I was such a good lyric tenor I became a star salesman
mainFrom NBC News:
by Chad Dyar
I’m a classically trained opera singer. I studied vocal performance at Northwestern and started professional life performing with opera companies around the country, singing everything from “Turandot” to “The Magic Flute” to “La Bohème”. Then I turned to musical theater, joining productions of “West Side Story”, “Grease”, “Rent” and a dozen more.
All of this prepared me for a career as a sales director in tech….
I had developed unique communication skills. As a singer, I had to think through every word to figure out the broader message I was trying to get across. I had to be a storyteller, taking listeners on an emotional journey. To “sell” that story, I had to buy into and believe every note.
I also learned discipline, commitment, and how to work closely — harmoniously — with different groups of people so that we could execute our mission together. This meant building relationships, understanding people, and negotiating. I had to adjust my presentation, even down to small nuances, in order to work best with each team….
Read on here.
Unfortunately, most musicians cannot make the same claims.
Under best conditions one might view the article as a joke.
This guy is sooo incredibly clean-cut it’s not true……….a top contender for the December triteness award…employers must be falling over themselves to hire him.
Is the headline mocking him?
Anyway, nothing surprising in the article. In either field, you have to know what you’re doing, be convincing in the moment, and be able to keep your audience happy. Musicians tend to learn all this stuff from an early age; applying these skills in another field is not hard because you already have them.
The big difference, of course, as far as making a living, is: if you’re the 200th best tenor, you’ll starve. If you’re the 200th best salesman, you’re a superstar.
That’s the kind of blah blah you learn in business school – how to present yourself at a job interview.