The Achieve Podcast - Nick Mullikin (Nashville Ballet)

Welcome to the Achieve Podcast, the show where we highlight the leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs who are building meaningful businesses and shaping their industries. I'm your host, Stephen Bunker, and today we're excited to learn from Nick, CEO and artistic director with the Nashville Ballet. Now, Nick, for those getting to know you, can you give us a quick backstory of your business?

Sure. Well, thanks for having me on today. Nashville Ballet has been around for 40 years. We are in the industry of creating, performing, teaching, and promoting ballet as an essential and inspiring element of our community. It's our mission. It's the core of who we are, but it also captures all the different business elements of what we do. So we produce full-length classical ballets on stage here in Nashville, Tennessee, but we also teach over 2,000 students a year at the School of Nashville Ballet. In addition to that, we serve over 20,000 individuals with free arts experiences in the Nashville community.

Wow, that's, that's a huge impact.

Yeah, we're really excited about being able to be a part of this community, not only to try and enrich the art form, but to try and make sure that we're creating better human beings in this space.

Yeah, so you both put on the ballets as well as the training and development of future artists. And then the community involvement. That's fantastic.

Yeah, we really feel solidly about creating an ecosystem that allows people to fall in love with the art form. But one of the things that's really important to us as we create a brand for National Ballet is to train artists who are reflective of what it is that we're trying to see on the stage in the future. So we have a school program that really focuses on specific high-level training that gives students a pathway towards success and career in this field, while also having that double positive impact of being able be artists that we know really well, and so we create a positive working culture around that also.

Okay, okay, that's really fascinating. So you mentioned you're looking for artists who are kind of like, um, developing towards the future of ballet. So can you tell me a little bit, like, how has ballet evolved over the years?

Well, I don't know if you've ever spent any time watching figure skating or if you just watched the Olympics, but you certainly saw how that art form while still on ice, still putting the artistry on stage, has created, I think, a different level of physical demand. So you see the athleticism inside of that. You start— sometimes start doing backflips on ice again, even though that was present back in the late '80s. Ballet is similar. The athleticism, the demands on the artists have grown tremendously as the physicality has developed. But then in addition to that, classical ballet has been around for hundreds of years. We consider ballet to be a vocabulary base. So it's like using the English language and then crafting new narratives, new stories, new ideas. And you get to watch as— maybe slang is a way to sort of reflect it— that words have a meaning, but they can then be shifted and developed. And in the same way, a ballet step can be also. So that's sort of where our contemporary work starts to take shape, and that's where new stories can be developed and the ballet language can evolve and we can share stories in a way that people understand. But at the same time, maybe it's crafted in a different way so that you aren't feeling like it's familiar, but you are able to still connect and resonate with the work in front of you.

Okay, that's fascinating. And what do you say— what would you say is actually driving growth for you right now?

One of the things that's fascinatingly driving growth for us, one is the deep desire for individuals to advance themselves. So they come to ballet classes, but if they see it more as a complement to the work, not necessarily wanting to be full-time ballet dancers, but they want to round out their, I guess, student resume is a way to say it. They want to make sure that they're having a more filled experience with the extracurriculars. That's driving a huge portion of our revenue inside of the school right now is people want to have flexibility. They want to have those opportunities to learn and grow and develop, but sort of at their own pace. So we have had to sort change the way that we create ballet programs for them in there. Our ticket sales are being driven conversely on the other side of it in a more traditional way. Story ballets for our audiences really resonate. They really want to come out and see those productions. The Nutcracker. Everybody knows The Nutcracker. If I say ballet and Nutcracker, it resonates. We have had somewhere in the neighborhood of 15% to 20% growth over the last 3 years here in Nashville. With our Nutcracker just because so many people want to see it. And Swan Lake this last year had the same thing. We were almost double what our budget expectations were. So each one of these are helping to drive on the earned side. Contributed, as we are a 501(c)(3), tends to be an area where we are continually trying to find that connection to the younger demographic.

Okay, so do you have like accreditations with like the different colleges and stuff? So like people can kind of go in and take those classes and have them count?

So it's a little bit different. We train dancers from 2 all the way up to about 20 is really where they are. And what we actually do is partner with Belmont University so that students have that chance to maybe get a course credit or two from their dancing. But we're really focusing on giving those dancers the chance to learn in a different environment so that their ballet career is supplemented. Really, professional dancers tend to not go to college. That's not to say that they don't go to college, but our program ideally is preparing people to enter the professional world straight out of finishing up their training with us.

