Creativity Excitement Emotion

Science has us convinced that we should keep our goals to ourselves. But does this work? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I explain why sharing your goals with others is crucial to reaching them. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – Science says you shouldn’t share your goals with anyone 01:10 – The “trying” problem 02:29 – Action 02:50 – Getting into conversation 03:44 – Think And Grow Rich? 04:54 – Failure and the mistake advantage 05:20 – Why share your goals with others? 05:44 – The secret to sharing 06:19 – Episode summary Transcription: Today I wanted to share about the importance of sharing your goals with others. Now, science is saying you shouldn’t share your goals with anyone. But why? Because when you share your goals and receive early praise, you get a false sense of completion. You can even enter a state where you feel as though the goal has already been accomplished, even if it hasn’t been. When I first heard that, I thought it made sense. But based on the training I’ve received in the last year or so, I couldn’t disagree more. I think it’s ridiculous. I think it might even be a deliberate attempt to disempower and deceive people who are genuinely trying to accomplish something worthwhile. But you may say, “science is science, D.A. – it’s irrefutable.” Then tell me this: If we were to say for a moment that The Secret and Law of Attraction indeed work, then it’s also true that you attract what you are. What do you attract when you’re trying to reach your goals? Think about it for a second. You attract more trying. So, you get stuck in a cycle of trying, trying, trying. What do you attract when you’re trying to reach your goals? More trying.Share on X We have a serious problem with trying in the music industry. Have you ever noticed that? I can think of many examples, but the one that comes immediately to mind is Carly Rae Jepsen’s hit single, “Call Me Maybe”. There’s a line in the chorus that goes: “And all the other boys try to chase me”. Are the boys trying to chase you? Or are they in fact chasing you? There’s a difference. The only instance in which they might be trying to chase you is if they’re disabled or hindered by an obstacle. So, they’re chasing you unsuccessfully. Of course, that doesn’t sound as good in a lyrical context. Now, I happen to think “Call Me Maybe” is a catchy song with a good hook but that’s beside the point. The point is that we should consider eliminating the word, “try” from our vocabulary when it comes to goals. We should consider eliminating the word, “try” from our vocabulary when it comes to goals.Share on X You’re welcome to try new things, whether it’s food, a new hobby or a new routine. But that’s not what we’re talking about. Again, if we were to assume that the Law of Attraction works, wouldn’t a state of completion be the ideal state to be in? Wouldn’t you attract completion from a state of completion? But there’s more to this, because I don’t think what people are missing is an emotional state or a vibration. You don’t need to get your thoughts and feelings in order to achieve your goals. You don’t need to meditate for hours to get what you want. What’s still missing from the equation is action. On this point I think virtually everyone would agree. If you don’t do something, you won’t get anything. If you don’t do something, you won’t get anything.Share on X But of all the things you could be doing, is there anything truly as important as getting into conversation? Think about all that you can achieve through conversation: You can set up partnerships. You can persuade investors. You can talk to collaborators about starting new projects. You can get a date. You can sell your significant other on the idea of marriage. You can ask for publicity and media coverage. You can sell your latest release. You can book shows. You can land an opening slot on another band’s tour. And more. So, most if not everything you want is on the other side of a conversation. And, if we were to take it for granted that what happens in our minds isn’t real, we can detach from this notion that sharing will somehow undermine our attempt to reach our goals. It could be argued, then, that sharing is the critical element bridging the gap between where you are and where you want to be. A lot of people miss that. The critical element bridging the gap between where you are and where you want to be is a conversation.Share on X I have immense respect and reverence for Napoleon Hill’s work and his book, Think And Grow Rich. It’s made a difference for a lot of people. Many have speculated on what hidden secret Hill was referring to in the introduction of his book. Some people even claim to have the answer. If I had to take my own stab at it, however, I would say that the secret is turning your thoughts into material, physical form. What do I mean by that? See, thoughts don’t exist. I don’t have access to your thoughts or anyone else’s. I only have access

