"Spiders in COVID Space: more stories of adapting to unwanted change" is an anthology of articles about inspiring pivots made during the COVID-19 pandemic. The series is a sequel to, and draws on the 11 adaptive traits identified in, the bestselling book Spiders in Space: Successfully Adapting to Unwanted Change by Todd Hirsch and Robert Roach (2017).
The spiders in the title were sent into space by NASA to see if they could spin webs without the aid of gravity. After some false starts, they adapted to the new conditions and were able to spin brand new structures of webs in a totally different environment. The pandemic has presented all of us with a wide range of situations where our gravity has been taken away.
This series has two goals:
Enjoy these stories of adaptability!
- Todd and Rob
The spiders in the title were sent into space by NASA to see if they could spin webs without the aid of gravity. After some false starts, they adapted to the new conditions and were able to spin brand new structures of webs in a totally different environment. The pandemic has presented all of us with a wide range of situations where our gravity has been taken away.
This series has two goals:
- to share some inspirational examples of adapting to change during COVID-19; and
- to revisit the adaptive traits outlined in our book to see if they still apply and, in turn, be of use to others who've lost their gravity in the pandemic.
Enjoy these stories of adaptability!
- Todd and Rob
From Ball Caps to Brisket
The pivot of Russell Bird and The Promo Addicts
13-OCT-2020
____________________________________________________________________
When Russell Bird started a promotional marketing company a few years ago, he had no idea where the universe was going to take him. His company, The Promo Addict, is a business-to-business service provider of branded merchandise such as jackets, water bottles and baseball caps emblazoned with company logos.
“It was slow growth at first,” says Russell. No wonder: when he set out in 2015, Alberta had already slipped deep into recession due to falling oil prices. But things picked up. “We got connected with some pretty great customers. Our go-to marketing strategy is what we call ‘Make Great Promo.’ Our feeling is that if you make great things, then you'll get a lot of referral business.” And they did.
Last year the company won an industry award for being one of the fastest growing promotional marketing companies in Canada. At the start of 2020, the operation—based in Sherwood Park, Alberta—was on track for its best year ever.
But then a microscopic novel coronavirus upended everything that Russell and his five-person company had built.
“We actually had a bunch of our staff in Nashville for a promotional products conference,” says Russell, recalling the early days of the pandemic. “They flew home on March 13, which was the day after the NHL and NBA both canceled their seasons. We had a conference call and decided that we would all quarantine for 14 days,” he says, even though quarantine periods were not yet mandated by the government.
Armed with laptops in their home offices, the staff locked the company’s door to customers and tried to work out a strategy for the coming months. They prepared a six month budget based on zero sales, contacted customers who had orders in the pipeline, and offered them the chance to cancel.
“We had to cancel $100,000 in orders in March,” recalls Russell. It was the right thing to do, both to maintain good customer relationships, but also to avoid being stuck with thousands of dollars of branded merchandise that the client may not be able to purchase.
It was a troubling time for the company. Not knowing when the next order or payment was coming through the door and anticipating no revenue for six months was not how the year was expected to unfold.
There was some help that came along. “The federal government came up with the 10% wage subsidy,but we still needed to lay off some of our staff. When Ottawa announced the 75% wage subsidy about a week later, we rehired all of our staff except for one.”
Still, none of it was easy for the company in the early months of the pandemic. Sales in April and May remained well below previous years, averaging only about 10% of annualized sales. But with the government’s wage subsidy, The Promo Addict was able to hang on to its staff and keep the lights on.
But as spring turned into summer, Russell was able to bring one of his passions into play. It wasn’t branded water bottles or baseball caps. It was pork! Specifically, barbecued pork.
As it turns out, Russell isn’t only a successful entrepreneur in the promotional products business, he’s an avid barbecue enthusiast. In 2018, he took 2nd place in ribs at the World Food Championships in Orange Beach, Alabama. He’s also on the Board of Directors for Porkapalooza, Canada’s largest barbecue festival. Bringing his passion for barbecue to The Promo Addict helped him pivot—albeit in an unexpected way.
“Because of my experience in competitive barbecuing and an affiliation with a grill maker called Pit Boss, I would often sell barbecues to friends,” he says. “It was a nice side hustle.”
But with revenues flatlined in his promotions business, opportunity came knocking. A friend called him up to buy a barbecue, but when Russell went to the warehouse to pick it up, the distributor was out of stock. The sales rep at Pit Boss told him that demand for barbecues had exploded, so if he wanted to put in an order, it would be better to order several at once.
“So I said, okay yeah, I'll take six or seven barbecues and I'll put them in my warehouse and sell them to friends,” he says. “Once they arrived, they were all sold within a week.”
Ironically, what demolished sales of promotional items was also what spurred demand for barbecues: COVID. With nowhere to go during the lockdown, Albertans were stocking up on merchandise for their homes and backyards, including barbecues. The surge in demand was felt across the province with retailers struggling to keep up.
“Maybe I should have ordered more!” he laughs, “So I called my buddy at Pit Boss and asked when the next trailer load was arriving. He said, ‘Oh, I still have a couple’ … which turned into a couple more, and then a couple more after that, and even more after that.” Even into the fall, Russell was receiving more than a dozen barbecues a week, and they kept selling like hotcakes.
The kinds of barbecues that Russell specializes in are high-end wood pellet grills, more like smokers than traditional gas grills. They give the meat a rich, smokey flavour that puts their barbecued meats alongside some of the best grilled meats in the world.
“I looked at my wife and said, ‘There's an opportunity here for us to open a barbecue store and really sell it to the public!” Russell says. So using their entrepreneurial instincts, Russell and his team built a website, started a Facebook page and a Twitter account, and called it You Need a Barbecue. It’s the barbecue team name he uses when taking part in barbecue competitions, and draws from the last name of Russell’s father-in-law, Ron Yoneda. Ron is also a business partner on the barbecue side and helps teach the classes.
He is not involved in the promo business but he and I have competed together under that name and he helps teach the classes so I feel like he should at least be mentioned.
Seeing the opportunity to upsell related products, they also started importing some of their favourite seasonings and sauces from barbecue meccas like Kansas City and the southern states. “It's been pretty wild stocking products that no one else can get elsewhere.” In addition to Pit Boss, Russell started ordering and stocking other types of specialty products, like Louisiana grills and country smokers, which added to sales.
The added revenues from the grills and accessories helped offset the plunging income from the promotions business. Eventually, Russell divided the promotional merchandise activity and the barbecue grill sales into two separate incorporated businesses, knowing that each business was unique and required its own business plan and strategy.
