How To Lose Money

Hey, what is up gigging pros! It's Jared Judge. Welcome to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. All right, I got a follow up to my latest podcast, where I shared that I was going to be cold calling about 90 or 100 wedding planners here in Denver, to follow up on the email that I sent them, introducing my axe to them, so that they put me on their preferred vendor lists and start recommending me to their wedding clients. Because wedding season is just around the corner, or at least wedding booking season is it is October 12. Two days until my birthday. And people like so many people get engaged over the holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, that you if you want wedding gigs, which are very lucrative and not as hard to play as people might think, then now is the time to start digging your well before you're thirsty. So that's why I'm doing all this. I'm gonna, I am calling my shot, I'm gonna get a massive amount of weddings in 2024. And away we go. So I emailed about 100 wedding planners, I think I said 92 the other day that actually counted the numbers, and it was 102. So that's how many people I emailed all of them personalized emails, using a little help from my friend, ChatGPT. And about five or six people responded. So five or 6% response rate. Not terrible, but not great. And so, you know, I talked about the cold outreach training from Alex for Mozi, which I've been preaching Alex, where Mosie stuff a lot lately, because it's just so clear and actionable. And his big suggestion is, you know, sending one email is not enough. He says, If you were to think about these people that you want to get a hold of as if you're trying to get a hold of your mom, and she didn't answer her phone. What would you do? Or she didn't reply to email, what would you do? How would you? Would you just give up? Well, no, because you have something important to say to her and like, maybe you're worried about her? What if she got injured or hospitalized or something like that, like, you want to reach your mom. So pick up the phone, Gosh, darn it. And so that's what I did. And I've been doing, I have called about half of those 150 wedding planners that made 50 phone calls so far. And the crazy part. And this is a big lesson for for we as musicians, is, you know, if you're a wedding planner, and say a prospective bride or groom called you, would you do you think that wedding planners should answer the phone? Like if somebody is literally knocking on your your door with several $1,000 bills in their pockets, earmarked for your services? Would you answer the phone? And the crazy part is, for a large majority of those 50 that I've called, probably about 45? The answer is no. He did not answer your phone, which is nuts. Because they have no idea. When I'm calling if I'm a bride or groom, or a musician, or someone trying to sell them on an extended Car Warranty, they just see a phone number, which could be someone with several$1,000 bills burning a hole in their pocket to pay for your services, which is just nuts that they're not answering. And I'm not taking it personally, like I knew this was gonna happen. And I know they have no way of knowing. I'm a musician. And, you know, I'm trying to get them to put me on their preferred vendor list. But not answering your phone in business is a cardinal sin. Because you're literally saying no, I don't want your money. Because what would happen if you know that same bride or groom called you, or called the wedding planner, they did not answer. They got so frustrated, they started to label that wedding planner as unreliable. Someone who doesn't show up when they're expected to. And on the wedding day, they might crumble to the pressure. If you know say someone distracts them, then hey, I'm going to go grab McDonald's instead of set up for your wedding. And that's why the bride or groom would say, Hey, I'm not going to go with this one. They didn't answer their phone. I'm going to try somebody else. And even if they don't think you're unreliable, it's just like, well, I thought I was going to spend some time with this one wedding planner on the phone. But now they freed up my time to call some other wedding planners. Oh snap. So I just lost business as a wedding planner because I didn't answer my phone. Now, I'm not making this podcast to complain about wedding planners. Because truth be told, I did expect this. I'm sharing this on the podcast to meet you think about what if we swap out wedding planner with musician Who bridegroom calls a musician, emails, a musician submits a contact form on their website expecting to hear back from a musician with a price quote, and availability yet, the phone rings and rings and rings because the musician didn't want to answer the phone. And I'm guilty of this too. But, you know, I'm just thinking that through this musician doesn't answer the phone goes to voicemail, and they get the dreaded message. The mailbox is full and cannot accept any more messages. How frustrating. And thus, instead of going with be your act, they now have their time freed up to call other acts with the knowledge in their mind that the band that they first tried to reach out to, doesn't care enough about them to actually answer their phone or give them a callback, or leave enough space in their voicemail so that they could actually leave a message and request a quote a bride and groom with 1000s of dollars $1,000 bills burning a hole in their pocket. That's gonna go to somebody else. Because you didn't leave space for them in your mailbox, and you didn't answer your phone. So it's crazy to think about that. But that's actually what's happening day in and day out. For many musicians, even a lot of the musicians I work with, I know that you guys are guilty of that, too. Hey, I'm guilty of it too. Like, if I'm in the bathroom, I'm not going to answer my phone. So I'm giving you some grace on that. Like, you don't have to be 100%. But are you even doing the minimum? Is your minimum? Good enough? Like if you're practicing? Well, what do you do if you're practicing and you get a phone call? What is more important? And these are the hard questions to answer. And so think about that. And so think about these 50 or so wedding planners that I'm calling, and I've got 50 more to go and expect the out of the other 50 I'm about to call today. And tomorrow, I expect the same exact thing to happen. You know, Even if they're, you know, I'm sure I'm gonna get some about 44 of them, don't want my money, although I'm not giving them money, but they don't want brides and grooms money. And that's what they're saying. resistance to this thing. Like I actually do want those gigs, I do want their money. Well, are you acting like it? Are you doing the things necessary? To actually show that to be true to your word? Are you true to your word? Are you making false promises to yourself to your bandmates to your family? By not following through on your work? So I'm thinking about that I'm gonna, I'm going to work on that for myself too. Because like I said, I'm not perfect. I don't claim to be. I just want to challenge myself and challenge you to really think hard about this, because there's a lot of stuff that we do as musicians, subconsciously, that sabotage our success. And I think this is one of them. This is a big one is the unwillingness to do the things necessary to have the success that we want. So stop sabotaging yourself. And if you don't sabotage yourself, congratulations, you're better than most of us. So let's, let's get it let's get these gigs. wedding season is coming up, I will be hosting a wedding gig challenge. You know, I've been talking a lot about the corporate gig challenge. And I think these challenges have been very helpful for people. Because focusing on one specific type of gig at a time, I think has really revealed that there are differences between the gig types. And just by putting yourself out there as a band, and as a musician is not good enough. You have to actually cater to a specific clientele. With the videos you put out with the website, like the pages that you put on your website, the posts you put on social media, and even in the way that you write your emails to different people, it has to be different depending on the type of gig. So we will be hosting a Wedding Gig Challenge soon. And so I challenge you to sign up for that. Go to FulltimeMusicAcademy.com/challenge And you'll see whichever challenge we're running currently. Hopefully by the time this podcast is released, we've switched it over to the Wedding Gig Challenge and I'll show you how to do what I've been doing. Alright, thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. Remember, "Your music will not market itself!" Bye everybody.