The Gigging Musician Podcast

Your Music Won't Sell Itself

November 05, 2021 Jared Judge
The Gigging Musician Podcast
Your Music Won't Sell Itself
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, Jared shares the secret to making money from your music. Hint: it's not about waiting for success to happen to you.

What's up gigging pros. It's Jared. And today I want to chat about the problem of your music not selling itself. And I'm speaking about gigging because we are gigging pros, here we're talking about selling gigs. And a lot of musicians think that their music will just sell itself, people will find out about you, and want you so bad at their event that they'll just book you on the spot. And, unfortunately, music schools have taught us that you don't need to focus on some things, you just need to get better at your instrument get better at practicing, and, you know, things will just happen. But as we all know, that's not true. That is one of my problems with music school is that it's missing the critical part of selling your music. So you know, I've been in this game for a long time, and that problem just exacerbates itself, the longer you're in music, because prior to learning the business of music, I would just, you know, I would do what everyone else did, it's like Field of Dreams, if you build it, they will come. But that, unfortunately, is just simply not true. Because the longer I was in the game, without learning the business of it, the more money I would spend on music, the more that I would practice, the more I would get groups together to rehearse, thinking that that would be the thing that would get us booked. And it didn't happen. Soon, of course, I learned the marketing of it. And I learned all of the strategies that I talked about, of getting random people not random, but like the right kind of audience members to find out about your music, the ones who need your type of services, getting them to find out about you sending them to your website, or your online directory profiles. And that was a huge leap forward for me. But the problem still remained is that like, when I would get people coming to the website, and submitting inquiries, not all of them would book me. And you know, not not everyone's going to book you, you're just not the right fit for every single person. But the percentage of people that would come to the website, give me their info, and then book me, just by email was actually pretty low. I was already doing a lot of things better than most musicians, because I know, you know, the marketing of it. But still, that was a huge limiting factor. For me, if you build it, they will not come, they will not book you. Because the key missing thing for me was selling, not just the music, but selling them on me. You know, running a group is a very personal experience. And if you think about it, in one of my previous episodes, entitled a gig is not a gig, I went into depth about how when you're playing a gig for somebody, while you might see it as just another gig, that person does not see it as a gig for them. This is a once in a lifetime event that they're hosting. Even if it's a bar, you know, they're hosting a Friday night concert, it's not just a gig to them, it's something very special for them, and they're relying on you to be a key component of that. And so the missing part is the ability to sell them on you using your words, sorry about the traffic here and crossing the street. So being able to sell is something that they definitely don't teach in music school, even in the music schools that have entrepreneurship classes. Like I know that's becoming more and more of a thing, and I'm so happy to hear that. But I still think it's woefully missing some key important things, including how to sell yourself and sell a gig. And so I mentioned how Dream City we get people to come to our website, and then submit an inquiry on our website. And then the very next thing we do this is the new thing, the thing that I don't think many musicians know how to do or they'd be scared to do is I actually have a face to face consultation with them. And so this is mostly done by zoom, but it is face to face. And in this consultation, this is when I have a chance to sell them on our music our group and meet. I mentioned in one of the earlier podcasts is that we are in the service provider industry, we're providing a service to somebody and service provider customers are really looking for somebody on their side, somebody that cares about them and their situation. And so this consultation, this sales meeting, is a chance for me to sell them on the fact that I am on their team. I care more about them and the success of their events than anybody else. And so I actually have a PowerPoint presentation. It is based on something that I learned from Russell Brunson called the perfect webinar. And I actually discovered this from a DJ training company that Trains wedding DJs on how to sell more weddings. But I know that they're also students of Russell Brunson. So I went right to the source and learned it the perfect webinar script, you can look that up. It's amazing. It teaches you how to sell using a presentation. And so I created a PowerPoint presentation that is structured very specifically, to get them thinking and feeling things that creates an affinity with me, gets them to know me, like me, and trust me. And in that actually mentioned, like, you know, for many musicians, a gig is just another gig. But for me and my company, we don't feel that way. For us, your wedding is, you know, one of once in a lifetime opportunity that we care about. So you're not just booking musicians, you're booking musicians who care about making your experience, as best as it possibly can be creating the atmosphere that you always dreamed of creating the feelings that you want to feel, and the memories that you want to treasure forever. And I showed them, you know, here's how we do that. There. I have different slides that each sell them on different parts of the experience. I definitely ask them a lot of questions about, you know, what they want to feel, what do they want to experience? Why did they want music actually kind of get into their backstory? Like, what about your upbringing made you want live music at your event? And that gets them to speak about it, and articulate it, and then feel things that makes them feel like they that I care about them because I do. But then some of the slides demonstrate my authority, which if you read Gigging Secrets, this comes directly from the brand scripts, how do I demonstrate my authority to solve their problems of needing great live music for their event, I also use some other elements of the brand script, including the three step process that they go through to book me and I show that on the PowerPoint, I let them ask questions. And they also every single person, even if they have consumed all of my videos, like they've watched my YouTube channel or gone on the website, watch the videos that I have there, I include a video in this presentation. And I have this video for a very specific person. Because that person for a very specific reason, I want them to notice one aspect about this video that sets us apart from whatever else they might use to solve that problem for their event. In my specific case, the rocks that I'm throwing, is I'm throwing rocks against DJs for their wedding ceremony. Because, you know, that's honestly, a lot of wedding musicians are competing against having a DJ at their wedding or nothing at all. And so I have them watch a specific aspect of a video that shows how much better live music is then having a DJ. And it's super effective, asked tons of questions. And by the end of the presentation, they're 100% ready to book, it is the most effective tool to sell them on your group for their event. And on you as the service provider. Who cares more about their event than anybody else. So that is one of my big secrets. It's the sales presentation. And it's my ability to talk to people, which you can learn. I know at this point, a lot of people might be thinking, well, they never taught us what to say or how to say it in music school. And you're right. They didn't teach me that either. And when I first started this, it was uncomfortable. It was scary. I stumbled over my words a lot. I felt shy because I'm an introvert. You might not know it now because I've practiced it so much. But you know, you get better at the things you spend your time and energy towards. And so while you might not be the most comfortable speaking to people and selling your music now, do it anyway. Do it anyway, say that I am going to make this happen. I'm going to get better at it and say it's okay if I screw up because what's the worst that could happen? You know, worst that could happen if you're selling somebody on yourself and your music in one of these sales presentations. literally the worst that can happen is they just are not interested and they don't book you. It's not the end of the world. They're gigs all the time that I lose out on because it's not the right fit. I you can't book everything. But this is going to be a little cliche, but Wayne Gretzky, you know the quote, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So take some shots. Now is the time, especially, you know, with the whole COVID thing and rescheduling is happening. We have gotten more bookings this year than we've seen prior to COVID. And so Now is the time to get good at this stuff. And if you're interested, make sure you get your free copy of Gigging Secrets. It's a book, physical book shipped to your doorstep where I reveal more information about how to do this. How to get more people into your website into your world, that then you can sell to and book gigs. So FREE copy GiggingSecrets.com and remember you are just one gig away.