Okay. And then as you try to grow and expand, what has been the biggest bottleneck that gets in the way?

Hmm. I think one of the things that gets in the way is the perception of ballet. I think one of the biggest obstacles we have to overcome is this idea that ballet can't evolve. That it can be something fun and exciting and an experience that many people, I think, are scared of. And so our job is to create accessibility without diminishing the product on stage. And that's been a huge, huge area of concern for us is that we try and make it accessible. But when we talk about that, we talk about price point, right? We want to lower the price so people can maybe come and be accessible. But the artists and the demands on stage for a real-life, in-person product continue to have a higher cost. So how do we balance all of those things so that we can ensure that artists and technicians are paid appropriately? It's a huge area of concern for us. And many people in our industry have gone much higher in their ticket prices to help offset those costs, but have actually started to see a decrease in demand, whereas our demand has stayed steady as we've tried to keep those ticket prices right in that sweet spot. So growth runs into, I think, a roadblock when we don't value the art form as much as it possibly could be.

Okay. And so really it's just like a matter of optimizing. So it's a lot of like, you guys have a pretty solid game plan for like how to do ballet, how to train ballet, but that process of like getting ticket sales and managing events, and it's an optimization problem, right?

It is a, a massive optimization problem and a value proposition problem for us. I mean, one of the things that we all have to understand as a society is that the arts matter. So our job is to make sure people understand why it matters. When you can consume something on Netflix for $9 a month and you have unlimited access to it, why are you going to spend $75 to $100 on a ticket per person and have to trek downtown, have to go to the theater, and not be able to play on your phone? Well, that is the value proposition, isn't it? Which is the idea of being in the space with others to create that moment that can never be recreated, that you can't just rewind and go back and see it again. This moment has happened in front of you, and it is something that will disappear if you're not paying attention to it. You think that's to try and emphasize—

do you think there's a trend? Yes, I'm actually really curious, like, is there a trend towards a desire for more in-person experiences? I mean, I, I kind of wonder if people are kind of getting fatigued of digital and like wanting to go back to some of that.

I think that our data is starting to show that, that individuals do want to have that experience. And so what we're working on in the next iteration of this is how do we curate those? How do we capture the idea of creating an evening out that is not overwhelming and not daunting, but experiential? So we want to try and like curate a dining experience with a performance. We're always working with live music and a performance in almost everything that we do here at Nashville Ballet. Nashville is Music City, and so the idea of pairing those two things together just makes sense. That was pretty easy for us. But how do we create that meaningful engagement and allow people to have that social experience again without feeling overwhelmed? And our data is saying that people want it. People want to have that moment. They're just not exactly sure how to have it. So we got to, again, share that.

Yeah. And then I know this is kind of a little bit of a side topic, but with all the buzz around AI automation, do you guys use it internally or what do you guys do there?

So, you know, AI and automation is something that I think as a tool can be really helpful, especially in a nonprofit organization. We are resource constrained across the board, and that includes staff time, staff energy, and trying to do way too much with way too little. AI provides us that opportunity. If we can do a better job of parsing data, getting it into the space, understanding how and where we're reaching people and create better metrics to help serve, that's going to be a spot we can do it. Where you won't see it, at least as long as I'm here, is in the artistic product. We are going to stick with live musicians. We are going to stick with real people curating ideas, being in the studio, and being on stage. Now, from a marketing perspective, I don't see it entering into the art in a marketing perspective, but it probably does help to serve the underlying analytics to help us serve where that's going to go. And I think those things are really, really important as we move forward, simply because there's so much data that one can use to help make what we do better.

So when you think about the next stage for your business, like, what are you most excited about?