How can you have a more effective release? Are there steps you can take to ensure your music is noticed upon launch? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I talk to Outerloop Coaching co-founder Paul Phelps about the effective release strategy they’ve developed. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – Quick personal update 02:00 – Who is Paul Phelps? 05:12 – What type of coaching does Outerloop offer? 07:37 – The overwhelming world of digital marketing for musicians 11:28 – The importance of systems in creativity 22:39 – What steps need to be taken to have a successful release? 30:40 – Launching your release 35:01 – The importance of focus on social media 36:26 – Are there other nuances that make the strategy work? 38:19 – Where can people go to learn more about coaching? 40:38 – Conclusion Transcription: I know that I’ve been kind of quiet throughout July. As usual, this is not due to a lack of content to share with you but rather a mix of burnout, increasing workload, vacation time and planning for my future. My one-week trip to Ontario, by the way, was entirely too brief but much needed and enjoyable. But I wanted to talk a little bit about my plans. Though I can’t share any specifics just yet, I am looking to relocate in October. Hard to believe, but I’ve been in Calgary, Alberta for nearly 23 years. During that time, I made plenty of trips to Red Deer, Edmonton, Lethbridge, Camrose, Barrhead, various parts of British Columbia – which is Alberta’s neighboring province to the west – Saskatchewan, Ontario, Sandpoint and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Spokane, Washington, Portland, Oregon, Hawaii, Mexico, Japan, California and more. In retrospect, I can see that I’ve never been one to sit still. I’ve often felt it important to have a home base of sorts, but that was always with the idea of being able to move freely between different locations, whether it was for the purpose of traveling, touring or otherwise. That desire has only grown over time. So, as I look to the future, I plan to incorporate more adventure into my life. In any case, I thought I would share a quick update with you before getting into today’s interview. If you’ve ever wondered whether there’s a release strategy that can help you generate amazing results, you’re going to love this episode. Let’s get into it. [Interview with Paul Phelps] And I’m back to wrap up today’s episode. You may have heard Paul mention a free pre-recording checklist in this episode. If you’re interested in grabbing your own, you can go to davidandrewwiebe.com/Outerloop. This offer comes with Mike Mowery’s Music Management Primer as well, so again, go to davidandrewwiebe.com/Outerloop to claim these free offers. Thanks for listening and keep on rocking. Upgrade to Members Only Audios for more exciting, exclusive training.

Is burnout total B.S.? Can you just sleep it off and be on your merry way? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share the dangers of burnout and why constantly hustling, and grinding isn’t the way forward in your career or business. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – Back to the land of the living 00:55 – Burnout 03:02 – Overcoming burnout and solving business challenges 05:32 – Summary 06:01 – Transforming your career or business Transcription: Well, I’m finally back to the land of the living. And, based on the level of burnout I was experiencing, I honestly thought I wouldn’t be feeling better until after summer. Now, this isn’t to say I’m in ship shape now, but I’m beginning to feel a lot healthier. I’ve already talked a little bit about my situation in episode 150 of the podcast, so if you need to catch up, you can start there. But there’s one thing I didn’t address there, which is burnout. Unless you’re a close friend of mine, there’s no way you would know that I’ve been slowly and steadily burning out this year. For one thing, I haven’t taken a vacation since my trip to Japan in November 2017. So, that’s a major factor. For another, I was taking an intensive four-month personal development program that started in January and ended in May. That program helped me generate some incredible results in life and in business, but it’s fair to say it was just one more thing on top of the many things I was already working on. Because of the effort I’d put in, as summer neared, I was getting slammed with work. This is a good problem to have, and honestly, it’s not a problem at all. But I had to come up with a strategy to keep the ball rolling. But as the days wore on, I had trouble getting out of bed, my mind was foggy, and my shoulders were tense. I was in no place to come up with a workable solution. That went on for weeks, even months. Since I hadn’t seen my naturopath since 2018, I decided it was high time to tap into his expertise again. It took a while, but thanks to his help, I’ve started feeling healthier again. If you’re an entrepreneur constantly hustling, then you probably know what I’m talking about. But based on the kinds of things I’ve heard others say, I honestly think most people haven’t experienced burnout at this level, which is typically linked to adrenal and thyroid fatigue. I’ve mentioned burnout in conversation before, and the most common response I’ve gotten is: “Oh, you’re burned out? Me too.” If that’s how you respond, you probably aren’t burned out. If you can sleep it off over the weekend and feel fine again, you’re not going through burnout. If you’re inexplicably exhausted and lethargic for weeks and months on end without any end in sight, that’s how you know you’re pushed it a little too hard. So, when people say, “burnout is B.S. – just sleep it off”, I don’t think they know what they’re talking about. Burnout is real. It can happen to anyone. You can push yourself too hard to the point where your body just can’t handle it anymore. And, it can take several months for you to recover. Some people even continue to push themselves to the point where