But the pivot didn’t stop at selling high-end wood pellet grills, seasonings and sauces. They added to their revenue stream by offering barbecuing lessons.
“We decided we were going to run classes on the weekends, to teach people how to use these barbecues. It's not the same as just turning on your natural gas and throwing burgers on. With these types of grills, you can cook whole pork shoulders and briskets. It’s the best barbecue in the world to cook a wagyu steak on. And so we wanted to teach people how to do that in their own backyards.” Sherwood Park neighbourhoods had never smelled so good!
Russell measured out the space in the existing back area of The Promo Addict shop and calculated the number of people he could have in a safe, physically-distanced class. Using little more than social media and word of mouth, the classes sold out almost instantly. Soon he started having to put people on waiting lists and even turned people away because of the demand.
“We feed our students very, very well. No one leaves here without the meat sweats!”
More help came from the relationships Russell had cultivated. “We've had some really good corporate partners that have come on. For example, we brought on the craft beef company which is a mail-direct order operation that sends beef directly to your door. They gave us the gift cards for a significant discount for all of our swag bags for everyone who came to our classes.”
“Alberta pork signed up to give swag for everyone. Alberta Turkey worked with us, too. We did a turkey class where we taught everyone how to smoke their Thanksgiving turkey.” Also, a meat market in St. Albert with a refrigerated truck helped deliver frozen turkeys for everyone in the class.
As well, it was Russell’s personal connection and relationship with people at Pit Boss grills that gave him the opportunity to purchase and distribute the barbecues from the outset. Without that strong relationship in place, Russell would have been at the back of the line with everyone else waiting for grills in the spring of 2020.
“When I went to the World Championships, I cooked on a Pit Boss. Pit Boss has been paying my entry fees and all my barbecue contests for the last four years. And so through those relationships, I do get a little bit of preferred treatment when I pull up there with my pickup truck, they usually load me before the transport trailer that's waiting there. I can walk into the showroom and just walk around with the full comfort of knowing most of the people who work there,” he says.
But even though the pivot towards selling grills and barbecue classes worked well, there were enormous difficulties for Russell and Jocelyn as well.
“I think the biggest challenge was balancing two businesses at once,” says Russell. “When I started sharing on my personal social media that we were running this barbecue store, I got some really kind messages from friends and customers saying, ‘Oh no!, How come you closed The Promo Addict!’”
“Trying to put everything in its own bucket was a real challenge—to communicate with everyone that we weren't losing focus on The Promo Addict, that the barbecue business was just another opportunity to provide service to our friends and customers. Our promo operation is business-to-business oriented, whereas the barbecue side is consumer-based. So it's two entirely different marketplaces.”
Another relationship that helped Russell adapt and pivot was the connections he had with other barbecue and accessory businesses throughout the province.
“I was able to phone my friends who own a barbecue store in Red Deer and ask: ‘How many square feet should I be looking at? What should be my annual expected revenues in my first year? Which product lines will create what percentage of my revenues?’”
“If we can do a good job of building a culture of stronger and better barbecue in Alberta, I think that'll benefit everyone, as opposed to being in each other's backyard where we're just trying to beat each other on price.”
When asked what the single biggest factor was in helping him pivot during a time of economic crisis, Russell doesn’t hesitate. “It was my wife.”
“Just her saying yes to that first order of seven barbecues,” he laughs. “I couldn't believe it! But when she agreed to the plan, it was a real risk for us to invest that kind of capital into our first order, not knowing what was going to happen. She could have just as easily said no, let's hold onto our money and hope that our promo business comes back.”
“She took a risk on me and took a risk on the business and that's where the biggest credit goes,” he says.
As entrepreneurs and business operators, Russell and Jocelyn weren’t naive regarding the risks they were taking when they fired up their barbecue retailing operation. Alberta’s economy was frail going into the pandemic, and COVID knocked the wind out of the province. Consumer spending shrivelled up for a lot of products. People were losing their jobs. The whole barbecue idea could have been a bust.
But using their business sense and embracing risk, they grabbed hold of the opportunity that COVID was providing. The economy may have been challenged, but people were nesting and spending money on items for their homes.
Russell’s story and his pivot during COVID is unique. Not every small business operator has a hobby on the side like his that’s suitable for a second line of revenue. Yet what is not unique about his successful adaptation is the adaptive traits he demonstrates. Many of these are the traits identified in our book Spiders in Space: Successfully Adapting to Unwanted Change.
He had passion for barbecued meat. Selling barbeques started as a fun little side-hustle, but with his knowledge and love of barbecue, Russell was able to build a brand new source of revenue. That doesn’t happen without passion.
As with every story of successful adaptation to change, Russell was open-minded and creative. Adapters take pains to look at things from different angles. Russell was able to imagine a real business coming forth from his hobby and tapped his creative side to come up with the idea of offering cooking classes.
A little good luck didn’t hurt, either. The universe was cooperating with Russell in that his hobby was something in high demand during COVID. If his hobby was face painting at large events or leading adventure seekers on trips around the world, things would have worked out differently!
The central role of luck in these stories highlights that thriving in the face of adversity is not always possible no matter how hard you try and there is no shame if you simply have to give up and move on.
Speaking of hard work, even with luck on your side, adapting to change requires you to put your back into it. Adapting to change is never easy, and no one should assume it will be. Without Russell’s willingness to work super hard, this new business would never have taken off like it did. Managing both his promo business and the budding barbecue operation at the same time only added to the challenge.
Russell was also willing to take risks. Russell gives full credit to his wife on this, but both he and Jocelyn were able to see past the potential for failure on the venture. That’s what risk takers do. And without that ability, adapting to change is much less likely.
And finally, he relied on the help of others. Russell had a network of relationships that he had built along the way. Russell didn’t wait until the crisis appeared before he started fostering those relationships. They had been there all along—with the barbecue maker Pit Boss, with his customers and community in Sherwood Park, with his team at The Promo Addict, and perhaps most importantly, with his wife and co-worker.
All of these traits proved to be critical elements in Russell’s successful pivot. As he and his businesses continue to wrestle with the pandemic, these traits are certain to help them adapt to whatever comes next.
---
We wish to thank Russell Bird for taking the time to share his story with us. If you would like a hard copy of Spiders in Space: Successfully Adapting to Unwanted Change, visit the "ABOUT TODD" tab at the top of the page and go to BOOKS. An ebook version is also available from Amazon.
