Why Audiences Aren’t Coming Back and How to Fix It

Dan Titmuss: Hello friends! Dan here. Today we’re joined by an incredible guest. Aubrey Bergauer is a leader in arts management and advocacy, celebrated for her innovative, data-driven approach to transforming arts organizations. Aubrey was first on CI to Eye back in 2018 when she was making waves as the executive director of the California Symphony. Since then, she’s launched her own business, Changing the Narrative, and recently published a game changing book for our field: Run It Like A Business. It’s chock-full of tips for running successful arts organizations in the post-pandemic era and adapting for-profit methods for nonprofit goals. In this episode, CI President Priya Iyer Doshi sits down with Aubrey and dives into some of the book’s key ideas that can make a big difference in our organizations. Aubrey shares proven strategies for building brand relevance, reimagining subscription models, and getting more out of our digital content. They also explore how evolving organizational structures can better serve our missions and growth. If you’ve ever felt like traditional models were holding your organization back, this conversation is the perfect push to try something new. Aubrey’s insights are practical and eye opening, and we know they’ll leave you inspired. Priya, over to you!

Priya Iyer Doshi: Well, Aubrey, welcome back to CI to Eye. It’s so good to have you back.

Aubrey Bergauer: Hi, Priya. I’m super excited to be doing this with you. Thank you.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah, we’re so grateful for you being here. And for our listeners, your last time on the podcast was back in 2018 and your life looked very different back in 2018. You were leading the California Symphony at the time, and I know since you have done so, so much. You have launched your business, Changing the Narrative. You have published a book that I’m so excited to dig into with you today, Run It Like A Business. So it’s been a few years for you, huh?

Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah, I cannot believe it’s even been over five years since I’ve gone full time in my business. Longer than that since I was here on the podcast. When I left the California Symphony… everything I’m doing now is a side hustle. Everything, all the speaking and the consulting, these are now all things I’ve become known for. And I thought at the time that I couldn’t keep doing both. I had to make a choice of what’s the next chapter going to be. And I remember I was so stressed about it and I just knew I wanted to make an impact beyond one organization. And now just to share it, I’ve worked, over five years later, I’ve worked with hundreds of organizations and individuals across all types of artistic disciplines and budget sizes. Orchestras, operas, theaters, dance companies, I mean, you name it. And two years ago I just started changing the business model to scale, and that’s just been a really exciting thing. And then the book this year. And anyway, so all to say it’s been a lot. As I’m recapping, like, wow, five plus years, it’s pretty amazing to, I dunno, have a moment to look back a little. Yeah.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah, yeah. I mean it’s been amazing to watch. I’ve been following your journey this past five years, and I remember you and I met backstage at Boot Camp back in 2018. That was the year that we met. And since then, obviously we’ve seen each other at various conferences and things like that. But your journey is inspiring and it’s just been incredible to watch. And I’m so excited to be here to talk about your book today. And I’ll be honest, it’s sitting right here. It is one that sits on my desk.

Aubrey Bergauer: Amazing.

Priya Iyer Doshi: And I often grab it and it is just full of such deep, insightful, concrete advice for our industry. So I’m a huge fan. And I wonder if we could just start by you sharing what moved you to write this book? What was the point where you were like, “I got to write this thing,” and then ultimately did that?

Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah, I was just seeing so often in our industry that we approach our challenges with programming. If we just program fill in the blank, we will bring in new audiences, younger audiences, diverse audiences or whatever it is. And kind of a thesis of the book is that the art is not the problem. And in fact, the art is our greatest strength. And so I’ve just been seeing it long before I was on my own, but for as long as I’ve been in this industry, which is now almost 20 years, which is another just crazy moment.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Mind-blowing.

Aubrey Bergauer: So it’s just been kind of everywhere I’ve been. And like I said now, hundreds of organizations later, I was just seeing this everywhere and I thought, this is not it. This is not solving our challenges, not addressing our problems, as we know. And so I thought, okay, it’s time to put pen to paper on what else is there to address these challenges. That’s not to say we don’t need to talk about our product, we don’t need to talk about representation in our product. I mean, there’s all kinds of things, but just the idea that that alone is not going to solve these things for us was really the impetus. And so the book is really about optimizing everything else surrounding our art. So many people in organizations have asked me over the years, what’s the playbook, Aubrey? So here we go. If you want a playbook, I would say this was my best attempt. Yeah.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah. I mean it was a great attempt. It is a fantastic playbook. I’m curious, are there specific parts of this book or specific principles that you’ve found people really latching onto? I know you’ve been traveling a ton this year doing book signings and presenting and all of those things, talking to tons and tons of people. So are there patterns emerging on parts of the book that are really resonating for people?

Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah, there’s a few things coming to mind. One is people are saying, I feel like I can do this now. I feel like everything you wrote about is actionable and I feel empowered. I feel inspired. When I hear those things, I’m like, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, we can do it. You can do it.” So I feel like that’s been a real just general type of response that I’ve seen, just this idea that it gives me hope, which for me, just talk about personal fulfillment to feel hope in our industry, which can feel sometimes just heavy when the work before us is so much. And so for people to say, I feel hope that we absolutely can create the future we want for our arts organizations. That’s been really amazing to see. And then I’ll just add one more thing that I’m seeing, which I think is so important. So I want to mention it, which is that board members as a category of people have been reading this book more and more. And that’s part of why I titled it this way, but we know if our boards don’t change, nothing changes. And so just to see board members emerging saying, okay, I feel like I can govern my institution a little better now… That, I think, is really big. Yeah.

Priya Iyer Doshi: That is awesome. I mean, I think there are so many books that sort of spin in the conceptual space and philosophical approach, and I love to hear that you are getting the feedback on how tangible this is and how useful it is for people to again, literally keep on their desk and think about action they’re going to be taking as a result of it. That’s awesome.

Aubrey Bergauer: Thank you. Thank you.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah, that’s great. Okay, so let’s dig in. So I know the first few chapters of the book are really focused on this idea of maximizing revenue and growing audiences, and that’s such a clear priority, especially for the marketing audience that we have listening today. So just thinking about the way that we package as opposed to what we’re selling itself, the art is not the problem, but there is some opportunity in packaging. And so can you talk a little bit about that opportunity that you see for arts and cultural institutions to really shift the way that they’re packaging what they’re selling specifically?

Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah, this is exactly why it’s chapter one. We all want more revenue. We all want to grow our audiences. So right out of the gate, I was like, we got to talk about this. So we say we need new audiences. That has been our mantra for as long as I can remember in this business. And yet the data show, we are actually on the whole pretty good at getting new audiences. This is actually pretty good news for us. And where we really struggle is to retain them. And so

when we talk about packaging, chapter one is really about user experience research, and the idea is just going to your audience or in this case, potential audiences. So chapter one is really about the newcomer. And so 10 years ago is the first time I embarked on a user experience research project, and we went to kind of people who should go to the orchestra, you self-identify as I go to live entertainment options. I feel like I’m generally culturally aware, I’m educated, all those things that we would say are probably the profile of who we serve. But for whatever reason, I don’t go to the symphony. That was the first time I did it was when I was running the orchestra. And so it was newcomers to the symphony. And the important thing for user experience research is it is about asking how someone, a user, feels.

And so I just want to underscore that for everybody listening. So often, we send out surveys on “what was your experience like?” And user experience research is really, it’s different in that it’s about how somebody feels. So why does this matter? Because we started learning things like, “When I visit your website, I feel overwhelmed.” “When I read your program page and it’s artist, conductor, title of piece, I feel confused.” “I don’t know what Romantic is versus Baroque.” And so I would say that’s a whole category of things when we talk about the opportunities before us. Okay, that’s the opportunity online. There are so many things we can change that are copy changes. Raise your hand if you want free changes that make a big impact! Copy changes on our website! Anyways, there’s just a whole bunch there about just the language we use and how do we address these feelings that people are having that are pretty hard to hear, but negative, difficult feelings about this thing we’re trying to sell.

And if we talked about online experience, then I would say also the in-person experience, and the feelings we were hearing there are… even, I was going to say, even worse than online. Harder to hear. It was feelings of when we talk about, I don’t know when to applaud and we probe, but what’s the feeling behind that? The feeling is “I feel unwelcome” or “I feel ashamed when I applaud at the quote wrong time and somebody shushes me.” and it’s like, oh my God, these people are coming to our institutions and they feel shame. And I’m like, no wonder why the stat I share in the book is 90% or up to 90% of first time attendees never come back. So again, not a new audience’s problem, it’s a retention problem. And I’m like, well, no wonder. I don’t go to places where I feel ashamed or unwelcome either.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Of course.

Aubrey Bergauer: So anyways, the good news is these feelings absolutely can be addressed. And that’s what the rest of the chapter is about. What do we do to start to combat these difficult emotions and what can we do to make other types of emotions, positive emotions, part of their experience?

