A New Way of Making a Living Performing

What is up gigging pros. Its Jared, I'm back from my Arizona trip. And unfortunately, I don't have my mountain anymore. But I'm going for a little walk by the Milwaukee River. And I apologize for the delay. It's been a little tough getting back into the swing of things since my trip. But I have a really exciting discovery to share with you about a new way of booking gigs. And as many of you know, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while I'm private event musician, most specifically a wedding musician. And my string quartet plays over 150 Weddings each year. COVID obviously took a little hit of on that, but it's definitely getting back and we're in the we're in late October 2021. And inquiries for my services have shot way up, and bookings. And my success at booking them meaning how many people signed my contract, versus the total number of people who have inquired has gone way up. So now is an excellent time to be booking gigs and being a private event musician, because this is the time where you, you make bank, and are able to finally make a living performing your art, which is so cool. So booking gigs is my passion, and sharing how I do that with other musicians. So you too, can accomplish your goals is also one of my passions. And I just have to share with you this experiment that I conducted while I was in Arizona, that got me a result, he got me a booking. And I'll give you some backstory behind this, this experiment, because it's so cool. And it aligns with all the principles that I've been studying marketing, and nobody in this music space is doing, I can guarantee you that. Hopefully some of you try it out after this. But you know, who knows? Alright, so first, you got to know that in Arizona, I am very busy. That's my family time I'm visiting my parents, my brother, his wife, and daughters, and we're just all over the Phoenix Valley, climbing mountains and doing stuff that takes me away from my work, which is totally fine. You know, I am kind of a workaholic. But I, I did step away for it. And I didn't have as much time as I normally would. And the the problem with that for wedding bookings is that weddings are the people booking weddings, typically it's the bride or the mother of the bride. And then the groom and the other parent gets involved too. But these people have this expectation of response time. Meaning if you don't respond to their first message within, you know, some of them within hours, they will lose faith in you. And they will not book your services because they don't believe that you are the right choice for them simply because you don't get back to them in time. And why do they do that? You know, it's, I have this theory that a lot of people in the wedding industry just simply aren't professional, which I'm not saying that in a negative way. But it's the way it is because the wedding business in the events, business overall tends to be led by people who are very passionate about a crafting and these other like Hobby type businesses, which they've discovered an opportunity how to turn those hobbies into a profession by charging people for it for weddings, which is kind of how I got into wedding suit, you know, music was about to become a hobby for me. But then I discovered how to monetize it with weddings, which was super cool. And so this whole industry, there is this fear, like you're putting together an event. And you have all these different professionals who weren't necessarily like none of these people, myself included, never went to business school, maybe a few of them did, but most of them, no, they, they went to school for their passion, their, their craft. And as such, they weren't really taught like, here's how to do customer service, or here's how to whatever, it doesn't really matter. But the I say that just to show you that there's this fear from the customer, meaning the bride and groom, there's this fear that you're not going to show up or do a good job. And that's perpetuated by the fact that we just simply wedding industry and event industry professionals. were never taught how to do customer service and in the quote unquote, right way. And so anyway, so there's this expectation of fast response time. And there's this expectation for personalization. And you know, one of the things I mentioned in one of the previous episodes is that we are in the service industry. We serve these people who need live music for their event. And the best way to market to them, one of the value propositions is by being a friend being on their side being on their team, showing them that you've got their back from start to finish. And so all this to say is that when I was in Arizona, it was hard to do that. Which, for me, I'm a, you know, I am an innovator. I was thinking about how can I still have this good response time, but be able to spend the time with my family. And in one of the previous podcast episodes, I mentioned that I discovered the power of giving a sales presentation to these couples getting married to show them one that I'm on their side on their team step by step, but to blow them away with value, show them how I'm the expert at wedding music, how my my wedding String Quartet, we literally wins awards every year for what we do. And also, because many of them, this is their first time booking live music, show them what