______________________________________________
Music of the heart
Staying in tune during COVID-19
An interview with Elaine Cheung, Jesse Dollimont and Shannon Robinson of JB Music Therapy
29-SEP-2020
_____________________________________________________________________
“I learned very early in life that without a song, the day would never end; without a song, a man ain’t got a friend; without a song, the road would never bend. So I keep singing a song.”
– Elvis Presley
Music is a fundamentally important source of joy, healing, fun, contemplation and community—not to mention income for musicians, teachers, roadies, instrument makers, concert venue ushers and many others. Thankfully, the pandemic has not put a stop to music. But it has definitely limited our ability to experience it together. From cancelled concerts and closed night clubs to virtual piano lessons and dormant church choirs, the shared experience of music has been curtailed by COVID.
This is especially true for those who provide and receive music therapy. According to the Canadian Association of Music Therapists, “music therapy is a discipline in which Certified Music Therapists (MTAs) use music purposefully within therapeutic relationships to support development, health, and well-being. Music therapists use music safely and ethically to address human needs within cognitive, communicative, emotional, musical, physical, social, and spiritual domains.” In other words, trained therapists use music to help people.
Music therapy takes many forms. Picture, for example, a group of seniors with dementia in a long-term care facility being reinvigorated by the chance to sing and reminisce in a group with their loved ones.
Calgary is, in fact, home to the largest employer of music therapists in Canada: JB Music Therapy Inc. JBMT’s team of certified music therapists “design treatment plans for people of all ages to foster change, boost mood, decrease stress, improve speech after injury, increase focus, develop learning, lessen anxiety, and recover lost memories.” They also serve as ambassadors for music therapy through presentations, webinars and workshops.
The day the music died
You can see how these services would be especially helpful during a pandemic. Like many other in-person activities, public health measures combined with individual efforts to avoid COVID-19 put the kibosh on in-person music therapy. In JBMT’s case, it was literally overnight.
“On March 16 the City of Calgary declared a local state of emergency. As of March 17, our caseload had dropped by 100%,” explains JBMT’s Communications Manager Jesse Dollimont.
JB Music Therapy went from serving about 1,500 people a week at places like hospitals, group homes, schools and care centres to zero.
“We were busy and on track to have perhaps our biggest year of growth yet in terms of deepening our client relationships and our financial stability. It was going to be a year for the ages and then COVID hit.”
Pick your metaphor: they had the rug pulled out from under them; their apple cart was upset; their boat was capsized in a storm. We prefer the metaphor (and true story to boot) of spiders taken into space to see if they could spin webs without the aid of gravity. However you describe the pickle they were in, it was time to adapt or go out of business.
“There was a scary period where none of us had anything to do. That was terrifying. And it was hard,” remembers Jesse.
The downtime didn’t last long. Just a week after the lockdown began, JB Music Therapy’s caseload was back to about 30% of where it was pre-pandemic with all of the sessions taking place online. By the end of June, it was at 50%, most still online, but with some in-person sessions resuming within the specific protocols and restrictions unique to each site.
Is it live or is it Memorex?
The perhaps somewhat odd sounding concept of realistic faith was key to JB Music Therapy’s pivot to online services. Basically, you have to think big, but not so big that your goals are unattainable. You have to be confident and tally your assets while also not kidding yourself that everything will be fine or the same as it was.
In JBMT’s case, the team believed they could make virtual sessions work while recognizing that they were not going to be the same as the in-person experience. They asked themselves: can we do what we do online both technically and in terms of providing meaningful experiences? Yes. Will it be easy? No. Will it be like nothing has changed? Not a chance.
As Jesse explains, “music therapy involves a wide range of interventions or activities; for example, therapeutic songwriting or guided movement. We serve a diverse range of ages and abilities. Our youngest client is a newborn and our oldest client is 102. We work with people on the autism spectrum, with dementia, with brain injuries. Sometimes we take more of a counseling-based approach. It's about exploring our emotional responses to music and our therapeutic approaches vary depending on the population we are working with. You wear many hats.”
Replicating this online was a huge challenge. “When we found out that all of our clients for the day cancelled, we immediately asked: how can we do this online and what sorts of music interventions can we do online,” recalls Elaine. “We were worried that it wouldn't work, but at the same time, we were having fun trying to figure it out.”
One of the first things they realized was that they needed to have instruments and other materials in place on the other end so they arranged “care packages” to be delivered.
“In some cases, therapists on our team were able to drop off instruments or music therapy 'care packages' that included drums and shakers and song books,” recalls Jesse. “It was really about connecting with our clients and assessing what their online therapy plan might look like because everybody's got a different setup and different access to technology. It was a matter of figuring out what they needed and what we could provide.”
The personal touch, thinking beyond the screen and the willingness to learn new things are all important when moving from doing things in-person to online. We have not encountered a story of successful adapting that did not involve some form of research.
“We looked into which online platforms were most suitable in terms of ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of our clients,” says Shannon. “We put together resources for our therapists to use online and to help them choose the best platform for clients depending on their needs and ours.”
“It was a huge learning curve for both our therapists and our clients to adjust. We quickly figured out that playing music together and singing together did not work online because of the lag whereas taking turns and call and response formats did.”
Despite all the effort and big thinking, not everything was possible. This is the lesson at the heart of realistic faith.
“We had to consider whether online sessions are appropriate for some of our clients. Unfortunately, we have clients who are not getting any music therapy because they just can't interact via a screen. Zoom burnout is another really big roadblock. Screen time can be overwhelming for some of our clients and it gets to all of us.”
As Jesse explains, “it’s just so much harder to hold space online, to convey empathy, to hold attention. The natural rhythm of conversation is kind of eroded. You have to totally reprogram your brain. And another thing about therapy, sometimes the silence is so important—that little bit of space. In the online world, people think you've dropped your connection when you're silent! Your rhythm, your flow, everything is different and some of these skills, these nuances, that you spend years cultivating, no longer work. You’re relearning how to do this job that you've been doing forever. So that is a challenge.”
Practicing realistic faith also involves being open about your limitations. Jesse attributes “being clear with our clients and outlining what we can and cannot do online” was a core element of their success. Big dreams set in motion great things, but transparency and practicality help us avoid crushing disappointment and the false promises that lead to the enemy of successful pivots: resentment.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice.
In our book, Spiders in Space, we argue that it doesn’t make a lot of sense to live in constant fear of unwanted change. That’s no way to live and it will almost certainly be counterproductive.