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah, yeah. I mean it’s all about changing the perception, right? I’m remembering how it felt to watch your Boot Camp presentation back in 2018 because these facts, these truths about the way that people perceive our organization and whether or not our organization is inclusive of people like them, and whether or not people feel welcomed, like… we’re still having those conversations today. And it hits as hard today as it did when I heard you say it back in 2018. And I feel like we as marketers work so hard to really think strategically about the way that we’re communicating with our audiences because we care about their perception of our organization. And I think this type of feedback is so hard to hear, but so important to not deflect. It can make a real difference. And ultimately it’s the key to people wanting to come at all, let alone come back. Right?

Aubrey Bergauer: Exactly. Yeah. Hard to hear, but so actionable actually.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So let’s shift to another piece of the book that I really enjoyed, which is the subscription economy or the membership economy, which — all of this again is about retaining audiences and how do you get people to want to come back? How do you get people to want to commit at certain levels? So in the book you talk about, we all know subscriptions and memberships are down in our industry, but outside of our industry, we know subscriptions and memberships, that economy is actually booming. So can you talk a little bit about some of those opportunities that you see for us to consider as inspiration for our own subscription and membership models?

Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah, this question as you just laid it out was plaguing me. Plaguing me. I was like, how is it that… We know what the graph looks like in our industry, right?

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yes, we do.

Aubrey Bergauer: And I was like, how is that the case? And yet everywhere else, subscription and membership economy is thriving, booming, and to the tune of — this was something I learned in my research — 20%, around 20% of all credit card transactions globally go to the membership economy. So that’s our Amazon Prime, our Netflix, everything else we buy on subscription. And I was like, 20% of all of our credit card transactions. And so I was like, does not compute. What do we do about this? And so I started going deep into the research, deep into what’s working elsewhere, everything I could learn, I just became, like I said, it was plaguing me and I was determined. I was like, I’ve got to figure this out. So okay, there’s a lot of things we are doing differently. And so just to name a few of those things… So one is what I now call the first year cliff. So this is actually right on the heels of the conversation we were just having about retention. So we were talking about first time attendee retention, but now let’s talk about first year subscriber retention and first year donor retention. So nationwide, it’s pretty similar. No matter your artistic discipline, it’s about 50% of first year subscribers don’t renew. They fall off that first year cliff.

And all the data show, once we get somebody in for a second year and definitely a third year, those renewal rates are way, way higher. So it’s like that first year, and this is true, this is what I learned across any industry, any sector, always that first renewal period, whatever it is — your first month on some other program, or your first year as a subscriber — always that first year is the hardest, but it’s like if we just get that number better, a little better, it just sets us up for so much more recurring revenue later. So first year cliff, and then on the donor side, this comes from the Association of Fundraising Professionals. So across all nonprofits, the renewal rate for first year donors and across all nonprofits is 19. 19% first year donors. Yeah, I thought the subscription first year cliff was pretty bad. For donations, it’s even crazier.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Wow.

Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah. Wow is right. And so I just thought, again, if we just can do some things to just get those first year retention numbers up, it just really, it’s like… Now I say it’s like retention is compound interest. It just gets better and better and easier. So I would say a second thing that we do very different than pretty much everybody else that has a thriving successful subscription or membership business is how we do renewals. And so what happens every month? Netflix does not ask me if I want to renew my subscription.

Priya Iyer Doshi: They do not. They do not.

Aubrey Bergauer: So this idea that what we do is we opt everybody out for them. And this is true for donations too, generally on the subscription and donation side, we wipe the slate clean at the end of every season, and now I can’t unsee it. I’m like, oh my gosh. We literally cancel for them. And so I know everybody listening is like, well, what do we do? We have to legacy people in. And yes, yes, yes. There’s a million ways to roll something out. And I’m not saying we rip off a bandaid that’s going to hurt us, but when I started going deep on this, I was like, this is a key defining thing that is different. So how do we start? And we talk about this a lot and in my Run It Like A Business Academy. How do we start to move toward making the customer opt out for themselves? Anyways, there’s a whole bunch we could talk about there too, but I just want to name that it’s a pretty big difference between us and everybody else. And then the last thing I’ll say is we are pretty bad at behavioral repetition, and that’s this idea that we have to help people form a habit. And whether that habit is you came once and we want you to come just a second time before we upsell you to subscription, donation, gala, fill in the blank thing, or a habit of you just are in your first year of subscribing. We only want you to renew before we solicit you for this other thing or whatever. So helping people form a habit is a key factor that makes other subscription businesses more successful. And so it’s like if we can just have discipline because we know there’s a bigger prize, if we can just keep them building that habit right now. Anyways, so much to say on all of this, but I hope for everybody listening, it just gets the gears turning and there’s just a lot we can do. And I talk about it of how do we start to address some of these things to really take advantage of what is now sort of standard practice across the subscription and membership economy, and how do we apply that to our work?