they end up with a major illness or worse. So, burnout is not B.S. It’s real. Burnout is not B.S. It’s real.Share on X So, how exactly did I cope with burnout and what did I do to solve the problem? When you’re burnt out, the last thing you want to do is eat or exercise. But what you eat does make a big difference, so you want to make sure you’re eating better. I started drinking more smoothies and celery juice. And, so far as exercise is concerned, I try to workout at least once per week, if not two or three times per week. But I also know that you don’t want to push yourself too hard when you’re going through burnout. A good, 20- to 30-minute walk in the sun can be refreshing, but you must be consistent. I did some walking, but most of the time I just worked out from home, as that’s the easiest solution. Massage can also be a difference maker. I’ve only gotten one massage recently, but it helped me reset my sleep and helped with my shoulder injury besides. Meditation is another mechanism I’ve found some value in. Last year, when I was emotionally burnt out, I was adamant about keeping to my meditation schedule, and in time, it started to work. I haven’t been meditating consistently these days, but I still get some meditation time in. And, of course, as I mentioned, I saw my naturopath, who is versed in organ adjustments, chiropractic work and cranial sacral therapy. I have found this to be immensely effective. Of course, you get your homeopathic drops and pills too. Now, I’m not a healthcare practitioner, so this episode comes with the disclaimer that you should see a professional if you’re wondering if any of what I’ve mentioned here would be beneficial to you. As for the strategic aspects, I had to determine what I wanted to do with guest posts. Every day, I get people emailing me wanting to contr

You may have heard me reference my “forthcoming EP” a few times and wondered when it was coming out. Well, in this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I offer a sneak preview into the No Escape EP, which will be hitting online music stores and streaming platforms any day. Enjoy. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – My latest solo release 01:43 – No Escape 03:52 – Sleepless Blues 05:16 – Don’t Wait Too Long 06:43 – Hope 08:08 – Grace Is Bittersweet 09:24 – Keep an eye open for the No Escape EP Transcription: Any day now, my latest solo release, No Escape will become available on all online music stores and streaming platforms. But because I wanted to do something special for you, I put together a sneak preview for the EP right here on the show. As a listener of The New Music Industry Podcast, you’ve shown that you’re looking to take your music career or business beyond and that you’re willing to invest in yourself. Although it’s been said many times by many people, it’s worth saying again – there are few things as important as your willingness to invest in yourself. Most people will go through life investing in their education to get a job. But if you’re a listener of this podcast, it’s clear you’re looking to live a different kind of life. You want to live your passion and not be constrained by anything. You’re special. That’s why I wanted to give you a sneak preview of my forthcoming EP, No Escape. Now, usually the term “sneak preview” is reserved for an early viewing of a movie. There are no music videos yet, and I have not filmed a movie in connection with the EP. So, this is a sneak peek into the music, what prompted me to write and record the songs I did and how they came together. The first track on the EP is the title track, “No Escape”. I wrote this song in fall 2017, which is hard to believe. In the months leading up to writing “No Escape”, I noticed that my life was synchronizing with my best friend’s, sometimes in subtle ways and sometimes in more overt ways. For example, we would sometimes wake up at the same time or make meals at the same time. But our emotions and physical circumstances would also sync up. So, if one was feeling restless, it was common that the other would be feeling restless. If one was feeling exhausted and having trouble sleeping, so it would be for the other. So, while “No Escape” was written about my best friend, the truth is that I was going through the same things she was. The song is about restlessness and escapism. It’s human nature to avoid problems and difficulties instead of leaning into them. And, sometimes we feel the need to escape. At times, that can manifest in relatively innocuous daily activities – going shopping, eating out, traveling, visiting the gym more frequently and so on. But it can also show up as more harmful and destructive behavior – compulsive gambling, drinking, partying, bringing harm to yourself and others and so on. An entrepreneur, of course, learns to lean into the challenges instead of trying to avoid or escape them. That’s what leads to personal expansion in the areas of leadership, resilience and problem solving. Anyway, there’s something someone who’s experienced a lot of life intuitively knows. No matter where they go, they take themselves with them. That means there truly is no escape from your problems unless you’re willing to dig for the core issue. Outside of that, there’s only temporary relief. That’s the backdrop against which “No Escape” was written. The next track, “Sleepless Blues”, predates “No Escape” by many years. I believe I first wrote it in 2007 or 2008. 