At the same time, it does make sense to do what you can to prepare for when things go awry by building up your resilience and thinking ahead. Just like a runner will do better if they train for a marathon rather than just showing up on race day after a night on the town, successful stories of adapting to unwanted change often hang on having made some good decisions long before the gravity gets turned off.
This was the case with JB Music Therapy. In addition to being a pioneer in the world of music therapy, JBMT’s founder and President, Jennifer Buchanan, wrote a book that came out last year entitled Wellness Incorporated: The Health Entrepreneur’s Handbook, 9 Steps to a Sustainable, Values-Driven Business.
Buchanan’s staff credit the vision and ideas outlined in Wellness Incorporated for providing the organization with a set of tools that were very handy when it came time to build new webs during the pandemic. JB Music Therapy might have been able to adapt without having a resilient business model in place going into the storm, but it sure made it a lot easier.
“We were chuckling in our management meeting the other day: ‘Hey Jen, when you wrote this book, did you know how badly we were going to need it?’ You can never know, right?”
Having a clear sense of who you are, why you do what you do and how to do it well points to two other traits that are a common theme in successful stories of adapting to change: knowing your core story (or should we say core song in this case?) and good leadership.
This series of articles highlights successful examples of adapting to unwanted change. But common to many of the unsuccessful stories we have heard is a lack of understanding of what truly drives the person, group, organization or businesses. This also involves knowing what you are actually good at and what can, if push comes to shove, you don’t need to/shouldn’t be doing.
We often get caught up in the minutia. Is this email worded just right? Or we tend to focus on the shiny new object or the squeaky wheel. Having the presence of mind to stop and ask: “What’s our core story? What really matters? What is mission critical versus, excuse the metaphor, the fat that needs to be trimmed?
“When a company goes through a shift like the one our company has gone through, you have to get back to your vision—back to the basics,” explains Jesse Dollimont. “You have to remind yourself of the things that you already know and press on. I won’t lie: there have been moments of this when it’s been a slog. I think it's okay to say that out loud while also acknowledging the wins and the parts of it that have been remarkable.”
Knowing your core story keeps things manageable when the chaos of change descends and it provides that all important WHY that motivates you to put in the hard work needed to get through the slog of adapting.
The leader of the pack
“To my mind, another piece of this is [our President] Jennifer [Buchanan]. She's one of those leaders that you will just follow into hell. She practices what she preaches,” says Jesse.
Having a leader willing and able to pick up the baton when unwanted change throws the orchestra into a cacophony is essential, but leadership is a more broad based adaptive trait than simply following one person. As Jesse explains, “many members of our team also took leadership responsibilities in looking after their caseload and completing various tasks for the rapid transition to online services. Each of us has become stronger in our own leadership and this has resulted in greater connection and communication.”
You must be my lucky star
When adapting, both leaders and followers need a little luck. Often, it’s an unexpected stroke of good fortune, notwithstanding all the hard work and creative thinking that goes into adapting, that is the difference between success and failure.
At JB Music Therapy, good luck came in the form of good timing. Having no idea a lockdown was about to make going virtual the only option, Jennifer Buchanan had started to ask the team about the possibility of offering online sessions. The idea was to be able to reach more people with mobility issues and those living in rural areas. “As a result, JB Music Therapy had a template ready for the website before COVID,” explains Shannon. “That really helped us pivot when the time came.”
We got the beat
Relationships turn random noise into music. They enrich our lives, communities, businesses and organizations. They are also at the heart of the adaptive process. Strong, varied and multiple connections enable the application of other adaptive traits such as leadership, seeking and taking help, seeing things from other perspectives and teamwork. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village worth of good relationships to successfully adapt when the poop hits the proverbial fan.
“One of the other things that COVID has taught us is the value of a community partner—folks who you can connect with in the community to share space and resources so everybody benefits. We're seeing a lot of people partnering and finding ways to share the load and I think that's going to be a huge thing that comes out of COVID.”
Because adapting is rarely, if ever, a solo process, good communication is critical. At JB Music Therapy, they worked hard to maintain communications internally and with their partners and clients.
“Our team is very, very good at communicating with each other,” says Jesse. “They're also good at communicating with our partners and clients. I think that was a key factor that helped us pivot. It was the relationships our therapists had with our clients that led to them saying: ‘okay, yeah, let's give virtual a try because I really trust you.’ It wasn't a complete cold call.”
We were open about it with our clients,” says Elaine. “We were trying it out, and if things don't work, that's okay, we'll try something else. If it works, we'll keep doing it. It was a relationship built on trust.”
The water is wide
With the importance of virtual connecting highlighted by the pandemic, a key adaptive trait both right now and going forward is the ability to harness technology. This is something JB Music Therapy did very well, but it also revealed to them the gaping digital divide out there.
“Things like this pandemic reveal the inequities that exist in our community,” says Jesse. For their clients with disabilities, many had bigger fish to fry than getting online to participate in music therapy like making sure their basic needs were met during the lockdown. “So one of the roadblocks that we ran into is that many of our clients said we want to, but we just can't right now.”
Added to this is the highly variable degree to which individuals and organizations have access to, and experience with, technology. From unstable Wi-Fi to simply not being able to afford a computer or tablet, there are a lot of Canadians for whom engaging virtually is not a realistic option.
Eye of the tiger
Because adapting to unwanted change is often hard work that can grind you down both physically and mentally, it tends to be most successful when adapters are clearly and deeply passionate about what they are doing.
The team at JB Music Therapy wanted their company and jobs to survive for financial reasons and this was a driving force behind their efforts. But it was more than just about maintaining their incomes.
“Our team really believes in what we do,” says Jesse. “Our clients are amazing people and we love working with them. When Elaine talks about our team being on board and the fun we’ve had, it’s because we care so much. We have a passion for the company, for our profession. I think this is what made us say: ‘okay, this is terrifying, but we're not ready to give up.”
If there is one overriding thing that links successful stories of adapting to unwanted change, it’s the applicability of cliches. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is particularly apt and speaks to how things have turned out at JB Music Therapy.
“It's kind of cool,” says Jesse. “Everybody in their home with their coffee. We're checking in, we're having speakers join us from across the country. We never did that before. It’s made our world bigger. Our team has engaged in more peer supervision and more shared learning than we've ever engaged in before. We're meeting and connecting more now than we ever have. And that strengthens our team in a big way.”
While the online experience is not as effective as in-person sessions, it has allowed JB Music Therapy to reach people across a wider geographical area.