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah, I feel like some of these changes can feel kind of radical. Even just the idea of something like auto renewal where instead of asking our audiences to opt in again, again every season, to just default opt them in and then they can tell us if they want to opt out. I think those changes can feel really radical. And I think you have some really interesting perspective on just the approach to change. How can we help our listeners think about a change like that that can feel so radically different than what we’ve done for so many years and kind of balance this idea of: we know that maybe a more modern flexible subscription or membership model might serve us better given all of this data, but I feel paralyzed on where to start or how to start. Do you have some words of wisdom maybe to help with that?

Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah, this is what I do all day every day, Priya. So often in our business, we tend to think we have to go from zero to a hundred. I don’t know where this comes from, but actually I have a theory. I have a theory that it’s like when we put on a performance, it essentially is perfect. That’s our mission. We try to do the highest artistic quality possible. And on the admin side, we think we have to match that. When we roll something out, it has to be all the way perfect. And yet we forget that our artists rehearse. And so what this has to do with change management is change happens slow. Every expert, every research study, anything out there on change management says, don’t go from zero to a hundred, don’t do the grand sweeping program, which we tend to do. We roll out these big new initiatives, the festival on this, and it’s like that’s actually not what the research shows is effective change management. So this is great news for us because what the research shows is that to do something small, do a pilot test, do something on a small scale, roll out the babiest of baby steps test, measure, refine, and then we get to do it again. That’s called iteration and that is how change is made. So I’ll give you an example. So one of the organizations in my Run It Like A Business Academy is Fort Collins Symphony. And they were very interested in this question of moving toward auto renewals, and they were trying to figure out how do we do it? How do we get there? And what do we do with our long timers versus our new subscribers? These are two different segments we can treat very differently. And they were so worried about the core audience, this is the question I get so often, what does the core audience think? And so they decided their baby step was going to be for their long time renewing subscribers — not the new subscribers. Anybody rolling this out for new subscribers, I think they shouldn’t get a choice new. They don’t know any other way, but — for long timers, they decided, okay, we’re just going to move our renewal form to, they made a bunch of changes to try to simplify the form. They merged in every bit of information they can. Why we ask existing subscribers to fill out their address is beyond me. So they merged in everything they could.

Priya Iyer Doshi: That’s great. Remove the friction.

Aubrey Bergauer: Exactly. Remove the friction. And they said at the top, check this box if you want everything the same for next season. So it wasn’t auto renewal, but it was literally one check mark and you can be done.

So for them, that was the baby step of ‘as frictionless as possible,’ as you said, and they were nervous. What are these people going to think? We’re merging in their seat assignment and we’ll just charge your card if you check this box. And you know what happened? They started getting thank you calls from their subscribers saying, amazing. Oh my gosh, you made this so easy for us. Thank you. Oh my gosh. And so they were so nervous and instead what they got was, “what took you so long?”

Priya Iyer Doshi: That’s incredible.

Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah, so I just share that story because we get so I think just entrenched in, “but this is what we do and how it’s been done, and there’s comfort in that and I know that.” And so that’s why the baby steps I think really are helpful. We just push it a little bit and then what do we learn? Okay, it’s going to be okay.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah. Yeah. And I think what an approach like that, like a pilot and a more iterative approach gives us too is real data to couple with the stories that we already tell ourselves about our audiences and how they’re going to feel and what they’re going to do and how they’re going to react with a pilot, we get the opportunity to actually see how they react and actually see how they feel. And I think the other thing that can happen is you hyperfocus on the loudest voice in the room. So you have some people who feel friction with specific things and they’re very vocal about it and they tell you about it, and all of a sudden you believe that the entirety of your subscriber base feels that specific way. And I think that’s another beautiful thing of the idea of a beta or the idea of a pilot, because you are wading in, you’re making some sort of iterative shift and you get to stop telling yourself the story without the data. You actually get the data and maybe the data supports your story. That definitely happens sometimes too, but also sometimes you get thank you calls where you thought people would go up in flames, you get something real. So I really appreciate that too.

Aubrey Bergauer: It’s a great pro tip for boards too, because another category of questions I always get is how do I get my board on board with this? And it’s like, we’re just going to call it a pilot test. Nothing is etched in stone. Yeah.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yes. It’s a beta. Always changing.

Aubrey Bergauer: Always a beta.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yes. Yes, totally. That’s a mantra at CI. Always in beta.

