Goats and Gigs

What's up gigging pros! It's Jared Judge. Welcome back to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. I am on my way back from a venue open house. This was a venue slash private event, wedding slash private event venue called the what was it called conifer ranch in conifer Colorado. Beautiful, beautiful venue, it is actually one of the most beautiful venues I've ever seen. Because it is in the mountains. It's got this sprawling like several 100 acre field of just beautiful lush green grass, that then slopes upward, up the mountain, covered in trees, mostly pine trees. And then off in the distance, you can see more mountains, some of them snow capped. It was like the picturesque place to host a wedding or event. And I played for two hours at this open house, on my electric violet, super fun. And this was part of my Gig Vault strategy. As you all know, I believe in the power of networking, even if you're an introvert like me, and you're uncomfortable with networking, you can use the power of music to overcome any introversion or any weird like conversation things. And that's what I did here at this open house I played for most of the time. And then people this open house was attended, partially by people who were planning events. They're like brides, grooms, and then private event planners. But the majority of it was actually people in the private events industry. There were a lot of photographers there, there were a lot of wedding planners there. There was a couple of DJ companies there, which I'll actually chat more about that briefly. Because that led to an amazing connection. But yeah, so these people, they would come up to me, and compliment me saying what you're doing is awesome. The music is beautiful pairs. So Well, with this venue, it's just so so good. And I gave out lots of business cards. The venue owner is like owned by a family. And they actually gave me a tip, even though like I wasn't hired by them, I just literally volunteered to do this. They gave me a tip anyway, which was awesome. I didn't count it. But I think it's like 40 bucks, which is pretty sweet when I was expecting to get nothing out of this. And it was just a wonderful experience. Another zones had two really cool things that came out of it. One was that they had a videography company there. They were just taking videos and photos. So videography companies typically are paired with photographers, you'll get still photos and videos. And they were definitely like intrigued by me. So they took a lot of photos and a lot of videos. And then at the end of the event, they went and asked to all of the different vendors of which I was one of the vendors at this event. They asked all of us if we wanted to do a little quick video interview. For social media, I'm talking about what we do for the private events industry. And as like Hekia, it's a chance to get a nice little interview piece on their social media and on mine too, because they'll send us a video. So that was one really cool thing. The guy who runs that company, he's pretty cool guy. We chatted about collaborating in the future, like he would be a perfect videographer if I ever wanted to do a music video, or we get like super high quality videos, which I've been doing a good job of getting the videos from the corporate events that I've played. But it never hurts to have nor especially when I'm not the one manning the camera. Then the other thing that came out of this one, there was a DJ company that was there who also happens to be a talent agency. So they book live musicians. And it was a gentleman and then a woman who runs the company that she was the owner. The gentleman was the DJ. He said yeah, I do. DJ plus electric violin and sax and that kind of thing. I'd love to like work with you sound awesome. Give me some compliments. And then this lady she, someone told me you have to talk to her. She is the queen of live entertainment in Denver. Like Hey, that sounds pretty cool. I want to meet the Queen. And so I went and met with her she's, oh my gosh, you're you're playing was beautiful. Which is awesome. I always love getting complimented for my music. That's a nice thing to do. It makes me feel like a good musician makes it feel significant. But more importantly, she chatted like Yeah, I mean, we book acts like yours all the time. I would definitely love to work with you. So boom. All of a sudden I became a part of this Queen's family, isn't it? What is it called royalty? Something like that. And yeah, this is like how it works like it's just about getting in front have the right people, and interacting with them, showing them what you're capable of, but also not shying away from talking to these people afterwards. Like I intentionally bought business cards, and I intentionally ended a little early, so that I could talk to the people who were who were there. In case, you're wondering how I got this gig, because that is more than half the battle. I was on Instagram. And on Instagram, what I what I suggest doing is I suggest following all of the different private event venues and event planning companies that are in the gig call, like you got the list from your area, and search for them on Instagram, follow them and start to interact with their stuff. Like, like their stuff, comment on some of the stuff that you find interesting. And then I don't really browse social media that much like I do scroll a little bit, I'll be honest with you, I scroll a little bit, but I try not to, mainly because I'm so focused on doing my own work that I just don't have time. I don't want to, you know, waste all of my time on social media. But I do suggest scrolling and browsing the people in the gig vault, because what you'll find are opportunities like this, I saw a post on this venue about their open house. And I saw this actually on Sunday, I think