“There is the rural element, but we also have clients in Toronto. We’ve had inquiries from the States. We also have clients who are able to get therapy more frequently or more easily because they're doing it from home. So for those reasons, we'll definitely keep doing a portion of services online.”
“Going online has given us the opportunity to serve those whom we would not have the opportunity to otherwise.”
Thanks to Elaine, Jesse and Shannon for sharing JB Music Therapy’s experiences during COVID-19 with us and for all the great work you do to spread the healing power of music. If you would like a hard copy of Spiders in Space: Successfully Adapting to Unwanted Change, visit the "ABOUT TODD" tab at the top of the page and go to BOOKS. An ebook version is also available from Amazon.
The pivot of Russell Bird and The Promo Addicts
13-OCT-2020
____________________________________________________________________
When Russell Bird started a promotional marketing company a few years ago, he had no idea where the universe was going to take him. His company, The Promo Addict, is a business-to-business service provider of branded merchandise such as jackets, water bottles and baseball caps emblazoned with company logos.
“It was slow growth at first,” says Russell. No wonder: when he set out in 2015, Alberta had already slipped deep into recession due to falling oil prices. But things picked up. “We got connected with some pretty great customers. Our go-to marketing strategy is what we call ‘Make Great Promo.’ Our feeling is that if you make great things, then you'll get a lot of referral business.” And they did.
Last year the company won an industry award for being one of the fastest growing promotional marketing companies in Canada. At the start of 2020, the operation—based in Sherwood Park, Alberta—was on track for its best year ever.
But then a microscopic novel coronavirus upended everything that Russell and his five-person company had built.
“We actually had a bunch of our staff in Nashville for a promotional products conference,” says Russell, recalling the early days of the pandemic. “They flew home on March 13, which was the day after the NHL and NBA both canceled their seasons. We had a conference call and decided that we would all quarantine for 14 days,” he says, even though quarantine periods were not yet mandated by the government.
Armed with laptops in their home offices, the staff locked the company’s door to customers and tried to work out a strategy for the coming months. They prepared a six month budget based on zero sales, contacted customers who had orders in the pipeline, and offered them the chance to cancel.
“We had to cancel $100,000 in orders in March,” recalls Russell. It was the right thing to do, both to maintain good customer relationships, but also to avoid being stuck with thousands of dollars of branded merchandise that the client may not be able to purchase.
It was a troubling time for the company. Not knowing when the next order or payment was coming through the door and anticipating no revenue for six months was not how the year was expected to unfold.
There was some help that came along. “The federal government came up with the 10% wage subsidy,but we still needed to lay off some of our staff. When Ottawa announced the 75% wage subsidy about a week later, we rehired all of our staff except for one.”
Still, none of it was easy for the company in the early months of the pandemic. Sales in April and May remained well below previous years, averaging only about 10% of annualized sales. But with the government’s wage subsidy, The Promo Addict was able to hang on to its staff and keep the lights on.
But as spring turned into summer, Russell was able to bring one of his passions into play. It wasn’t branded water bottles or baseball caps. It was pork! Specifically, barbecued pork.
As it turns out, Russell isn’t only a successful entrepreneur in the promotional products business, he’s an avid barbecue enthusiast. In 2018, he took 2nd place in ribs at the World Food Championships in Orange Beach, Alabama. He’s also on the Board of Directors for Porkapalooza, Canada’s largest barbecue festival. Bringing his passion for barbecue to The Promo Addict helped him pivot—albeit in an unexpected way.
“Because of my experience in competitive barbecuing and an affiliation with a grill maker called Pit Boss, I would often sell barbecues to friends,” he says. “It was a nice side hustle.”
But with revenues flatlined in his promotions business, opportunity came knocking. A friend called him up to buy a barbecue, but when Russell went to the warehouse to pick it up, the distributor was out of stock. The sales rep at Pit Boss told him that demand for barbecues had exploded, so if he wanted to put in an order, it would be better to order several at once.
“So I said, okay yeah, I'll take six or seven barbecues and I'll put them in my warehouse and sell them to friends,” he says. “Once they arrived, they were all sold within a week.”
Ironically, what demolished sales of promotional items was also what spurred demand for barbecues: COVID. With nowhere to go during the lockdown, Albertans were stocking up on merchandise for their homes and backyards, including barbecues. The surge in demand was felt across the province with retailers struggling to keep up.
“Maybe I should have ordered more!” he laughs, “So I called my buddy at Pit Boss and asked when the next trailer load was arriving. He said, ‘Oh, I still have a couple’ … which turned into a couple more, and then a couple more after that, and even more after that.” Even into the fall, Russell was receiving more than a dozen barbecues a week, and they kept selling like hotcakes.
The kinds of barbecues that Russell specializes in are high-end wood pellet grills, more like smokers than traditional gas grills. They give the meat a rich, smokey flavour that puts their barbecued meats alongside some of the best grilled meats in the world.
“I looked at my wife and said, ‘There's an opportunity here for us to open a barbecue store and really sell it to the public!” Russell says. So using their entrepreneurial instincts, Russell and his team built a website, started a Facebook page and a Twitter account, and called it You Need a Barbecue. It’s the barbecue team name he uses when taking part in barbecue competitions, and draws from the last name of Russell’s father-in-law, Ron Yoneda. Ron is also a business partner on the barbecue side and helps teach the classes.
He is not involved in the promo business but he and I have competed together under that name and he helps teach the classes so I feel like he should at least be mentioned.
Seeing the opportunity to upsell related products, they also started importing some of their favourite seasonings and sauces from barbecue meccas like Kansas City and the southern states. “It's been pretty wild stocking products that no one else can get elsewhere.” In addition to Pit Boss, Russell started ordering and stocking other types of specialty products, like Louisiana grills and country smokers, which added to sales.
The added revenues from the grills and accessories helped offset the plunging income from the promotions business. Eventually, Russell divided the promotional merchandise activity and the barbecue grill sales into two separate incorporated businesses, knowing that each business was unique and required its own business plan and strategy.
But the pivot didn’t stop at selling high-end wood pellet grills, seasonings and sauces. They added to their revenue stream by offering barbecuing lessons.
“We decided we were going to run classes on the weekends, to teach people how to use these barbecues. It's not the same as just turning on your natural gas and throwing burgers on. With these types of grills, you can cook whole pork shoulders and briskets. It’s the best barbecue in the world to cook a wagyu steak on. And so we wanted to teach people how to do that in their own backyards.” Sherwood Park neighbourhoods had never smelled so good!