Aubrey Bergauer: I love it.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Let’s talk a little bit more about audiences. And we’ve already mentioned a handful of times in this conversation so far this focus on new audiences and diversifying audiences and just such an important common goal for our industry and one that needs as much weight as we can possibly give it. And you had a line in your book that I really enjoyed that I’m going to quote right now: “Stop serving Mexican food to Mexican people.” I love that line because I think it illustrates so clearly the point you’re making, which is that is not the sole key to success and solutions for all the things we’re trying to solve right now. Can you talk just about some other opportunities that you see in just getting us closer to this goal of diversifying and bringing in newer audiences to our space?

Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah, I first, I have to give credit where credit’s due. So Salvador Acevedo, he’s the managing director at Scansion, and he has done a lot of arts research in his role. And so he’s the one who gave that line. I interview him in this chapter, so just to give credit to him. And we try to solve our challenges through programming. So what does that mean on this question of specifically diversifying our audience? It often looks like, let’s do the Dia de los Muertos concert or the Black History Month program or, in opera, let’s program Porgy and Bess again. Or something like that. And I just want to say there’s nothing wrong with those programs. When authentically done and thoughtfully done, no problem. And yet what we’re seeing is that the same data is true. The people who do come out for those concerts, it’s 90% of those first timers aren’t coming back again.

So none of the stats are changing and they’re not becoming subscribers, and it’s not certainly not changing our overall demographic composition. So that’s where I go back to, then there’s got to be a different way to achieve these goals that are so necessary for our sector. And what I’ve learned is that really what I just described is very siloed programming. And we tend to do this not even just with racial or ethnic demographics, but we say, let’s do the movie concerts to bring in the young people. Let’s do that. So we do this with age demographics too. And the ideas that these siloed programming choices are, like I said, they’re not really serving the bigger goals we have. So what do we do? The data show that a blending of cultures is really the sweet spot. So instead of segregated programming or siloed programming, it’s blending the program.

The best example in my opinion, and this goes right back to the title of the chapter, is food. So many of us eat all kinds of food. And to quote Salvador Acevedo again, it’s like, “Stop serving Mexican food to Mexican people.” We have multifaceted identities, is another way to parse this out. We’re not just our gender or our ethnicity. We are also a mother, a sister, or whatever. We have interests outside of our jobs. We know these things about ourselves. And so that is how people approach entertainment choices too. I don’t just go to the symphony because it’s a Dia de los Muertos concert, and we see this a lot in pop music too. I cite it in the chapter, but the top global hits, the last five of them were actually a blending of genres, and there’s just something there about that. So anyways, this chapter really is just talking about embracing our full identities, reflecting people’s full identities and what we do.

And when we start doing that, basically it’s not just about the titles we put on the program, but it just is a much more holistic approach, an approach that looks a lot more like the world around us. And it starts informing other choices besides, like I said, besides the program, but who are the people performing, who is working front of house, who is on staff making these decisions? That’s a big one. That’s the next chapter actually, is talking about who’s on staff making these decisions. So anyways, all to say it just becomes not just a more reflective and authentic approach, but the data bears out a more effective approach as well.

Priya Iyer Doshi: And I think coming to an organization and seeing a more blended representation, like the entire experience of being at that organization, it doesn’t feel like there’s solely representation on the stage, but there is representation throughout the space that you are existing in that feels different and goes back to the sense of welcome and belonging and inclusion. So it’s a beautiful approach, not only across the programming piece, which is certainly a part of it, but the entire organization. What does blend look like across the entire organization? I really like that.

Aubrey Bergauer: Exactly. Yeah.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Okay. So let’s turn inward a little bit, just speaking about the teams and organizational structure inside of these organizations and actually the people. So you said one of my favorite buzzwords lately earlier in your response, which is silo. And we know that silos are very present when we think about just the clear, strong departmental lines that exist inside of arts and cultural institutions in the traditional sense, and I would say most arts and cultural institutions today still follow a traditional organizational structure. You are development, you are marketing, you are front of house, et cetera, et cetera. And one of the things that your book talks about is the idea of vertical work versus horizontal work and how the organizational structure can support one or the other just based on the way that you set things up. So maybe can you just start by introducing this idea of vertical versus horizontal work? What’s the difference and what are you getting at there between those two types of work?

Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah, so I’ll start by saying, I’ll back up and zoom out just a little bit. We have had our current organizational structure in arts and culture for 40 years, 40 plus years at this point. And when we first came up with this model of our structure, it made a lot of sense. It served us very well for a long period of time. And then to our own credit, we got more complex, we got more sophisticated in our marketing, in our fundraising, as we know, of course, the landscape has changed quite a bit around us in 40 years. Forget the last 40 years. Let’s talk about the last five. So where this is going is any business pretty much changes their structure within 40 years of existing. And so maybe the old structure just isn’t quite serving us as well as it used to. So vertical versus horizontal work.