2008 is when I fell in love for the first time. Of course, I’d had crushes up that point, but I’d never felt how I felt about someone up until that year. When my heart was broken, I wrote a series of songs to begin the healing process. I think “Sleepless Blues” was written prior to that time but I was thinking about including it on the same album, to be titled Back on Solid Ground. That album, unfortunately, didn’t come to be in that space and time. But I had worked on a couple of demos with my producer-engineer Patrick Zelinski a few years later, and “Sleepless Blues” happened to be one of them. Originally, I was going to record three songs with him last year, but Patrick managed to dig up the demos we had been working on, including “Sleepless Blues” and “Grace Is Bittersweet”, which resulted in their inclusion on this five-track EP. Up next is “Don’t Wait Too Long”. Musically inspired by They Might Be Giants' “Man, It’s So Loud in Here”, I wrote the music for “Don’t Wait Too Long” around 2012. Lyrically, I knew what I wanted to do with the chorus but hadn’t written the verse yet. I dug up the music in 2016 and decided to put the finishing touches on this track. I released it as a single the same year. This version of “Don’t Wait Too Long” is distinct in that it features more organic instruments. The song is about the vacuum of depres

How do you handle challenging situations? What do you do when your life seems to be going sideways? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share my reflections from a recent heartbreak. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – Heartbreak 01:32 – Turning to a mentor for help 02:35 – The stories we tell ourselves 02:59 – Have you ever considered that it’s not your fault? 03:53 – The trap of “more, better, different” 05:01 – Parable of the Mexican fisherman and American investment banker 06:35 – Living your dream life 07:12 – How to create breakthroughs Transcription: In my life, I recently encountered what we commonly refer to as “heartbreak”. I’ve discovered from my training that heartbreak isn’t real. It’s just how certain situations show up to us in life. What sustains the emotional response is what we tell ourselves about the situation and what we make it mean. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t encounter a wide range of emotions after a conversation one fateful night. At first, I felt shocked and heartbroken. I was in pain. Because I started sharing what I was going through with friends and my extended support group, I turned that around in about half a day. At that point, the situation was showing up as clarity, freedom, energy in my world. But only two days later, it was showing up as responsibility. If only I had read between the lines. If only I had shared my inauthenticity sooner. If only I had spoken up earlier. If only I had been more forthright with my feelings. I was beating myself up. My mind was foggy, and my emotions clogged. I was stuck, so again, I turned to sharing, and this time, I called up one of my mentors. Having explained the situation, my mentor said, “there’s one thing I haven’t heard you say yet, which is that it’s not your fault.” My mentor continued to reinforce this idea that it wasn’t my fault. And, he shared with me that I am who I am, and that I’m meant to live that out. He also shared that the right person would embrace who I am and even be drawn to it. We tend to change our behavior around those we care deeply about. We adapt to create a version of ourselves that we think others will accept, without even knowing if that makes us more acceptable. We make up stories about what we think others would find more interesting, more attractive, more valuable, and so on. That’s not the person others were drawn to in the first place. So, I got to try on that what I’d experienced was not my fault. Suddenly, the situation in question was showing up in my world as peace and light excitement. Of course, I will allow myself to feel whatever I feel over the coming days, weeks or even months. There is nothing wrong about what any of us we feel. The problem is the stories we construct around that, which are sometimes subversive but usually detrimental. I’m not worthy of love. I’m not attractive. I’m not valuable. Those types of thoughts can circulate in our minds, and we accept them as normal. But then we carry them into future relationships and situations, oftentimes without any sense of awareness. That’s where things get tricky. Have you ever considered that it’s not your fault? Have you considered that you are who you are, and that’s who you’re meant to be, that there’s nothing wrong with you? So, why do I share this with you? It’s not as though this episode is going to give my site a ton of SEO value, drive traffic, generate book sales or otherwise. First, I wanted to share this with you because if you’ve listened to all the episodes to this point, you’ve heard me talk about the different types of summer as well as boundaries. Even my friend, Christopher Sutton of Musical U could tell I was going through something when I published those episodes. I wasn’t explicit in sharing details on the podcast, but he told me he could tell something was up. What I’m sharing with you today is the impact of what I went through and the choices I made. So, it relates to the episodes just mentioned. Second, I’m sharing because I want you to look at who you are and what you’re up to in life. So often, we are in pursuit of something we don’t have. And, when what we’re doing doesn’t work, and we don’t reach our goals, we try to do more of it, do it better or do it differently. Have you ever noticed how more, better, different only offers incremental progress or change? But we keep repeating that cycle of more, better, different. And, I admit that there have been some podcast episodes in the past that focused on more, better, different. But what my mentor was showing me was that maybe we can shine just as we are. Perhaps we would be better served coming from a place of self-acceptance. Not trying to be someone else. Not trying to be more, better, different. Just shining as we are. We don’t choose people, projects, jobs or businesses in a vacuum. It’s coming from somewhere, nature, nurture or otherwise. It’s coming from the people we regularly interact with and the media we choose t