Well, what I'm excited about personally is that we are finally coming into a place as an organization where operationally we are self-sustaining again. After COVID, we ran into some huge issues with the inflation hit and then people trying to catch up to where we are. Nashville Ballet spent about 3 years trying to really get itself out of that hole, and this year we are finally out of it. So we're looking to the next 10 years. And the next 10 years, where we see ourselves is greater service to the community, making sure that we have brand new productions that capture the imagination of individuals. But I also see us expanding our reach in terms of what a campus looks like. We have about a 50,000 or 60,000 square foot facility here. I would really love for us to expand into something bigger than that, create a music campus, create a space where we can have our own theater here in Nashville and really, I think, invite the community in and create those experiences we were just talking about with in-person and allow individuals to thrive in creativity. And so I see that happening over the next 7 to 10 years. I'm really excited about it and becoming a destination for the tourists of Nashville to come and see us. Creating and crafting our own brand that'd be— it's exciting, you know, that people want to come and see something unique and we can create that here in Nashville Ballet.

Yeah, and Nashville has that culture, right? Like the music. And so it's like if you can build that recognition, you're already a hotspot for that kind of thing, aren't you?

Yeah, I mean, if you spend any time in Nashville, you know that it is a huge party town. We get a lot of people who come in, but I also want us to be considered a cultural pillar. So maybe you spend your summer Saturday afternoon at the ballet before going down to Broadway and having a fantastic time. But you get to have that live music experience and something really unique and curated that you can't see anywhere else. My belief is that Nashville has the potential to be that really, truly different place to New York or LA, that you get a centralized American experience, but a cultural one that also resonates and gives you, I think, an elevated space to experience art. Not just one singular type of music.

Yeah. So in that comparison with like New York and LA, um, how does Nashville and just the, the Nashville Ballet stand apart kind of compared to some of these other locations?

Well, I mean, I, I would be very, um, ambitious of me to say that we can run with the New York crowd yet, but I would say taking us out of there, you probably put us in that like next tier down from major American ballet companies, but we continue to push our way forward and expand our budget that allows us to, I think, create a product here in Nashville that you can't see anywhere else. And so I'm not looking to go into a one-for-one comparison. To try and recreate something out of New York or San Francisco is probably more apt for ballet, is I think a fool's errand. What we want to do is create a brand identity here in Nashville that allows us to be set apart from anyone else. And gets people around the world really excited about presenting us. And we've already had those opportunities by being able to perform in London and in Mexico in my first 2 years as Artistic Director. So people are seeing us, they're excited about it, but it's a Nashville Ballet brand of ballet. It is not the New York City Ballet and it's not San Francisco Ballet.

That was something that actually really intrigued me earlier when you were having the conversation, like, in our— during our conversation, it was just like, seems like the the— you guys are very location-based, like, as far as building that relationship and the identity around your local geography. Um, I think kind of as an outsider looking in, that wouldn't necessarily be the intuitive, but that's actually really fascinating.

Um, well, I mean, if you think about— think about any place or any time that you've traveled to a city, right? So let's Let's take, I'll take my trip to Barcelona. I can go and see the Barcelona Ballet, absolutely. They will have a company there that will be what they do. But what's gonna separate that from the company in Paris? Is it just the caliber and the quality on stage, or is it going to be something that gives them a unique cultural identity? So why would I travel to Barcelona to see that company if I can just go to Paris and see one where they've been around since the very inception of ballet? I'm gonna want to see something that stands apart. Something I can't experience anywhere else because so much of the work that— you know, The Nutcracker, you know Swan Lake, you know these names even if you have no history of ballet. Why would you come to see us particularly do that unless we had our own identity that was associated with it? You'd just go to New York. My job, I think, as a director in this space is to create an experience that's unique to anywhere else. And Nashville has a very particular cultural identity. So why not seize upon that? Because we are already attracting millions of people every year to this city.

Yeah, so it's like, compared to other ballets or performing arts, it's not necessarily a competition more than it is a collaboration or, you know, basically being able to like build the overall pie, meaning like get more people involved.

I think that's always the overall objective, but certainly there is competition for skills and resources in terms of talent level of the dancers. And so I don't want to pretend as though we're not living in a competitive space, but I wouldn't say that the company in Atlanta is a direct competition for the company in Nashville. They serve as an inspiration for how they've curated their experience for their audiences and how they've talked about ballet in their way. And then I say, how can I help to bring something like that to this community? How can I help to differentiate that. And then that's going to make people from Nashville want to invest in the Nashville Ballet rather than just seeing a show that passes through town.

Yeah, that really resonates, especially because like when we were talking about your position as CEO and Artistic Director, um, that stands out too because it sounds like your primary role really is like creating that artistic vision. It's not just like a corporate feel of like You know what I mean? Like, just we're in it just for profit, but it's actually to like build that vision. I don't know, does that make sense?