So vertical work is what we’re all much more used to. It’s kind of what we described. The development department does this vertical, which we call fundraising. The marketing department does this other vertical, which we call ticket sales. And the education department does this other vertical, which is bringing music appreciation or art appreciation to children. For a lot of organizations, that’s what the education department looks like. And on and on and on. Finance, HR, all these other verticals. Okay. So that’s the work we are pretty accustomed to. Horizontal work is work that affects all of us. And so in the book, I contend that, for example, when we talk about community engagement or being relevant to our community, some of the conversation we were just having, we literally call sometimes our education department “community engagement.” And I’m like, this is not the job of one team or department. If we’re talking about what we were just saying, like who’s making these decisions and how are we reflective of our communities that we want to serve? That’s horizontal work. It is all of our jobs across the institution to contribute to these kinds of goals. So that’s just an example. And thinking about it that way I would say in some ways is harder. It’s not just point a finger to that person’s job or that department’s job. It takes building some institutional muscle to figure out, okay, well if there’s a goal that really does touch all of us, what does that look like and how do we define that? And there’s of course work involved in that, but it gets easier on the other side of that work. I will say, once you kind of do that, then you’re like, okay, it is clear how everybody’s contributing to fill in the blank. So that’s horizontal versus vertical work.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah, I think I was saying earlier when we were talking about the membership and subscription economy, I think that can feel like a radical change to move from this more siloed, clear department style work to more of the horizontal work where we have shared goals and we’re all sort of contributing to that. Do you have organizations that you’ve worked with who are taking this approach that maybe you can offer to our listeners as some inspiration?

Aubrey Bergauer: I’ll share about the American Shakespeare Center. So they joined my Run It Like A Business Academy, and they said, we are all in on this idea of patron retention. And in the chapter I talk about desiloing marketing versus development and what part of that is horizontal work and what part of that is vertical work that just needs to be better integrated. But they came and they said, okay, this is what we want to do. So total shout out to their executive director, Vanessa Morosco, and Stephanie Cabacoy, who — originally Stephanie was head of development, that is how she was hired into the organization. Then they came to me and they said, we want to convert that role to basically head of patron loyalty and combine those marketing and development functions. So the tactical parts actually weren’t the difficult parts of how do we figure out reporting structure and dah dah dah. That actually was not the most difficult thing. Instead it was how do we get our board on board? And so here we go right back to change management.

I think it’s important to say that from what I learned from my vantage point, this was not a super forward-thinking board. And I say that not to throw shade, but to say I think they were normal. I think they were a normal board. And so sometimes people, I tell these stories and everybody’s like, wow, that Fort Collins Symphony board must have been forward-thinking. That American Shakespeare Center board must have been really forward-thinking. And total credit to the leaders on the board who helped adopt these strategies. But anyways, from where I sit, I think they were normal boards, which means your board can do it too, is where I’m going with this. So they faced all the same pushback as so many of us is the point. So they had several conversations with the board over time, and we really had to elicit: what’s the fear? Because it wasn’t fear of change. It was like… it turned out as they probed, some of the board members were worried they might not have as high touch relationships with the staff. And it was like, where is that coming from? We said nothing about not having high touch relationships with our major donors and board members. And so it was like, okay, let’s parse this out and help them realize nobody’s going anywhere. We love you board members. And so that was kind of interesting. And then basically they had this big board meeting where it was kind of like the crossroads moment, like, okay, we’ve talked about this for months. Are you guys going to approve the title change in structure or not? Let’s decide here. So Stephanie and Vanessa prepared quite a bit, and I remember Stephanie excitedly messaged me afterwards and she said, not only did they get their board completely on the same page culminating in this big board meeting or retreat or whatever it was, and they said on the spot, she was like, I raised $50,000 from board member contributions wanting to support this work. She was so, of course, who wouldn’t be so excited? Some of us have had those moments where you’re like, yes, we did it. We really galvanized everybody. We got everybody facing the same way marching forward. And so this season right now that we’re in, they’re doing it. They’re bringing those revenue generating functions together and in a way that they complement each other, marketing and development, not compete for dollars from the same household. And so that’s what they’re doing right now.

Priya Iyer Doshi: That is awesome. That message is amazing.

Aubrey Bergauer: Awesome. Yeah.