How effective are you in meeting people and creating meaningful and strategic connections? Do you have contacts that can help you take your music career beyond? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I chat with musician Brian Bob Young, who gave this podcast’s music a makeover. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 01:11 – Who is Brian Bob Young? 04:16 – Being specific about your goals 04:45 – Reading and writing books 08:38 – Being focused in networking and music production 09:34 – How to cold call or approach strangers 11:37 – The evils of non-sequitur networking and marketing 12:47 – Creating context in conversation and generating opportunities 16:55 – Avoid burning bridges 19:37 – Drama is always created 24:03 – Open mics are a great place to network 27:20 – How Brian wrote the music for The New Music Industry Podcast 33:29 – Music on the podcast 34:14 – Finding a need and filling it 37:03 – Getting your first clients 37:45 – Meeting people (or how David got over his fear of talking to people) 39:35 – Booking gigs 43:22 – How many projects does David have? 48:27 – Begin creatively free 52:16 – It’s not just what you know but who you know Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today I'm chatting with musician Brian Bob Young. How are you today? Brian? Brian Bob Young: Great, David Andrew Wiebe. Thank you so much for having me on, man. It is actually a really cool experience to have a working relationship with you and hear my music be a part of a show that I genuinely enjoy, and then be able to talk about it with you too is pretty cool. So, thanks man. David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah, thanks for joining me. I guess my listeners have now been hearing your music for probably a few months at this point, right? I've been using it for many episodes. And of course, your name is mentioned at the end of every episode. We should maybe get a sense of who you are and then recount how it is that you came to do some of this music? Brian Bob Young: Yeah, I guess so. Just like most of the people that have been on the show, I love music and I’m engaged with it my whole life. That's kind of the given for most of us in this field, right. But I guess, I don't want to be too tangential and like a life story of how I ended up on the production side of things. So, I'll just be specific with how I was able to work with you was that I made goals about a year and a half ago of what kind of work would I want on the production side and what projects could I do that would help me to get there that would also be meaningful projects. And then, happen by actually a kind of like a lightning bolt moment where I was working a bunch of jobs, and I came across a buddy of mine that I didn't even know he was a film producer. He knew that I was starting to reel on the production side and more of the creativity side of the music stuff, which will put a pin in that that I worked on the business side for a long time before doing this. He had a film script and was like, “Hey, do you think you could try your hand on scoring this independent film?” And in the human mode, I was so excited because I love this guy. He's worked on some of my favorite movies actually. He worked on the movie… He was a part of Whiplash. That kind of fell through a little bit for him but I just know that he had worked on projects that I would be really excited about. But at the time, I was not equipped at all to execute doing a film score. I had no idea what would go into that. Neither the resources nor the skill to execute. So, I learned that pretty quickly and talked to him about it. He said, “Dude, that's fine.” But it really got the wheels in motion of like, okay, if another script or something ends up in my lap, I want to be prepared because you've heard the quote, “Luck is where preparation and opportunity meet.” right? Yeah. So, that's kind of what got the wheels in motion. One of the first ideas I had was like, why not try to help out podcasts that I like and see if they want their music updated or a little bit more catered to the show and all that. And your show, of course, is one of the shows that I enjoy and reached out to see if you want some updated music that kind of had its own little different sounds. So, that is a little bit of the story of how I specifically ended up on doing the production for your show. David Andrew Wiebe: That's great. I like what you said about specificity, which is something that Matt Star was very adamant on when he came on the show and talked about that too. So, being really intentional and clear about your goals. Brian Bob Young: And that's so hard for me man. It is drudgery for me to be specific and not be idealistic in my head in the clouds. It is hard for me but when I do it, obviously, it's fruitful. There's something there. David Andrew Wiebe: I'm at the same boat for sure. And the thing that I kept talking about this year and continue to

