The audition is over, or the CD is sent out, and the hirers (the opera company, the school board, the wedding planners, or whoever) liked your talent. * So now what?
Most singers do nothing except wait for the phone to ring. This is exactly the wrong approach. As any salesman knows, the most important part of a sale comes after the pitch: the close.
It would be wonderful if all singers had managers who actually manage this process for them. Unfortunately, few managers have this skill. Many managers show up at the audition (or not), then simply go back to their offices to do what most singers do—wait for a phone call. They make no attempt to close the sale. They don’t know how to hustle—gently. Singers are very fortunate if they find a manager who knows how to cultivate relationships that end up in contracts—but managed or not, you need to take control of this process and make sure it is happening.
What are the obstacles to closing the sale and landing the job
1. The hirer’s fear of failure
The end game of selling is stressful and difficult for several reasons. First and foremost is your hirer’s fear of failure. Every hirer has had negative experiences with singers in the past. They are conditioned to be suspicious, skeptical, and wary of singers and sales approaches.
Hirers have had singers turn in demo doctored CDs. One studio engineer told me he doctored every single note of one classical singer’s CD! Another 40-plus singer I know is using a CD that is gorgeous—but it is 20 years old, and she hasn’t taken care of her instrument, so today her voice is in shambles. When these two misguided singers sent their CDs to companies, they got auditions. But the companies heard completely different live voices, voices with major problems, creating distrust for singer CDs coming after.
Hirers have had singers not show up for auditions, or show up to first opera rehearsals unprepared. Hirers have relied on photos singers sent to them, only to have the real thing turn up looking nothing like the photo—and nothing like the character they want to hire. Recently, a singer even landed in jail a few weeks into rehearsal, creating a PR nightmare for the company.
In short, hirers have been burned.
Furthermore, no one wants to be sold; they would much rather buy. They are afraid of making a mistake. They are afraid of paying too much and then finding a singer just as good for less money. They are afraid of criticism from others for making the wrong buying decision. (They have boards of directors to please, audiences, critics—and their colleagues at the New York audition wondering why they chose that singer from a CD.)
They are afraid of hiring an inappropriate singer and finding out later that they should have hired someone else. For example: One company hired a Kostanze only to find that she couldn’t sing the entire role and she was marking during rehearsal because she couldn’t handle it. She had to be replaced at the last minute. This was terribly embarrassing to the general director who hired her, and made him look bad to his staff and the Board.
This fear of failure, of making a mistake in buying you as a singer, is the major reason people object, hesitate and procrastinate to make the buying decision.
2. Your fear of rejection
The second major obstacle to selling is your fear of rejection, the fear of criticism and disapproval you, the “salesperson,” experience. You sent résumé out and asked for a “house audition,” for example in another state. This particular house will hear very select unmanaged singers—but now you are afraid to send an e-mail to follow-up.
You have to believe in your product enough to keep sending follow-up materials. Let’s say you got that audition, and walked out saying, “thank you very much.” Now you are reluctant to say anything further that might cause the prospect to tune you out and turn you off.
You know they don’t like phone calls from anyone but managers—but you don’t have a manager, or yours is sitting on his you-know-what, so it’s up to you! You just spent $35 on an accompanist, $150 on transportation, and $125 on a hotel for this one audition. You have a lot invested in this prospect, but if you are not careful, you find yourself being wishy-washy at the end of the sale, rather than risk incurring the prospect’s displeasure by asking for a firm decision. You’re afraid of rejection, so you do nothing—and lose the contract that might have been yours.
If you remind yourself that a lead-role contract in an B-level regional house could bring you $15,000, you will realize you must follow-up! While it is unlikely that a new singer will get that type of a contract, the same process of follow-up has to be observed for the smallest jobs.
3. The hirer is preoccupied
The third reason clinching the sale is difficult: Hirers are busy and preoccupied. It isn’t that they are not interested in hiring you. It’s just that they are overwhelmed with work, and they find it difficult to make sufficient time available to think through your recommendations and make that decision you so desperately need. And the bigger they are as a prospect, the busier they tend to be—so you need to maintain momentum throughout the process and gently push it to a conclusion at the appropriate time.
4. Inertia
Inertia is the fourth factor that can cause the sales process to come to a halt without a resolution. As I said, hirers are incredibly busy, so they tend to want to keep driving down the center of the road they know. They often hire the same people again and again. They work with the same manager repeatedly because they are in their comfort zone. Working with you may require them to make exceptional efforts to accommodate a change or a new way of doing things.
Maybe they can’t see your body type in a certain role, no matter how well you sang or acted it, because that’s not how they’ve done it before. They may recognize that they would be better off with your product (your audition was terribly exciting), but the trouble, expense and worry of working with an unmanaged singer (where they have no recourse should something go wrong), or working with a singer who doesn’t boast a long history of performances and reviews, hardly seems to make it worth the effort. They see no pressing need or urgency to stop doing what they are doing and start working with you.
The good news is that everybody you sing for has tried new singers sometime, somewhere. If they don’t use you, they will hire someone else. You must find a way to overcome the natural physical and psychological obstacles to buying, and then hone your skills, so that you are capable of selling to almost any qualified prospect.
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, have sympathy, rather than anger, for the audition process. Recognize the normal fear those who hire singers experience of making a buying mistake. Give them every reason you can think of to be confident in dealing with you—and do it again and again. Build a history of contact with your hirers so they come to know you as more than a mere flash in the pan.
Second, when you call or write to a hirer, accept that they are busy and you are interrupting. When you call, always ask if this is a good time for them to give you their undivided attention. If not, arrange to speak with them at another time.
Most general directors and artistic directors do not like uninvited phone calls or visits from singers. The modus operandi for follow-up is letters, faxes and e-mail (if you are lucky enough to have an e-mail address). Stay in touch after you send a CD or have an audition. You’ve now established a relationship. You understand the objections that the hirers may be feeling. Use those keys I mentioned above to develop your relationship and “close” your sale.
If an audition went extremely well, however, and you received feedback that sounded like the hirer is on the verge of hiring you, you might request a business dinner to get the face-to-face contact that is so difficult to obtain. Invite your manager, if you have one, and discuss how to proceed. [See the article on “Sealing the Deal with the Business Meal” in the September ‘04 issue.] Yes, treating a prospect to dinner is expensive, but considering the cost of a lost contract, it’s money well spent.
*Editors Note: This article presupposes that your product—your voice, technique, diction and stage presence—is marketable at the level of hirers you are pursuing. If you’re not sure, sign up for the Classical Singer Convention Competition in May 2005, where you will get honest feedback, or find a coach on the CS Coach Directory who has a lot of professional experience, and get an evaluation on what venues would be good for you at your current level of development. For example, don’t pursue A-level opera companies until you have outside confirmation that you are ready, because they keep records and won’t hear you again if you’re not. But in the meantime, there are weddings, parties, school shows and plenty of other venues.
