https://youtu.be/gqioLkGV8B8
Natasha Miller is the Founder and Chief Experience Designer of Entire Productions, an Inc 5000 corporate event planning and entertainment management company. She is also the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book Relentless: Homeless Teen to Achieving the Entrepreneur Dream. We talk about the power of delegation in business, why musicians make great entrepreneurs, and how to become a relentless entrepreneur.
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Automate Your Workflows with Natasha Miller
Our guest is Natasha Miller, the founder and chief experience designer of Entire Productions and Inc. 5000, Corporate Event, Entertainment, Production, and Marketing Agency. Natasha is the voice feature best-selling author of Relentless, and she's a classical violinist and jazz vocalist. Welcome to the show, Natasha.
Thank you, Steve. It's good to be here.
I think you're the first musician or former musician who has been on the show, so that's definitely a first. So, very interesting origin story. You already referenced a couple of things. So, how did you get here? What turned you into a business owner and leader, Natasha?
I think music got me to where I'm at today, period, end of story, but also my relentless tenacity, which someone recently said to me, which was pretty funny. But I studied violin at a young age, not as young as the Suzuki Method kids starting at four years old. I started in fourth grade, and it was able to get me a full-ride scholarship to three different universities. Even though I didn't graduate with a degree, which I didn't need, it really did propel me into a professional world. At a very young age, I was playing professionally at 15 years old.
I went, looked at your book, and I found a link, and I went to your website, and I saw this letter that you wrote in a class, I guess it was, about how you made $50 with a fellow musician at the Christmas concert.
That was a lot of money back then.
I bet it was. So it was that your first step towards entrepreneurship. And if it was, or one of the first was, how did that lead to you starting a company? Was it kind of a stop and go or it was an organic development?
My first paid performance was when I was 15 playing for the inauguration of our governor. And when you get paid at that age to do something that isn't raking leaves or mowing lawns or waiting tables, you get paid to do something that you're really good at and that you're passionate about. It sets off a little trigger, I think, in your neurons, and it was a little bit intoxicating. So I loved the idea that I could make money by doing what I love to do and that I was good at doing.
And so I think my entrepreneurial spirit ignited then. But then my entrepreneurial need, when I was 16, when I was dropped off at a homeless shelter on Christmas day by my parents, which is all in the book. Then it became a necessity. I had to make money. I had to monetize anything that I knew how to do and that was fairly good at. And ultimately, years later, 21 years ago, I started my formal business, Entire Productions, which is an entertainment and event production company.
So instead of my performing for these corporate and social events, either solo or with my jazz ensemble or with my string quartet, I'm sending out other musicians and other artists and making money while I'm sleeping, basically. I mean, I have to work during the day a little bit, but my team does the rest and then the artists do the rest. So it's a pretty miraculous situation. And it wasn't in fits and starts, but I would say the first 10 to 12 years, it was a lifestyle business that supported my performing career.
That's great, because it's not easy to make a living as a performer. It can be an extremely tough life. Tell me a little bit about, I mean, you talked earlier about your framework being, I think we called it the entire production project management system. Tell me about this framework and how does it allow you to put up so many events with a sm...