Russell measured out the space in the existing back area of The Promo Addict shop and calculated the number of people he could have in a safe, physically-distanced class. Using little more than social media and word of mouth, the classes sold out almost instantly. Soon he started having to put people on waiting lists and even turned people away because of the demand.
“We feed our students very, very well. No one leaves here without the meat sweats!”
More help came from the relationships Russell had cultivated. “We've had some really good corporate partners that have come on. For example, we brought on the craft beef company which is a mail-direct order operation that sends beef directly to your door. They gave us the gift cards for a significant discount for all of our swag bags for everyone who came to our classes.”
“Alberta pork signed up to give swag for everyone. Alberta Turkey worked with us, too. We did a turkey class where we taught everyone how to smoke their Thanksgiving turkey.” Also, a meat market in St. Albert with a refrigerated truck helped deliver frozen turkeys for everyone in the class.
As well, it was Russell’s personal connection and relationship with people at Pit Boss grills that gave him the opportunity to purchase and distribute the barbecues from the outset. Without that strong relationship in place, Russell would have been at the back of the line with everyone else waiting for grills in the spring of 2020.
“When I went to the World Championships, I cooked on a Pit Boss. Pit Boss has been paying my entry fees and all my barbecue contests for the last four years. And so through those relationships, I do get a little bit of preferred treatment when I pull up there with my pickup truck, they usually load me before the transport trailer that's waiting there. I can walk into the showroom and just walk around with the full comfort of knowing most of the people who work there,” he says.
But even though the pivot towards selling grills and barbecue classes worked well, there were enormous difficulties for Russell and Jocelyn as well.
“I think the biggest challenge was balancing two businesses at once,” says Russell. “When I started sharing on my personal social media that we were running this barbecue store, I got some really kind messages from friends and customers saying, ‘Oh no!, How come you closed The Promo Addict!’”
“Trying to put everything in its own bucket was a real challenge—to communicate with everyone that we weren't losing focus on The Promo Addict, that the barbecue business was just another opportunity to provide service to our friends and customers. Our promo operation is business-to-business oriented, whereas the barbecue side is consumer-based. So it's two entirely different marketplaces.”
Another relationship that helped Russell adapt and pivot was the connections he had with other barbecue and accessory businesses throughout the province.
“I was able to phone my friends who own a barbecue store in Red Deer and ask: ‘How many square feet should I be looking at? What should be my annual expected revenues in my first year? Which product lines will create what percentage of my revenues?’”
“If we can do a good job of building a culture of stronger and better barbecue in Alberta, I think that'll benefit everyone, as opposed to being in each other's backyard where we're just trying to beat each other on price.”
When asked what the single biggest factor was in helping him pivot during a time of economic crisis, Russell doesn’t hesitate. “It was my wife.”
“Just her saying yes to that first order of seven barbecues,” he laughs. “I couldn't believe it! But when she agreed to the plan, it was a real risk for us to invest that kind of capital into our first order, not knowing what was going to happen. She could have just as easily said no, let's hold onto our money and hope that our promo business comes back.”
“She took a risk on me and took a risk on the business and that's where the biggest credit goes,” he says.
As entrepreneurs and business operators, Russell and Jocelyn weren’t naive regarding the risks they were taking when they fired up their barbecue retailing operation. Alberta’s economy was frail going into the pandemic, and COVID knocked the wind out of the province. Consumer spending shrivelled up for a lot of products. People were losing their jobs. The whole barbecue idea could have been a bust.
But using their business sense and embracing risk, they grabbed hold of the opportunity that COVID was providing. The economy may have been challenged, but people were nesting and spending money on items for their homes.
Russell’s story and his pivot during COVID is unique. Not every small business operator has a hobby on the side like his that’s suitable for a second line of revenue. Yet what is not unique about his successful adaptation is the adaptive traits he demonstrates. Many of these are the traits identified in our book Spiders in Space: Successfully Adapting to Unwanted Change.
He had passion for barbecued meat. Selling barbeques started as a fun little side-hustle, but with his knowledge and love of barbecue, Russell was able to build a brand new source of revenue. That doesn’t happen without passion.
As with every story of successful adaptation to change, Russell was open-minded and creative. Adapters take pains to look at things from different angles. Russell was able to imagine a real business coming forth from his hobby and tapped his creative side to come up with the idea of offering cooking classes.
A little good luck didn’t hurt, either. The universe was cooperating with Russell in that his hobby was something in high demand during COVID. If his hobby was face painting at large events or leading adventure seekers on trips around the world, things would have worked out differently!
The central role of luck in these stories highlights that thriving in the face of adversity is not always possible no matter how hard you try and there is no shame if you simply have to give up and move on.
Speaking of hard work, even with luck on your side, adapting to change requires you to put your back into it. Adapting to change is never easy, and no one should assume it will be. Without Russell’s willingness to work super hard, this new business would never have taken off like it did. Managing both his promo business and the budding barbecue operation at the same time only added to the challenge.
Russell was also willing to take risks. Russell gives full credit to his wife on this, but both he and Jocelyn were able to see past the potential for failure on the venture. That’s what risk takers do. And without that ability, adapting to change is much less likely.
And finally, he relied on the help of others. Russell had a network of relationships that he had built along the way. Russell didn’t wait until the crisis appeared before he started fostering those relationships. They had been there all along—with the barbecue maker Pit Boss, with his customers and community in Sherwood Park, with his team at The Promo Addict, and perhaps most importantly, with his wife and co-worker.
All of these traits proved to be critical elements in Russell’s successful pivot. As he and his businesses continue to wrestle with the pandemic, these traits are certain to help them adapt to whatever comes next.
---
We wish to thank Russell Bird for taking the time to share his story with us. If you would like a hard copy of Spiders in Space: Successfully Adapting to Unwanted Change, visit the "ABOUT TODD" tab at the top of the page and go to BOOKS. An ebook version is also available from Amazon.
______________________________________________
Music of the heart
Staying in tune during COVID-19
An interview with Elaine Cheung, Jesse Dollimont and Shannon Robinson of JB Music Therapy
29-SEP-2020
_____________________________________________________________________
“I learned very early in life that without a song, the day would never end; without a song, a man ain’t got a friend; without a song, the road would never bend. So I keep singing a song.”
– Elvis Presley
Music is a fundamentally important source of joy, healing, fun, contemplation and community—not to mention income for musicians, teachers, roadies, instrument makers, concert venue ushers and many others. Thankfully, the pandemic has not put a stop to music. But it has definitely limited our ability to experience it together. From cancelled concerts and closed night clubs to virtual piano lessons and dormant church choirs, the shared experience of music has been curtailed by COVID.