that process looks like. So I give a PowerPoint presentation, one on one to these couples. And that is the tool that I use to sell my string quartet services. At the end, I show them a price and give them a contract. So how can I do this when I don't have time. And so, I have been studying, you know, sales, and marketing for a while from, from a mentor called Russell Brunson. And one of the tools that Russell Brunson teaches is called video sales letters. And if you think about the the three words, you know, video, obviously, I'm recording a video that I can then send later sales, meaning it's a presentation that shows them exactly what they're gonna get and what price they're gonna buy it for. And letter, letter sales letters actually, that is one concept. And that harkens back to, you know, if you ever think about this stuff you receive in your physical mail, like your warranty has expired. And here's the number to call and hear all this stuff. Those are sales letters. And there is a whole underground world of marketers who write sales letters. In fact, I'm reading a book right now by Dan Kennedy called The Ultimate Sales Letter, an incredible book, this should be required reading for musicians or for anybody trying to make a living doing what they love. And so video sales letter is literally just a tool that you can use and send to people asynchronously, meaning when you're not there. So that they can become convinced that they need to invest in your services, and book you. And so I did that. Early in the week, when I was down in Arizona, I recorded myself giving this sales presentation, I pretended that there was somebody in the audience, I didn't really say like by name, who they were. But I made it pretty generic so that I could reuse it over and over again, gave my PowerPoint presentation. And then at the end, showed them the price and gave them a way to book. And in fact, they created a special link that they could use only accessible if they watch the presentation. And then it takes them to a web page where they enter their credit card, and then schedule a consultation with me so we can finish locking down the contract and other things. And so while I was out, I got a few inquiries. And instead of taking the time to write a very long response, I thank them for inquiring, and I mentioned that I made a very special video just for them, that shows them how it works with my group and the price. And I sent them the link to that video sales letter. And the amazing thing happened was a couple days ago, somebody booked using that video sales letter. And so that to me blew my mind because like this is a way to save so much time, but also delivering more value to this customer before they book than anything I've ever seen before without taking up half hour to an hour of my own time giving an individual one on one sales presentation. So I mean, they literally watched my sales video, my video sales letter, and then they entered the link to to secure the date. They entered in their credit card they entered in the date the venue and they hit secure now. And it was kind of interesting. Like when you're when you don't have that high touch you have to have a way to filter out bookings that don't work for you. Like say it's way too far for you or some other criteria that you don't, doesn't work for you. I mentioned in the video sales letter that this deposit, you know, if it doesn't work out if for example, were unavailable, then I will refund your deposit, no question asked. So I take away the risk of them losing money, just to make it easier for them to to make a deposit, they say, you know, if you're on the fence at all, go ahead and make the deposit anyway. And it'll be refunded, no questions asked, and somebody did it. Then I got a message from them later. Like, right after they did that, they said, OMG I am so grateful that you guys are available and are willing to, to come to our venue. And this person was like, they mentioned they were in tears during my video sales letter, because music means so much to them. And they're just so excited for us to play. For her son's wedding. It was the mother of the groom, actually. And that is the power of video sales letters. It's personalized, like I created emotions in this person. And these emotions helped this person make a decision to book my group. And I wasn't there. To me, that was incredible. My mind was blown. So I hope your mind was blown to give it a shot. If you're confused on how to put together a video sales letter or do a sales presentation that is offered as one of the upsells. For my free book Gigging Secrets, all you got to do is go to GiggingSecrets.com Get your free copy of the book, you just pay like 10 bucks in shipping and handling. And then on the next page, you're gonna actually be offered a training where I show you step by step, how to give a one on one sales presentation to potential clients looking to book you. I also include my PowerPoint slides. So you can steal those, swipe out my logo for your logo, swipe up my pricing for your pricing. And, yeah, recorded. We're record it with an audience that you don't really say their name during, throw it up on your web page, and try sending that out to people and seeing if they book. Cool. Well, thanks so much for listening. And I hope that you found this valuable. And remember, you are just one gig away.