Ariel Hyatt is in the house! Are you looking to get more publicity for your music or band? Do you wish a major media outlet would cover your story? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, we learn from the best. Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR sheds light on the current state of publicity in the music industry as well as what she’s excited about creating. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 01:30 – What brought you to this point of helping musicians and music related brands? 03:51 – Dyslexia 04:50 – How long did it take for you and your company to get established in your space? 08:39 – Creative projects are closed loops 09:41 – The dangers of comparison 12:29 – How important is publicity for musicians and what is PR? 14:13 – FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened 15:40 – The media will cover you if you have something newsworthy to share 19:11 – The grind 23:05 – How effective are press releases? 25:53 – Copywriting skills 26:57 – Why write books? 35:39 – Is there a project you’re fired up about working on right now? 37:58 – Am I on track? – An assessment of The Music Entrepreneur HQ business 45:35 – Concluding thoughts Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today I'm chatting with founder of Cyber PR. Ariel Hyatt. How are you today, Ariel? Ariel Hyatt: I’m fantastic. David Andrew Wiebe: Great. Glad we could finally talk and have you on the show. Now, I've been blogging about the music industry since 2007. But in 2012, I invested in music industry startup and ended up creating a position for myself as a blogger and digital marketer for the company. And that's when I started taking it more seriously. And in those days, it was people like you and Derek Severs, and Tom Hess, and Andrew Dover, that provided me with a lot of inspiration. So, thank you for being one of the giants whose shoulders, I could stand on. Ariel Hyatt: My pleasure. Those are all names that just brought me so much warm and fuzzy. That was amazing. David Andrew Wiebe: Oh, I know. I mean, Derek Severs I'm sure is many people's favourite human being. He's just smart and knowledgeable. What an incredible guy. Can't really say enough about him. So, you have a tremendous amount of experience in marketing and PR. What brought you to this point of helping musicians and music-related brands? Ariel Hyatt: I guess the real honest answer is my mother who is an amazing career coach. That's what she did my whole life and continues to do. She pointed out when I was pretty young that I had a knack for communication. I started really young interning at a PR firm and realised that that was actually true, I did have a knack for communication. Although even though that was my knack, I had a passion for art. That was my interest. And so, I guess my whole career is a combination of the thing that I'm really passionate about, which is art, not only music but I love visual art and all types of art. And then, you know, getting to support artists with what I'm really good at, which is communication and simplifying things, I think is something that as a dyslexic, which is something that I have, you look at the world really differently because everything feels confusing, especially when you're young and you can't read and everybody else can. You don't see the world the way other people see it. You start filtering things in a way to make it easier for yourself to understand. And so, I think part of why I'm good at what I do is, I understand that artists don't see the world, especially the business world, the way that most people do. And so, I've kind of made it my journey. Like, if I could break down the world so that I could understand it when it didn't make sense, I certainly could help other people do that. David Andrew Wiebe: Wow, that's really cool. And a couple of things by way of comment. When I first got started, or really, after I was born, the first thing I got into was not music but rather art. And so, I did a lot of arts and crafts, and a lot of drawing and painting. That was sort of my first expression of creativity, which later evolved into music and writing. But I think it's so common that people in this space also have a huge appreciation for other types of art. The other thing was what you said about dyslexia. I had a backing singer in my group who is also dyslexic, without revealing too many details, but it was just one of many things she seemed to be afflicted by and struggling with at times. But you know, she's still a great singer, which is why I work with her. Ariel Hyatt: Yeah, it's a lot of people that have dyslexia have an excellent year. Most a lot of really famous artists like Carly Simon, James Taylor, they're dyslexic. They have this like, perfect pitch. And it's like, “Well, why is that?” Well, it's because they can't read so it comes out in other ways. David Andrew Wiebe: Right. It's almost