This is especially true for those who provide and receive music therapy. According to the Canadian Association of Music Therapists, “music therapy is a discipline in which Certified Music Therapists (MTAs) use music purposefully within therapeutic relationships to support development, health, and well-being. Music therapists use music safely and ethically to address human needs within cognitive, communicative, emotional, musical, physical, social, and spiritual domains.” In other words, trained therapists use music to help people.
Music therapy takes many forms. Picture, for example, a group of seniors with dementia in a long-term care facility being reinvigorated by the chance to sing and reminisce in a group with their loved ones.
Calgary is, in fact, home to the largest employer of music therapists in Canada: JB Music Therapy Inc. JBMT’s team of certified music therapists “design treatment plans for people of all ages to foster change, boost mood, decrease stress, improve speech after injury, increase focus, develop learning, lessen anxiety, and recover lost memories.” They also serve as ambassadors for music therapy through presentations, webinars and workshops.
The day the music died
You can see how these services would be especially helpful during a pandemic. Like many other in-person activities, public health measures combined with individual efforts to avoid COVID-19 put the kibosh on in-person music therapy. In JBMT’s case, it was literally overnight.
“On March 16 the City of Calgary declared a local state of emergency. As of March 17, our caseload had dropped by 100%,” explains JBMT’s Communications Manager Jesse Dollimont.
JB Music Therapy went from serving about 1,500 people a week at places like hospitals, group homes, schools and care centres to zero.
“We were busy and on track to have perhaps our biggest year of growth yet in terms of deepening our client relationships and our financial stability. It was going to be a year for the ages and then COVID hit.”
Pick your metaphor: they had the rug pulled out from under them; their apple cart was upset; their boat was capsized in a storm. We prefer the metaphor (and true story to boot) of spiders taken into space to see if they could spin webs without the aid of gravity. However you describe the pickle they were in, it was time to adapt or go out of business.
“There was a scary period where none of us had anything to do. That was terrifying. And it was hard,” remembers Jesse.
The downtime didn’t last long. Just a week after the lockdown began, JB Music Therapy’s caseload was back to about 30% of where it was pre-pandemic with all of the sessions taking place online. By the end of June, it was at 50%, most still online, but with some in-person sessions resuming within the specific protocols and restrictions unique to each site.
Is it live or is it Memorex?
The perhaps somewhat odd sounding concept of realistic faith was key to JB Music Therapy’s pivot to online services. Basically, you have to think big, but not so big that your goals are unattainable. You have to be confident and tally your assets while also not kidding yourself that everything will be fine or the same as it was.
In JBMT’s case, the team believed they could make virtual sessions work while recognizing that they were not going to be the same as the in-person experience. They asked themselves: can we do what we do online both technically and in terms of providing meaningful experiences? Yes. Will it be easy? No. Will it be like nothing has changed? Not a chance.
As Jesse explains, “music therapy involves a wide range of interventions or activities; for example, therapeutic songwriting or guided movement. We serve a diverse range of ages and abilities. Our youngest client is a newborn and our oldest client is 102. We work with people on the autism spectrum, with dementia, with brain injuries. Sometimes we take more of a counseling-based approach. It's about exploring our emotional responses to music and our therapeutic approaches vary depending on the population we are working with. You wear many hats.”
Replicating this online was a huge challenge. “When we found out that all of our clients for the day cancelled, we immediately asked: how can we do this online and what sorts of music interventions can we do online,” recalls Elaine. “We were worried that it wouldn't work, but at the same time, we were having fun trying to figure it out.”
One of the first things they realized was that they needed to have instruments and other materials in place on the other end so they arranged “care packages” to be delivered.
“In some cases, therapists on our team were able to drop off instruments or music therapy 'care packages' that included drums and shakers and song books,” recalls Jesse. “It was really about connecting with our clients and assessing what their online therapy plan might look like because everybody's got a different setup and different access to technology. It was a matter of figuring out what they needed and what we could provide.”
The personal touch, thinking beyond the screen and the willingness to learn new things are all important when moving from doing things in-person to online. We have not encountered a story of successful adapting that did not involve some form of research.
“We looked into which online platforms were most suitable in terms of ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of our clients,” says Shannon. “We put together resources for our therapists to use online and to help them choose the best platform for clients depending on their needs and ours.”
“It was a huge learning curve for both our therapists and our clients to adjust. We quickly figured out that playing music together and singing together did not work online because of the lag whereas taking turns and call and response formats did.”
Despite all the effort and big thinking, not everything was possible. This is the lesson at the heart of realistic faith.
“We had to consider whether online sessions are appropriate for some of our clients. Unfortunately, we have clients who are not getting any music therapy because they just can't interact via a screen. Zoom burnout is another really big roadblock. Screen time can be overwhelming for some of our clients and it gets to all of us.”
As Jesse explains, “it’s just so much harder to hold space online, to convey empathy, to hold attention. The natural rhythm of conversation is kind of eroded. You have to totally reprogram your brain. And another thing about therapy, sometimes the silence is so important—that little bit of space. In the online world, people think you've dropped your connection when you're silent! Your rhythm, your flow, everything is different and some of these skills, these nuances, that you spend years cultivating, no longer work. You’re relearning how to do this job that you've been doing forever. So that is a challenge.”
Practicing realistic faith also involves being open about your limitations. Jesse attributes “being clear with our clients and outlining what we can and cannot do online” was a core element of their success. Big dreams set in motion great things, but transparency and practicality help us avoid crushing disappointment and the false promises that lead to the enemy of successful pivots: resentment.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice.
In our book, Spiders in Space, we argue that it doesn’t make a lot of sense to live in constant fear of unwanted change. That’s no way to live and it will almost certainly be counterproductive.
At the same time, it does make sense to do what you can to prepare for when things go awry by building up your resilience and thinking ahead. Just like a runner will do better if they train for a marathon rather than just showing up on race day after a night on the town, successful stories of adapting to unwanted change often hang on having made some good decisions long before the gravity gets turned off.
This was the case with JB Music Therapy. In addition to being a pioneer in the world of music therapy, JBMT’s founder and President, Jennifer Buchanan, wrote a book that came out last year entitled Wellness Incorporated: The Health Entrepreneur’s Handbook, 9 Steps to a Sustainable, Values-Driven Business.
