I Got 10 Venues to Say Yes

What's up gigging pros! It's Jared Judge. Welcome to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. I just booked 10 venue tours. And I wanted to share with you what that means, and why I'm so excited about it. And why these results are actually not that great. But they're very good. So, as you all know, my favorite strategy to book the high paying private event gigs is by partnering with people in the events industry. These other companies like venues and event planners, caterers and DJs, already have gathered that people who book musicians for these high paying gigs, right, like a high paying gig is typically an event a private event, like a wedding or a corporate event that needs other services, to make them happen. They literally need a venue so that it can take place at a space. They need a caterer so people can get fed, they need a bartender so they can have drinks, and so forth. And so my favorite strategy, well, first off people book venues first, right, when somebody is planning a corporate event, the first thing they decide is when they want to have it. And then the second thing they decide is where they're gonna have it. Because if we're if they can't find a space to have it on the day that they have planned, well, then they got to change their date. So that's the big Domino. And that's why focus on venues first. So partnering with these, these guys, they literally have our dream customer. And so to partner with them means that I am going to get on their preferred vendor list. So that when somebody asked the venue owner, hey, we just booked our corporate event here for, you know, September 31. Fakty, of course, I need a jazz band, who do I go to? And then they'll recommend people from their list. So pretty amazing strategy. It's been around for decades, possibly even centuries, because people always are in the, they're always giving and getting recommendations. Right. Think about like, when was the last time your friend or family member asked you for a recommendation for a new show to watch on Netflix. And you'd happily give it to them, they trusted your recommendation. The same thing is true in the events industry. And people are always asking and giving recommendations. So that's why I want to get on these preferred vendor lists. And I my path, my favorite way to get on these preferred vendor lists is by literally meeting with the people who own these preferred vendor lists, the venue owners or managers, the event planners. And so I love meeting with them, and chatting with them, showing them how I can serve their clients at a very high level. And to do that by taking venue tours. Now, I talked about this a lot, but like you do not have to be an extrovert. To do this, you don't have to feel like the most sociable person in the world. Because I know we're all musicians here. And we musicians tend to be introverts, myself included. So when I go on these venue tours, I actually bring my instrument. And if I don't bring my instrument, I will have some YouTube videos queued up on my phone, to show these people what I can do and how I can serve their clients at the highest level. Because the better you can serve their clients, the higher paid you you will be. Does that make sense? Awesome. So anyway, I booked 10 of these tours lately, I have been doubling down on my strategy, which by the way, I call the strategy, The Gig Vault, because it's kind of like a bank vault, where you make deposits into by, you know, visiting with these venues, building a relationship with them. And eventually the money you put in that vault, which it's not real money, it's, you know, your goodwill in the events industry. Eventually it earns interest. And over time that interest builds, the more deposits you make into it. And then you can start to collect that interest in the form of gigs, they will recommend you to their clients, which is pretty dope. So I booked 10 of these tours. Within the last week, I had my dream team, which is my assistant, send out emails, they booked 10 of them. And people you know, I shared the results in our private Fulltime Music Academy Facebook group. And people were like, holy cow. How did you get 10 tours in a week? And here is the secret said it's a numbers game. The secret is that to get 10 tours, my assistant sent out 188 unique emails, which if you do the math on that 10 divided by 188 is just about 5% a year might be slightly greater than 5% but rounds to five for said So 5% of people that I sent an email to actually scheduled a tour. That's pretty crazy. That's like a very low percentage. And, you know, I think I'm pretty good at this. But I'm still relatively unknown in Colorado, I've been here, just under a year, it'll be a year in a couple of weeks here. And, you know, people don't know me. And this is my effort to get people to know me, I imagine if I did this in Wisconsin, my numbers would be very similar. Because despite the fact that I consider myself to be a pretty good marketer of my music, you can always do more, you could always be better. And I don't know, I'm like you guys, I focused on a lot of different things. I get attracted by shiny objects. I like to buy new equipment, learn new songs, all that kind of stuff. So I don't think I did a perfect job. In Wisconsin, I think I did a decent job, I feel like it could have been better. And here, Colorado, in the last year. So I feel like I've been doing a decent job maybe slightly better than in Wisconsin. But I use the same email templates that I give out my Fulltime Music Academy members 5% tour booked ratio, which truly shows that it is a numbers game, the more activities you take, the more success you will have. So 10 tours is not the end, for me. 10 tours is just the beginning. In fact, I took the first one the other day, which was pretty awesome. It was of a venue called the hangar at Stanley marketplace. And I did a live video from while I was trying to find the place in our Fulltime Music Academy Facebook group is a huge place. So it's kind of like a public market. And I don't know, check it out. If you don't have Fulltime Music Academy member become one, so you can see that video. But anyway, so 10 tours is just the beginning, the fortune is made in the follow up, I send 180 emails out 10 People scheduled tours with me, which means there are 178 people who have not had the pleasure of meeting me yet. So I'm going to be following up religiously. And I'm going to get all of them. Like this is serious business for me. I want to make a gigantic living as a performing musician. I'm willing to do what it takes. And if you follow my personal social profiles. You see a couple of weeks back, I posted a picture of a document that was handwritten by Bruce Lee. And to Bursley. He stated his intentions to the world of becoming like the world's best. He and I quote like world's best oriental movie star. And I will have no less than $10 million by 1980, or whatever, I don't have to remember exactly what it is. But he wrote down his intentions, he set gigantic goals. And sure enough, they accomplish them. So my intention is to partner with all 180 people who I reached out to, and so 10, down, under it's 78 left to go. So it is follow up time baby. And again, follow up is a numbers game. I'm gonna start by sending them another email using we've got templates for these and Fulltime Music Academy. They're gonna send them the follow up email. And I'm sure I'll shake down a few trees and get get tours just by that. But in general, I still expect a low percentage response rate, which I'm still happy that I'm getting these tours. But once you follow up with email, and they still don't respond, then is it time to give up? Heck no, it is never time to give up. You give up when you're dead. So I will be switching communication channels. And I will be calling because that is how this game is played is by following up and treating this process seriously. You know, if we treated our music career as seriously as we did other things in life, what would change for you? Would you be playing More music? Would you be compensated more fairly for it? Would you be able to feed your family better? Would you be able to upgrade your instrument faster, pay off some of those credit card bills that you got? And to me that's the urgency with which we all need to approach this. And that's the urgency that I'm approaching these venue tours and partnerships. Because they're that serious. You know, music is is great. It's not just a hobby to me, it's a career. It's a professional endeavor I take very seriously and I know that you my listeners also take it very seriously. So otherwise You know, while you're listening to a podcast about music business, you can just listen to fun podcast that talks about the fun side of gigging where we complain about people wearing cargo shorts and reading lyrics off of iPads. But no, that's not you. You're listening to this because you care, and you're serious about your career. And you want to pursue this with everything that you got. So now's your time. If you want to start this road to partnering with event planners and venue owners, so that you can get the high paying private event gigs. Get your free copy of The Gig Vault, which has all of the contacts the email addresses to reach out to. Plus, you get a free trial of Fulltime Music Academy, which has training and the templates with which to send to these people. And that is yours free at OpenTheGigVault.com to grab your free copy. Thanks for listening to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. And remember, "Your music will not market itself!" Bye everybody.