John Oszajca is in the house! Do you know what funnels are? Are you using them to promote your music? What level of success have your achieved with your marketing funnels? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, you’ll learn about this timely and vital topic from the best of the best – John Oszajca of Music Marketing Manifesto. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 01:11 – Four record deals!? – John’s story 07:16 – What led to your breakthrough? 16:50 – Trying and failing – finding a winning formula 20:56 – What type of results do musicians achieve with your method? 28:07 – What are the main upsides of using funnels to build an audience? 31:50 – Are there any hiccups or downsides to the method? 35:20 – What’s the biggest challenge you’ve encountered as an entrepreneur? 38:15 – What’s the biggest victory you’ve experienced as an entrepreneur? 43:47 – Are there any books or other resources that have helped you on your journey? 47:29 – Is there anything else I should have asked? Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today, I'm chatting with the creator of Music Marketing Manifesto and singer/songwriter John Oszajca. How are you today, John? John Oszajca: I'm great. Thanks for having me on your show. David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. And on that note, I know that in the space of music marketing, we can sometimes become precious about our ideas and methods but always find it such a joy to talk and share with experts like you. I always learn a lot. The more I dig into this niche, the more I find that there's probably only a few dozen of us or maybe a hundred of us out there doing this kind of thing. So, I want to thank you for your willingness to come on the show, and also for the important work you're doing for artists. John Oszajca: Thanks. Yeah, my pleasure. David Andrew Wiebe: So, I've done a bit of reading about you. One of the things I found interesting is that you had four different record deals, none of which really benefited you in the way you hoped it would. John Oszajca: I did. David Andrew Wiebe: So, what happened there? John Oszajca: Well. Yeah, so I can't say none of them benefited me financially, you know, particularly the first deal was very successful. That set much of my life in motion. So, I don't regret any of the experiences but certainly, when you're a young, aspiring musician, and we all dream of getting record deals, the idea is not just that you're going to fill your bank account, it's that you're going to go on to have a meaningful career and become a household name. So, cut me off if I go into too much detail, but the sort of short version is that, you know, like a lot of young musicians... I'm from Hawaii. I left my small town and moved to [unclear 02:01]. I went to Seattle first, later to Los Angeles in pursuit of success as an artist. I eventually, after a lot of hard work, a lot of, you know, I really hustled. I was one of those guys that really worked my butt off. I promoted clubs and pursued every opportunity I could to find success. I eventually did land a record deal after many demo deals and a lot of struggles. I signed with Interscope. The trade paper said it was the largest new artists signing in history. It looked very good for a moment. I had one of those deals where I was on a soundtrack and my song became the single for that soundtrack. It started taking off all over the United States. That song did. And I had no record deal but was getting heavy rotation on the biggest stations in the country. That's what sort of kicked by this big bidding war. But there was no album and by the time the album actually got finished, and by the time... I had Jimmy Iovine as my A&R rep, you know, the Head of Interscope, which sounded fantastic, but all it actually turned out to mean is that I had the busiest guy at the label as my A&R rep. And so, there was a lot of confusion. Music changed a lot at this time. This is back in like 2000 when there was that shift from alternative to sort of active rock, if you remember that. This is like when the No Doubt, Bex, and Sugar Rays of the world were supplanted by that Metallica, Korn, and Limp Biscuits. And so, by the time my album came out, it didn't really fit in the alternative world so it got ultimately put out on pop and hot AC. So, my album came out the same week as Madonna and 98 degrees. It was nothing like that music. I don't know. I had a few things stacked against me but at the end of the day, you know, I had a fantastic experience. I toured and had song/music on the radio across the country and was on MTV and all that kind of stuff, but I just didn't sell enough records. With no conversation about it, it was dropped. You just kind of get a letter to your lawyer. When some board makes a decision, or some, you know, not literally a board, but some... what's their committee that makes a decision. And was s

Full-time musician. Doesn’t that term have a great ring to it? Wouldn’t you love to pursue your passion full-time? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I chat with UK based musician Malcolm “Bubba” McCarthy and ask him how he rose through the ranks to become an established and in-demand musician. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 01:01 – Who is Malcom “Bubba” McCarthy? 02:48 – The deficiencies of traditional education 05:57 – Side hustles 06:50 – Playing well vs. social media marketing 08:10 – Revenue streams and taming the tiger 09:12 – Establishing yourself as a quality musician in UK 12:23 – What sort of gear are you using? 16:42 – Getting repeat gigs 19:05 – Being versatile in the music industry 20:32 – How important are music sales for you? 22:24 – The duality of being prolific and perfectionism 24:20 – Michael Jackson and Thriller 25:15 – Are there any books or resources that have helped you on your journey? 