Buchanan’s staff credit the vision and ideas outlined in Wellness Incorporated for providing the organization with a set of tools that were very handy when it came time to build new webs during the pandemic. JB Music Therapy might have been able to adapt without having a resilient business model in place going into the storm, but it sure made it a lot easier.
“We were chuckling in our management meeting the other day: ‘Hey Jen, when you wrote this book, did you know how badly we were going to need it?’ You can never know, right?”
Having a clear sense of who you are, why you do what you do and how to do it well points to two other traits that are a common theme in successful stories of adapting to change: knowing your core story (or should we say core song in this case?) and good leadership.
This series of articles highlights successful examples of adapting to unwanted change. But common to many of the unsuccessful stories we have heard is a lack of understanding of what truly drives the person, group, organization or businesses. This also involves knowing what you are actually good at and what can, if push comes to shove, you don’t need to/shouldn’t be doing.
We often get caught up in the minutia. Is this email worded just right? Or we tend to focus on the shiny new object or the squeaky wheel. Having the presence of mind to stop and ask: “What’s our core story? What really matters? What is mission critical versus, excuse the metaphor, the fat that needs to be trimmed?
“When a company goes through a shift like the one our company has gone through, you have to get back to your vision—back to the basics,” explains Jesse Dollimont. “You have to remind yourself of the things that you already know and press on. I won’t lie: there have been moments of this when it’s been a slog. I think it's okay to say that out loud while also acknowledging the wins and the parts of it that have been remarkable.”
Knowing your core story keeps things manageable when the chaos of change descends and it provides that all important WHY that motivates you to put in the hard work needed to get through the slog of adapting.
The leader of the pack
“To my mind, another piece of this is [our President] Jennifer [Buchanan]. She's one of those leaders that you will just follow into hell. She practices what she preaches,” says Jesse.
Having a leader willing and able to pick up the baton when unwanted change throws the orchestra into a cacophony is essential, but leadership is a more broad based adaptive trait than simply following one person. As Jesse explains, “many members of our team also took leadership responsibilities in looking after their caseload and completing various tasks for the rapid transition to online services. Each of us has become stronger in our own leadership and this has resulted in greater connection and communication.”
You must be my lucky star
When adapting, both leaders and followers need a little luck. Often, it’s an unexpected stroke of good fortune, notwithstanding all the hard work and creative thinking that goes into adapting, that is the difference between success and failure.
At JB Music Therapy, good luck came in the form of good timing. Having no idea a lockdown was about to make going virtual the only option, Jennifer Buchanan had started to ask the team about the possibility of offering online sessions. The idea was to be able to reach more people with mobility issues and those living in rural areas. “As a result, JB Music Therapy had a template ready for the website before COVID,” explains Shannon. “That really helped us pivot when the time came.”
We got the beat
Relationships turn random noise into music. They enrich our lives, communities, businesses and organizations. They are also at the heart of the adaptive process. Strong, varied and multiple connections enable the application of other adaptive traits such as leadership, seeking and taking help, seeing things from other perspectives and teamwork. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village worth of good relationships to successfully adapt when the poop hits the proverbial fan.
“One of the other things that COVID has taught us is the value of a community partner—folks who you can connect with in the community to share space and resources so everybody benefits. We're seeing a lot of people partnering and finding ways to share the load and I think that's going to be a huge thing that comes out of COVID.”
Because adapting is rarely, if ever, a solo process, good communication is critical. At JB Music Therapy, they worked hard to maintain communications internally and with their partners and clients.
“Our team is very, very good at communicating with each other,” says Jesse. “They're also good at communicating with our partners and clients. I think that was a key factor that helped us pivot. It was the relationships our therapists had with our clients that led to them saying: ‘okay, yeah, let's give virtual a try because I really trust you.’ It wasn't a complete cold call.”
We were open about it with our clients,” says Elaine. “We were trying it out, and if things don't work, that's okay, we'll try something else. If it works, we'll keep doing it. It was a relationship built on trust.”
The water is wide
With the importance of virtual connecting highlighted by the pandemic, a key adaptive trait both right now and going forward is the ability to harness technology. This is something JB Music Therapy did very well, but it also revealed to them the gaping digital divide out there.
“Things like this pandemic reveal the inequities that exist in our community,” says Jesse. For their clients with disabilities, many had bigger fish to fry than getting online to participate in music therapy like making sure their basic needs were met during the lockdown. “So one of the roadblocks that we ran into is that many of our clients said we want to, but we just can't right now.”
Added to this is the highly variable degree to which individuals and organizations have access to, and experience with, technology. From unstable Wi-Fi to simply not being able to afford a computer or tablet, there are a lot of Canadians for whom engaging virtually is not a realistic option.
Eye of the tiger
Because adapting to unwanted change is often hard work that can grind you down both physically and mentally, it tends to be most successful when adapters are clearly and deeply passionate about what they are doing.
The team at JB Music Therapy wanted their company and jobs to survive for financial reasons and this was a driving force behind their efforts. But it was more than just about maintaining their incomes.
“Our team really believes in what we do,” says Jesse. “Our clients are amazing people and we love working with them. When Elaine talks about our team being on board and the fun we’ve had, it’s because we care so much. We have a passion for the company, for our profession. I think this is what made us say: ‘okay, this is terrifying, but we're not ready to give up.”
If there is one overriding thing that links successful stories of adapting to unwanted change, it’s the applicability of cliches. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is particularly apt and speaks to how things have turned out at JB Music Therapy.
“It's kind of cool,” says Jesse. “Everybody in their home with their coffee. We're checking in, we're having speakers join us from across the country. We never did that before. It’s made our world bigger. Our team has engaged in more peer supervision and more shared learning than we've ever engaged in before. We're meeting and connecting more now than we ever have. And that strengthens our team in a big way.”
While the online experience is not as effective as in-person sessions, it has allowed JB Music Therapy to reach people across a wider geographical area.
“There is the rural element, but we also have clients in Toronto. We’ve had inquiries from the States. We also have clients who are able to get therapy more frequently or more easily because they're doing it from home. So for those reasons, we'll definitely keep doing a portion of services online.”
“Going online has given us the opportunity to serve those whom we would not have the opportunity to otherwise.”
Thanks to Elaine, Jesse and Shannon for sharing JB Music Therapy’s experiences during COVID-19 with us and for all the great work you do to spread the healing power of music. If you would like a hard copy of Spiders in Space: Successfully Adapting to Unwanted Change, visit the "ABOUT TODD" tab at the top of the page and go to BOOKS. An ebook version is also available from Amazon.