Well, yeah, it does. And actually, I'm smiling mostly because it makes me happy to hear you say that. I think sometimes there's a fight that happens between CEO Nick and artistic director Nick. CEO Nick has been doing a lot of winning as of late in order to try and balance our budget, but it has sort of, you know, resonated with me that people don't want to follow numbers. They want to follow inspiration. They want to believe in something bigger than themselves, and they want to understand that there's a path towards achieving that. And I really kind of reimagined my role as somebody other than the X's and O's and making sure that our KPIs are hit. We've got all of those, and we're hitting them and doing that. But really asking ourselves the question about what we're doing, why we're doing it, and how do we create something that gets people very excited about spending their very hard-earned dollars with us. And that's where vision comes into play, that's where striving comes into play. And then the CEO's job is to make sure that those things sort of have to function. So the two play really nicely together simply because the vision can outstrip at times the execution. And so you really have to play those two things against one another while also dreaming quite a bit.

Yeah, 100%. So when you look at your own journey, the wins and the mistakes, what lessons have stood out to you?

Oh man, don't ever believe you're the smartest in the room, and if you are, get yourself into another room. I mean, it is— I think one of my biggest mistakes as I've gone on this path is the belief that I have to be the smartest person, that that's what leadership looks like. I think my biggest mistakes center around the notion of trying to create, um, this notion that I always know exactly what's best. What I've discovered, especially over the last, I'd say, 18 months as I've grown into this role, is that I might have an idea, and so I can float that idea, but then that shuts the room down. Better to talk about what we're trying to create as a shared outcome and hear other people's input into that space first and foremost, and then watch how that gets crafted, how that gets shaped, and how that goes to the thing that we're all trying to achieve. Establishing agreement on where we want to be, and then from there letting the team help to shape that outcome, means that they're bought in. They want to do it. They want to be a part of it because they helped to shape it. And that was really scary for me, right? Yeah, I wanted to control the outcome. I had a vision. This is what it's going to be. But now when you start to have all of those different ideas and those different inputs, your first thought process becomes your first thought process. Instead of being the end goal, that becomes the baseline, and then everyone else enriches and builds upon that. And that's something that I think new leaders kind of struggle with getting their head around because they want to control it all. And I've felt the less control I've had, the better the outcomes, to be honest.

Yeah, I've heard a quote, what, control is an illusion?

Um, it completely is.

Yeah, I think that's where agency comes in because it's like, agency— we do have a choice, we just almost don't have control of the outcome.

Well, and I think the way that we react to those opportunities and those inputs from individuals really helps to shape the culture. And then once people feel like they have their own agency, they're bought in and they want to see things come to, um, you know, a really positive conclusion and a positive result. And that's a, that's a different kind of way of being than a top-down boss directing things.

Yeah. Do you have any final advice that you'd give other leaders? Or business owners who are on a similar journey?

You know, I don't know that I feel horrifically qualified to be giving advice at this point in my career, given that I feel like I'm perpetually learning. And perhaps that is the advice, which is just recognize that the minute you think you know everything, you've lost it all. You have to continue learning, you have to continue developing, and you have to continue to be, I think, craving the next the next concept, and the next learning opportunity simply because the world around you shifts so quickly in a leadership position. And the ground moves before it ever tells you it's moving, and it's split open, and you've fallen through. So just stay curious, stay connected, and recognize that there's a lot of smart people out there in the world that can help you achieve what you want to achieve.

Well, Nick, thank you. That was fantastic. And I really appreciate you sharing your story and insights. And just especially just how you're navigating the market, like from COVID to where you're at today. It's a lot of ups and downs, and this has been a great conversation.

Well, thank you, Stephen. I really appreciate it.

So to learn more about the Nashville Ballet, visit nashvilleballet.com. And that wraps up today's episode of the Achieve Podcast. A big thank you to our sponsors, Achieve Fractional, which provides fractional leadership for growing businesses, as well as Achieve Boot Camps, where entrepreneurs and business owners can learn hands-on how to build AI-powered automations and marketing systems. If you enjoyed today's conversation, follow the show and share it with another business owner who'd find value in it. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you on the next episode of the Achieve Podcast.