Using Stories To Sell Gigs

Hey gigging musicians, Jared Judge here, I wanted to chat with you today about selling your gigs through stories. So, as musicians, this is probably one of the least talked about things in our music training is how do we actually sell a gig. And I mentioned in one of the other podcasts, there's a three part framework that I use to attract people to my website, and get them to book with me or interact with my brand further, that three part framework is hook, story, and offer. And I got that three part framework from Russell Brunson, he is a marketing guru, who has built a gigantic software company that helps entrepreneurs like myself, grow my company. But this framework works. And it works for music, too, because I use it all the time to sell my string quartet gigs, to, to weddings. So the hook is how you get them to your site or get them to engage with you by hooking them interrupting their patterns, what were they doing before? How do you get them off of what they were doing before to what you're doing. But this episode really is focusing more on this story about story selling in general. So people need to know that they're not the first person to go through something, or that there's a compelling reason for them to take action. And that's where stories come into play. Stories are the biggest motivators for people to buy and book things. And stories have been used to sell people on things ever since, you know, we were cave people way back in the prehistoric days, stories are so effective, there's just something about the human brain that is wired to hear stories, and to empathize with the characters in the stories that make them want to take action. And that is so important for musicians. Because as musicians, we want people to take action and interact with what we do. We want them to like our Facebook pages, we want them to visit our websites, we want them to listen to our music, and telling them stories is the way to do that. So let's talk specifically about booking a wedding gig because that's how I built my my string quartet from zero to 150 gigs is through weddings. And once I've hooked somebody into my website, then my website tells stories. And then once I've hooked them from my website to talk to me on the phone, I tell them stories to the emails that I send them, I tell them stories all the time. And stories can be anything from the story of how booking works with me to something really impactful as to here is a wedding that I played here, the main characters of this story is the bride and the groom. Here's how music impacted their wedding and made it one of the most special days in their lives. So a story has an important element in it, which is the character the story has, you know, it's got the plot part of it, which is very important too. But the plot is where you introduce the conflict. So the conflict happens when the character in the story wants to achieve something, they need something in their life, or they need something removed from their life. And that's where the conflict comes into plays. Because currently there's something preventing them from achieving that desire. So the story walks them through how does the character in your story, navigate the conflict and eventually achieve the result that they were looking for in the beginning? So as an example for that, like, if I'm selling a gig, and the I don't know, let's say that I get the objection of like, Oh, I already have a wedding DJ, do I even need musicians for my ceremony? Well, I would tell them a story. So I would actually tell them about my wedding too. I got married back in September of 2019. at my wedding, I had a DJ. And of course, people might think that, oh, if you have a DJ for your wedding, then you can't have live music too. But that's actually not the case. Because what I really wanted was I wanted a music filled with my favorite music. I wanted the day filled with my favorite music. And I wanted it performed by musicians at a high level. But I also wanted a DJ to run sound for my ceremony and then eventually play the actual recorded songs that were so special for my wife and I's first dance, Father, daughter, mother, son dance, etc. So I wanted all those things too. But so the conflict was, can I have live music and combine that with a DJ. And so I chatted with the DJ and because I'm in the wedding industry and I'm a live musician myself, I know how this works. So I was able to overcome that conflict by booking a string quartet My wedding ceremony actually did book my quartet that I play. And of course, I had somebody sub i wasn't playing at my wedding. And then I booked a jazz piano player for my cocktail hour. And the DJ was there to handle all of the technical parts of that, you know, string quartets are acoustic, they don't typically require amplification. So the DJ was there to provide microphones for the officiant and me and my wife, and also to handle any unexpected things. Also, at other weddings, the DJs that people have hired, have come over to the string quartet that I'm playing in, and set up a microphone in front of the string quartet so that they could capture the sound and send it to their videographer and also hear it through the sound system too. So yes, it is possible to overcome that objection, by using a story of your own experience. Maybe you had a wedding where you experience something that they wanted, they you got the result that they want, and show them that story. Or show them the story of somebody else you've worked with, who achieved the results that the person you're working with now wants to achieve. So storytelling, you'll tell them the story with the character, introduce some of the backstory, introduce the conflict, the result that they like, what's the desire they want? What externally is preventing them from getting that result? internally? How does that make them feel? Why is it so wrong, that they can't get that result? Then take them on the journey of what happens? How do they achieve that desire? And who did they transform into because they were able to get that? So storytelling is super powerful. You tell these stories, and what it is, it's like inception, if you've ever seen the movie inception, the whole goal of you know, basically, the whole arc of the film is these people going into the dreams of the of the one of the main characters, to plant the idea in their mind, of an action that they wanted that person to take. So stories, plant ideas, they show them how they could achieve something. And then you're planting the idea that in order for them to achieve the result they want, they have to book you, and you didn't tell them that idea. You show them the story that basically led them to this achieve the same conclusion that you wanted them to in the first place. So stories are super powerful. You tell them a hook to bring them to your website, tell them stories on your website, then make them the offer to get a quote to book you hook story offer and you will book more gigs than you possibly than you thought possible. So thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, you thought it was helpful and you thought this was something that you could implement in your own gigging. Definitely go ahead and click the subscribe button like us on Facebook and let's here's to getting you more gigs.