Fulltime Music Challenge Recap

Hey, what's up gigging pros. It's Jared, welcome to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. We are coming off hot off of the tail of the Fulltime Music Challenge, which was a five actually six day live challenge that I did in a private Facebook group. And it was amazing. And then the Monday right after that I did a recap of all of the five challenge days and I just thought that that would be helpful to share with you my podcast listeners, some of whom I actually saw you were my challengers, which was just amazing to have you listen to the podcast and then show up to the challenge. So thank you so much for doing that. And without further ado, here is a recap of all five days of the Fulltime Music Challenge. And we are back with our weekly live streams in both The Gigging Tips, Business Tips For Gigging Musicians, swear one day I will get that right. And the Fulltime Music Academy private Facebook group, so welcome back. Hope you are all enjoying your January. This is a busy time for gigging musicians, not necessarily because you're gigging any more than the rest of the year, maybe some of you are, which is awesome. But because it is like the time that all of the people who are going to be booking their gigs are now going to be you know, booking and planning them. So you should receive a lot of inquiries, a lot of leads. And I'm just so excited for all of us, I definitely have noticed a big uptick for my inquiries and leads and even booked a couple of gigs, one today, one yesterday. So this is the busy booking season. So happy booking season. And I actually showed a graph of this during the Fulltime Music Challenge, just showing how December had a nice dip, because you know, it was Christmas and New Year's. But once January happened all of a sudden, the leads on this one game booking platform called encore musicians just shot way up. And by the way, encore musicians that's in the UK, not necessarily a US based one. Alright, so I like to start off these live streams with some wins. And so we got some people here live, feel free to drop a comment in the chat if you are here. But first off here, I'm going to share a couple of wins from both our Fulltime Music Academy and the Fulltime Music Challenge. Because that was just an amazing five day experience. So first off, this is my own when I had somebody request in my gig salad profile. And hi, my name is Paige, I'm a producer on a long running reality show about marriage, we are filming our 17th season in Denver, I'm looking for a violinist that would like to partner with us for the show. So I'm in the works of negotiating with this producer of a show I did my research, it is legitimate. And somebody in my wedding industry networking group is also doing this too. So that verified that that was legit. So that's a win for me, I'm really excited about that I hope that that pans out would provide a lot of great, you know, exposure and the opportunity to be showcase for 1000s of people across the world. Next, this one is actually from our challenge group. So over the last five days, we had a Fulltime Music Challenge. And one of our challengers who then became a Fulltime Music Academy students said no joke, got a call for a wedding last night I put my intention into the universe hadn't moved forward with the tangible steps yet $500 solo and even thinks after the challenge should have charged more which I agree with. So congratulations there. That is awesome. Our next win was from one of our students, Dennis, I had our challengers do some really interesting activities that all helped them grow their music careers. One of them was reaching out to venues in their area that they could partner with. And Dennis had a nice when this was definitely a stretch to my comfort zone but now I've done it and will continue to do it. So getting out of your comfort zone as a gigging musician is the way to grow your career and a lot of that happens in the business realm, not necessarily in the practice room. That's why we're in the business tips for gigging musicians Facebook group. All right, another couple of wins. Deanna, who was also in the Facebook group, She upgraded her gig salad membership and received two gig requests and another from the bash. She received a response from the venue that she emailed during the challenge and got response hard work and consistency pay off. It absolutely does. Deanna congratulations. Two more wins to share before we do the recap of our challenge. All right, this was from Emily another one of our challengers who I'm actually meeting with tomorrow providing a little one on one coaching session with the wedding venue. She emailed on day three of the challenge actually responded and the email that she posted was Hello Emily. It's great to hear from you. Of course I remember you very excited you contacted us. We will love to add you to our vendor list and promote you. And then ask Do you have a website or Instagram page, this is a huge win. If you have never reached out to partner with a venue, this is the number one way that they can promote you to their high paying gig clients. So congratulations to Emily. That will definitely amount to at least one gig over the next year. I'm sure it could lead to a lot more than that, and you paid nothing for that partnership. So that's amazing. Congrats. And then finally, this was on the second day of the challenge. Demetrius posted. Good morning, everyone. I just booked three gigs at 750 Each provided the days. So he put the advice in motion and reached out to it first day of the challenge and it paid off. Yeah. So you took my advice you posted on your Facebook, and then you booked three gigs multiplied by 750 that is over $2,000 from one Facebook post. So that kind of is how the game is played. Like, you know, we are in the business of music. We're not just in the music industry, we are in the business of marketing and promoting our music. So I'm just so happy that people took action and then got results to the tune of over $2,000. So that's it. Alright, so speaking of challenge, who