Priya Iyer Doshi: That’s really awesome. Wow. Well, let’s zoom back out here as we come to sort of the end of our conversation. I just want to zoom out. Obviously we’ve talked about many different tactics in the book today, and there are many, many more. Again listeners, if you have not yet, I highly recommend you get it on Amazon or at your local bookstore, wherever you can get it. But I think a lot of this comes to the idea of change management and change itself can feel just incredibly difficult, incredibly overwhelming. I think the story you just told is inspiring, but I’m wondering if perhaps you can offer some words of wisdom on just how organizations generally can consider approaching change. Where can they start when they get overwhelmed? Thinking about all of the stakeholders that they need to get involved and on board and aligned, or how quickly they want to move or need to move, where can they start? How can they sort of calm and ground themselves as they embark on this journey?

Aubrey Bergauer: I think it’s “start small.” I mean, when we feel overwhelmed, that’s part of it. It just feels like the point B feels so far away or so high or something that that’s usually where the emotion of overwhelm comes from. So instead it’s like, break it down. What’s the smallest, smallest baby of a step? So it goes back to that. What is the pilot test? How can we do this on a very small scale and just see how the cards fall? I just can’t stress that enough because this is something I see all the time. I was joking that every day, this is what I do, but it’s kind of true. And so we just have to build… maybe an appetite for testing, is a word for it. This is totally Capacity Interactive language, I think, but let’s test it. But I, I mean, I said this earlier, we know what the graph looks like.

We know what the graph looks like if we don’t change. And so that should be our impetus to be curious, to want to try some new things, but try them on a smaller scale, not swinging for the fences. I think that’s just the key, and such good news. And I have — for anybody who wants more on change management, I have a whole article on my blog about this where I really go deep into more about what the research shows and how do we get others to buy into that future that we want, that picture and vision we want to paint that we’re advocating for. So I think that’s all really important. And then I’ll just give one more tip here, which is: don’t try to do everything all at once. There’s a book of 10 chapters of different strategies, and I give this advice a lot, which is no, no, no, just pick one, maybe two. And even within each of those chapters, it’s like, we’re only going to work on our website for the next season or whatever. And it’s like, if that’s the only thing you do, that’s okay, and be proud of that and carve those boundaries for yourself as an institution so that — We get the shiny object syndrome. Oh, you should try this. Oh, we should do that. Oh, we should do that. And it’s like, that’s not what I’m advocating for. And so some combination of pick a lane or two, or pillar, and just say, this is going to be the focus for now. And then when we get really good at that thing, then we will add on something else. That’s how change happens.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah, yeah. What you were saying about the data, we know if we continue the way that we’re going, we know what the picture will be. And it reminds me of that quote, “The definition of insanity is repeating the same action and expecting a different outcome.” Something like that. But it reminds me of that we all know the things that we want to change inside of our industry today, and we know that the actions of today are what have yielded the results of today. So what will the actions of tomorrow be that yields different results? Because the same actions of today can’t necessarily yield different results for tomorrow.

Aubrey Bergauer: That’s right. If we want different results, we have to do something differently.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, and I think that’s incredibly inspiring. I’m curious, I think when you think about change or impact in an organization, oftentimes it can feel like, okay, if I’m a senior leader, I have the power to make the change and I can make the impact. So what advice — One, I don’t believe that that’s actually true, but I think it’s easy to believe that that is the truth. But what advice might you offer somebody in maybe a more junior arts and cultural institution role who hears your words, they want to make an impact, but they feel held back by existing structures or traditions or preconceived notions of what their actions can or can’t do in terms of making impact inside of the organization. What sort of advice might you offer them?

Aubrey Bergauer: There’s a lot to say on this. I think the quick version would be, no matter your role in the institution, definitely arm yourself with the data. That was a game changer for me. I remember being early in my career, and at the time, this is so dating myself, but it was like, we need to start social media channels. We need to have digital ads at the time. Let’s have a mobile friendly website. At the time, it was like those things weren’t happening, and I was the kid in the office not getting — being dismissed for those ideas until I started equipping myself with the data and like, oh, could, can you guys just give me a hundred dollars to run some digital ads and I will report back? Fast forward. I ended up having to report at every board meeting going forward because they realized, oh, this is making a difference.

But really, maybe these examples sound silly, but the idea of going from “this is what my gut tells me”… Trust your instincts, of course, but how do you validate that? And that goes right back to everything we said on run the pilot test and everything. So no matter where you are in the institution, even if you’re more junior, get good at the CRM. That was incredibly helpful to me early on where I could say, this is what our data is showing. I think it’s just, don’t make it about your own opinion. Come armed and equipped. And that has made a big difference for me.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah.

Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah.

Priya Iyer Doshi: You can’t reject the data. The data is the data.

Aubrey Bergauer: Data is the data.