it was, yes. Today's Wednesday, by the way. So I saw this post on Sunday, about an open house happening is their grand opening event. And I was like, Hey, that sounds awesome. I wonder if they have music, or if they wanted music. And so I clicked on the link in their bio, which took me to their website that had a little more information about the open house. I was not completely available. To do this. I had to actually had three meetings scheduled during this time. But I figured this is important for growing a music career like this kind of stuff is important enough that I could actually reschedule these meetings. And so I submitted the contact form on their website, saying, Hey, my name is Jared Judge, I run Extreme Strings Electric Violins. So you're having that open house on Wednesday, I was wondering if I could sponsor it with some live music. Here's a link to my website. Let me know what you think. And then I kid you not within five or 10 minutes, I got a response back in my inbox, saying, Hey, Kenny, saw you reached out to us. You sound great. We would love to have you. Let's chat on Monday. So I scheduled a time with him the chat, got on the phone with him. He introduced himself turns out he was pretty well connected. He said that he has helped book entertainment for different NBA teams in the past, which I thought was pretty cool. And so we chatted about that chatted about the event. He said, Yep, let's make it happen. Oh, have you guys have you on the porch of the main like building for the venue. And so that was all confirmed. And then today, I get up pretty early, I rescheduled my meetings. The one meeting I actually had while I was at the event, it was actually an hour before the event started, I was already set up. So I just did a Zoom meeting from the porch, which was very scenic. And then I had to reschedule another one, which was a coaching with one of my Fulltime Music Academy students we rescheduled that to later in the day, which actually just finished. I did that at Starbucks, because I'm actually still on the road driving back from that venue. Another one, I did have to reschedule. But that was a shorter meeting. Anyway, so that So yeah, that will happen because of the Gig Vaults. And there are many ways to use this Gig Vault. One of the ways is to was okay. use the email templates inside full, Fulltime Music Academy. Another way is to follow them on social media and interact with them. Because you are a member of the private events industry, you're not just a member of the music industry. And it is a mindset, like I talked so much about tactics, and what to do how to do it, that I guess I don't really talk that much about mindset. And you probably have picked up on this. But I think you might have realized I have a very different mindset than the majority of musicians. And that mindset has caused me to do all of this marketing, all of this business stuff, all of this relationship building. And it's a it's a belief, like I believe that these are the ways to do it. I believe that I am perfectly capable of it. I believe that even though I'm not a great musician, I can more than make up for it with, you know, doing the actual work on the business side. And I believe that when I create these opportunities for myself, my musicianship will rise to the occasion. And I've been practicing a lot more because I've had so many more gigs that I actually think I haven't put route at violin in the last couple of weeks because of it. And I feel more motivated than ever to get even better at this. But I'm definitely going to keep pairing it with my skill at the business side. So that is the expo, who's not an expo, there's an open house at the conifer ranch up in conifer Colorado. Super awesome. Yet another thing in my story of, you know, how did I go from moving from Wisconsin to Colorado with no connections, no gigs, nothing lined up to now, this past week, I think I played four or five corporate events. And I've got so many more bookings on the schedule. And it's because of these little things that I do. They all add up and kind of like they compound over time, you know, like compound interest. When you open up a CD or a savings account at a bank, you get compound interest. All of these actions are like making deposits into that account. And they compound over time you earn interest on them, to the point where you reach you literally reach a tipping point where you don't have to be reaching out for these gigs. They just come to you. And that's where I was back in Milwaukee. This has happened a lot faster than in Milwaukee. And I think it's because I'm just making smarter moves and making more impactful moves. And this, this was one of them. So hopefully, you found some inspiration in that. And I loved doing it. It was great to have an outdoor office today in one of the most beautiful parts of the state that I've seen so far. By the way, inside of the Fulltime Music Academy Facebook group, I did a live video from before the gig started. And they were goats. They literally had goats that you could rent out for your wedding or event. And I got to pet three goats, one mama goat and two baby goats. And it was just the cutest thing possible. The goats are just so cute. So if you join Fulltime Music Academy, get the gig ball for free. You get to go into the Facebook group and see that live video with the real goats. So by the way, if you want a copy of the Gig Vault for free, that comes with a 30 day free trial of Fulltime Music Academy. Go to FulltimeMusicAcademy.com/venues I did just buy another domain for it. And we'll see if it works. I'm going to drop the link here it is open the GigVault.com So go to open the GigVault.com. Get your free copy of the gig vault. And thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. Remember,"Your music will not market itself!". Bye everybody!