here was in the challenge, you can drop a comment below this is live. If you were not in the challenge, that is okay, I will probably read one again, I'm not entirely sure the dates yet I will let you know when that is. But the challenge was a five day gamified learning experience. I was teaching people my full time music method, which is my five step process to book a lot of private event gigs and fill your calendar with enough of those that you can actually earn your target income goal. So over five days, we talked about various aspects of music, business and being a full time musician. And it was gamified because I assigned tasks that I gave points towards. And if you had the most points at the end, then you were eligible to win one of our prizes. When our Fulltime Music Academy students, Sarah, I think I saw you liked this thread, she was our overall Challenge winner. But then we had two teams as well, which I need to reach out to get them their prizes, too. So that's how it was gamified. But really, it wasn't just about the points and the prizes, it was about learning the tools and techniques to be a Fulltime musician and book enough of those gigs. So on day one, day one was really fun. We talked about the number one mistake that most musicians make with their music careers, and what to do about it, which spoiler alert, the number one mistake most musicians make with their music careers is not treating it as a business. And if you're here in the business tips for gigging musicians, Facebook group or Fulltime Music Academy, you understand that we're running businesses here. So what to do about that is to actually learn how to run an effective business. You don't have to go all the way like Walmart doesn't create an international brand. But you do need to understand some principles, the basics of which was the three step business plan. The first step of the three step business plan was to create a product that people want, that is your music, your music is a product that people want. And the key part of that is you want people to want it, meaning it's easier if you play songs that they already know. But then you can also mix in your originals if you sell them on your covers, and get them in the door that way. So create a product that people want. The second step of three is to market that product. A lot of musicians call this promotion, it's getting the word out there trying to reach you as many people as possible. And not just as many people as possible, but reach the right kind of people. If you're in the business of high paying private event gigs, then you don't want just any random person to find out about you. Although that's kind of cool. It's not necessarily your target market. So you want to reach the people who can hire you for a very high dollar amount. And then the third step of that three step business plan was to sell your product, you have to put a high price tag on it, one that really values you and respects the rest of the music industry and doesn't drive down prices. So it's a race to the bottom. So you have to put a high price tag on your music, but then also learn to effectively sell it. You know, there's a lot that goes into what you do. You spent years in the practice room, you've probably spent 10s of 1000s of dollars on lessons 10s of 1000s of dollars on equipment, and you just have to let people know that and get them to value what you've done just as much as you do. The answer is not lowering your prices, if anything, it could be raising your prices, but then communicating why that your your prices are high. So that was like the basic three step business plan. And then I went into the full time music method which you You know, I don't have time to go through all of that today. But it just kind of amplifies those three steps and applies it directly to your music career. So that was day one, the number one mistake. Day two was, man, what was day two all about, we're gonna think about this, it's been a long weekend, I'm actually going to pull up my itinerary, because that will actually help me remember what we did. Day two was how to clone any successful full time musicians blueprint in less than one week. That was where we talked a lot about the marketing and promotion side of things. And I showed everybody a lead, squeeze, funnel, lead squeeze funnel, most musicians have a website, who here has a website, it's probably everybody. And if you don't, you might have thought about it or in progress of making one. The problem is, nobody really teaches you how to use your website effectively. Most musicians websites kind of look like a brochure or just a fun little, hey, this is our website and check it out and enjoy what we do. But it doesn't really direct people through a journey that you've decided that you've designed in order to get them to take the action that you want them to. So instead, I showed the lead squeeze funnel, which the whole point of that is it's two website pages, you send them to the first one. And the point of that first one is to make them either give you their email address, or leave the page, right, there's only two options, give me your email address or leave the page. The point of that is that it sells people on booking you for your next high paying gig. So you're generating a lead. And then on the second page, you're thanking them for entering their information on the contact form. And you're also enrolling them in an automated email sequence. So that was day two, I also showed how to do that how to actually build a website live, we did that, which was really fun. And then I showed an automated email sequence that books gigs, too. So that was pretty cool, too. I think a lot of people have never seen a musician use an automated email sequence before. So that probably was was new for many of you. d3 was how to get an army of people referring high paying gigs to your act. Now, if you build a website, people will not come to it. I don't care what Field of Dreams says if you build it, they will not come. That is a lie told you by the movie industry. Your website