kind of go and figure it out. And we'll leave links to your YouTube site, your website, and all of your materials that we talked about on the podcast. We'll put those in the landing page and, and send people your way. Let's try to get you up to a thousand subscribers.

Tonya Lawson: Absolutely. Thank you so much.