We are business owners!!!!

While I have come a long way in terms of my financial knowledge in the past few years, I wanted to make sure to convey my sincere reaction during the process of getting from point A to point B; getting from “i am a musician and that’s it” to “i am a musician and therefore i am, of course, a business owner”.  While I realize this sentiment of confusion may not be helpful to a fellow musician, I hope “teachers” and others who are in “leadership roles” find it helpful in progressing forward with an ever evolving music curriculum.  In response to such confusion it is usually a traditional thought to “create a class” dedicated to this one topic.  However, much like practice, I think it should be “LIVED” and oozing through the aura and purpose of an establishment dedicated to helping shape the minds of future artistic leaders.  Some simple ways to create an atmosphere that lends itself to this kind of thinking is:
1) a poster that says “YOU ARE A BUSINESS OWNER”
2)  Creating a blog where your teachers post strictly business resources like legalzoom.com and discuss things like “why should you declare a DBA?” or better yet “what is a DBA?”
3)  get students involved in the social media process of advertising the school/ department.  perhaps they do not yet have their own projects, but HEY! they are part of your school!  and love being there also!  in fact THEY ARE THE SCHOOL.  why not have them involved in how to help support it via poster design, tag line, name of a concert, actively marketing to invite the neighboring businesses and families to come to shows?
There you go!  3 ways of probably many many more ways to get the conversation going and LIVE the process of working toward entrepreneurship.
Polyphonic.org is doing a great job at bridging the gap and “starting the conversation”!