should not be just treated as a baseball diamond in the middle of Iowa, you need to actually send people to your website actively Don't be passive about this, don't wait for people to come get them to come. And the way to do that is technically it's called driving traffic. There are a variety of ways to do that. One of my favorites is actually by partnering with venues, and not just any old bar down the street, not just your Italian restaurant that needs a guitarist. But the venues that host the high paying private event gigs that you can play and earn a full time living with. So that's where the army of people referring gigs to your actors. If you partner with those venues and you partner with enough of them, they will put a link to your website on their website. And then that will drive traffic to you. Plus, as an added bonus, the more websites your website is featured on Google likes that and Google will actually start to put you higher and closer to the top of its rankings because they see your website is like all over the internet and you're an authority at what you do. Does that make sense? Cool. So that was day three, and really cool stuff. We had people emailing venues for the first time. And they got emails back like saying yes, I would love to partner, you add you to our preferred vendor list. So I love seeing that progress. To me, it was very inspiring and motivational. Plus, I just love getting musicians results. So if I can help you get a gig, I'll help you get a gig. Day four was actually one of the days I was most nervous about. Because the presentation I delivered was called digging deep, how to shift from struggling part time musician to full time musician. And we talked about the identity shift required to be a full time musician. I don't have time to go through that entire presentation today. But there is a big mindset difference between those who are just part time at this and those who are doing this full time. A lot of that is related to like understanding, having a mindset of abundance, knowing that there are more opportunities out there and then musicians imagine you just have to get them also being active in your career rather than passive and taking action not delaying getting rid of the the negative mindset of there's no way I can do this, like this guy is full of BS instead thinking, how can I make this work for me? Right? If you see something that doesn't work for you, maybe you have to tweak and figure out how can you make this work. So full time musicians have that mindset there. Problem solvers. They're the ones that get it done. And they, they lead the way they pave the way for other musicians and create lots of jobs for other musicians too. So we talked about that. And hopefully everybody at the end of that presentation was feeling very empowered and feeling like I am a full time musician. Even if you don't have enough gigs to be a full time musician, you now have the mindset and identity required to make that happen for yourself. And then day five was about the tools you have to have to stand out from the crowd of all other musicians. We had a very special guest. His name is Tracy Silverman. He has played on NPR Tiny Desk concerts, he's played on stages like the Hollywood Bowl and Royal Albert Hall, recorded a Naxos records played under some really amazing Symphony Orchestra conductors like Gustavo Dudamel. And he just shared some amazing tools and mindset tricks for musicians. He shared how that led to his successful career performing and touring all over the world. Plus, now he's a professor at Belmont University in Nashville, which is cool. So I really enjoyed getting to hear from him, I was kind of the student taking notes there. And then we wrapped up day five with just more information on how to sell your musical services to people for a high price tag, which is my favorite tool called the offer stack. So I don't have time to go through that right now. But I did a podcast episode on The Gigging Musician Podcast about that. If you search in the archives, you can hear exactly what an offer stack is, and how to put one together for yourself. So you can book more gigs for a high dollar amount. So those were our five days of the challenge, we did a bonus day six, where I featured the stories of other full time musicians. And I had a lot of fun. I was exhausted after each day, we did a VIP session afterwards, for an extra hour, people were sharing their websites, they were sharing their war stories. And even Tracy Silverman came on to the last day and did a q&a with all the VIPs. So it was so much fun. I am so excited to do it again. But I need like, at least a month to just rest after that. But I'm also feeling very motivated and inspired for my music career. And today, actually, I had a conversation with a nonprofit in my area to start to negotiate something for my next performance with them in March. So I'm feeling re energized and rejuvenated. Let's get these gigs. So if you're interested in the next Fulltime Music Challenge, just keep a lookout in this Facebook group or in your email. I'll send that out when we open up registration for that and announced the date. But I hope everybody loved it. I loved it. I had such a good time. And now is go time like it's January. The gigs are here. The leads are coming in, respond to those leads. As soon as possible. Follow up raise your rates. And yeah, that's it. And I see someone in the comments said I met Tracy Silverman back in the early 2000s at a college conference when we were both touring colleges. Awesome. Very nice guy. Yeah. And I'll see him again in March. I'm going down to Orlando for the American string Teachers Association Conference. I'm actually one of the speakers there. And I know Tracy and Mark Wood and a bunch of the electric violinist do a lot of stuff at that conference, so I'm excited to hang out with them again. Alright, so that is it for our weekly live stream. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out and comment to me. Otherwise, remember, "You are just one gig away!". Have a great night, everybody.