Priya Iyer Doshi: The data is the data. What’s next for you? Do you have any projects that you’re working on or research that you’re excited about? I know you just have been all over presenting on this book and signing books. What’s happening next? What’s your mind on next?

Aubrey Bergauer: What’s next? Oh gosh. I think in some ways it’s to celebrate this year. I think this year has been really, it’s been a good year. Not every year do I come out saying that. So I feel like just really celebrating that and enjoying that. But I think for me now it’s starting to think about that. To your question, what is the next thing? And I’m trying to find a way — I’m super happy with how the business is going. Continue that. We’ve done a lot on scale. How do we support more organizations, all of that. And then starting just to figure out, the more I remove myself from the day to day of the business, then that frees me. And so just really, I don’t have an answer, but just really trying to figure out what does that look like next? I wish I had the whole plan. I don’t know. That’s where my mind is right now.

Priya Iyer Doshi: It wouldn’t be fun if you had the whole plan today. So I mean, we’re excited to continue to follow along. And if people do want to follow along and want to learn more about you, where can they find you? Quick plug.

Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah, thank you for that. My website is AubreyBergauer.com. I’ve got some free downloads for anybody hearing all of this. So if you go to aubreybergauer.com/book, you can get, they’re called book bonuses, but basically if you buy the book, you enter your order number, and even if you already have it and you want these bonuses, no matter when you ordered, you can still get them. But it includes the research roundup. What happened is everybody was like, Aubrey, you talk about so much data in your book, and even just now in this podcast we’ve talked about so much, how do I get the CliffNotes version? That’s the download. It’s like all the top data points and their sources, and it’s all clickable if you need that data to go to the next board meeting or whatever. So that’s all there. That’s a free resource. Lots of articles that I’ve mentioned as well. So that’s all there. AubreyBergaeur.com.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Awesome. And finally, we’ve come to our CI to Eye moment. So this is our final question of today’s interview. If you could broadcast one message to executive directors, leadership teams, staff, and boards of thousands of arts organizations, what would that message be?

Aubrey Bergauer: I would say one more time: The product is not the problem. We should be so proud of that. Our product, our artistic product, is our greatest strength, and we have that in our corner. So many organizations and industries want a strong product, but we have it. And we’ve worked literally hundreds of years to get to that point, and we should be so proud of that. So the work before us then is to optimize those things surrounding that excellent product. And when we start doing that, I feel like it blows the doors wide open for us.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Beautifully said, we have a beautiful product. It’s so important, especially right now. Beautiful note to end on. Thank you so much, Aubrey, for being here. Thank you for chatting with me today, and we’ll see you next time on the pod, I hope.

Aubrey Bergauer: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

Dan Titmuss: Hi, everyone. Dan here, back with more CI-lebrity Sightings. Here are a few of our favorite stories about CI clients in the news. First up, the Washington Post ranked the 20 best art museums in America based on their collections, exhibitions, and history of public engagement. Those heavy hitters included the Whitney and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. The Post also ranked their favorite smaller museums, and we were excited to see our friends The Barnes Foundation, The Clark, and The Phillips Collection on the list. Speaking of rankings, New England Conservatory was named one of the top 100 women-led businesses in Massachusetts according to the Boston Globe. Way to go NEC! And on the opposite side of the country, the city of Portland just announced over $4 million in general operating grants for arts and culture organizations. Recipients include Portland Center Stage, Oregon Ballet Theater, and Portland Opera.

Fantastic news! If you’re looking for a thought provoking read, check out The Guardian’s article, “Small Step or Giant Leap: What AI Means for the Dance World” featuring insights from San Francisco Ballet’s artistic director Tamara Rojo. And finally, if you haven’t checked out #MuseumTok recently, Art Net reported on the growing trend of museums having Gen Z interns script their social media content. They included a roundup of their favorite takes on the trend, and we agree that the London Philharmonic’s video ate and left no crumbs. Pop off, queens. Got a story that deserves a shout out? Well, tag us on social and let us know.

Thank you for listening to CI to Eye. This episode was edited and produced by Karen McConarty and co-written by Karen McConarty and myself, Dan Titmuss. Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are CI to Eye’s designers and video editors, and all work together to create CI’s digital content. Our music is by whoisuzo. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please take a moment to rate us or leave a review. A nice comment goes a long way in helping other people discover CI to Eye and hear from experts in the arts and beyond. If you didn’t enjoy today’s episode, pass it on to all of your enemies. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok for regular content to help you market smarter. You can also sign up for our newsletter at capacityinteractive.com so you never miss an update. And if you haven’t already, please click the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, stay nerdy.