27:28 – Building relationships in the industry Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today I'm chatting with UK-based musician, producer, and songwriter, Malcolm “Bubba” McCarthy. How are you Bubba? Malcolm McCarthy: Hello! I'm good. It's four o'clock in the afternoon and we actually have some sun here in England. So, that’s good. I'm happy. David Andrew Wiebe: That's great. It's like about -1° Celsius here in Calgary, which is not too bad for this time of year. I think it should warm up a little more through today. I've had the chance to read up a little bit about you and your bio and everything but I think first things first, I'm sure for my listeners, they would love for you to share your story and how you got to this point in being a full time musician. Malcolm McCarthy: Hmm. Well, long road, I would say. But really interesting road. I actually went to university to study history. I was going to become a lawyer. I was going to become a lawyer. I finished my degree in law school, and I just decided I want to take a year out and go to music college, me in front of people and just you know, enjoy music for a year before I went off to law school again. But then, actually, in that year, I was like, “Oh man, I need to give this a shot.” I started meeting a ton of people who then started hire me for the gigs for a little cost and so… Actually, you know what? Let me put all the law stuff on hold and go for it. So, in that time, you know, I didn't get a ton of gigs, probably the first year. So, I did a bit of peripatetic teaching. I taught piano at secondary school or high school as you guys would call it. That helped me go and help me afloat until I got tour that cometh that came in that would be a bit more sort of consistent. And so, I think that's when I was like, “Okay. Let's go for this full time.” And yeah, I’ve been doing it for the last, I guess, six or seven years. That's been a fun, testing, exciting, you know, all the above. It was pretty cool. David Andrew Wiebe: You know, something that I'm regularly on about is this whole thing about school. No doubt, I'm sure it had some benefit in your journey, but there's also some fairly apparent, I think deficiencies in school. I'm wondering if it equips you and left you with all the tools you needed to succeed in music or if you found that there was a lot more that you actually need the skills you needed to pick up or experiences you needed to have to become a full time musician. Malcolm McCarthy: Yeah. I think I agree mostly with you on that point. I'm not 100% sure, like the necessity of going to school. I think the main thing for me that was able to… Two things. I was able to pull out my technique. So, I played the keys and I played the drums, but when I went to music college, it was the drums that I specialised in. So, I was able to fill out my technique, which was horrific. That actually was something that I needed to fill up. But I guess you know, if you had a private tutor or whatever, that could be sorted out. And the other thing was, I was able to meet a ton of people. I think that really was, for me anyway, that was super important. Coming from the schools in London, I had been in London for three years coming back just to have an immediate network of people to kind of know and who would give me gigs that I think that was one of the biggest things about going to college. But there's a ton of other things you can do. You know, with jam nights, you can go out and meet people. You know, there's other ways. David Andrew Wiebe: Absolutely. You know, it's the same thing I've heard from other musicians as well, like school helps you work on your technique and you also get to meet a ton of people so you got like an established base of basic contacts that you can tap into for gigs and opportunity and all that. You need that foundation no matter what. Obviously, it still kind of leaves you not knowing things like

What does it mean to be a musician in the digital age? How can you take advantage of popular platforms to get your music heard by more people? In this episode of The New Music Industry, I talk to Michael Sloane, Co-Founder of Streaming Promotions. We get into everything from opportunities artists are missing all the way to how we’re all information marketers. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights; 00:42 – What is your background? 07:16 – Creative pursuits are weird 08:02 – What opportunities are musicians missing in streaming? 10:40 – Music distribution is not an issue anymore 11:19 – Opportunities that can come from music streaming 12:33 – How does Streaming Promotions help artists get their music heard by more people? 16:36 – Inbox overload 19:33 – Who is Streaming Promotions for? 21:02 – You can still reach your career goals 22:30 – Everything is about the story 23:27 – What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve experienced to this point? 25:04 – What have been your greatest victories to this point? 26:43 – Are there any books or resources that have helped you on your journey? 27:52 – We’re all information marketers 30:36 – 90-day goals 31:08 – Conduit to growth Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today I'm chatting with CEO of Streaming Promotions, Michael Sloane. How are you today, Michael? Michael Sloane: Doing great. How are you? David Andrew Wiebe: I'm good. Thanks. Thank you for asking. I would love for you to talk a little bit about your background in digital strategy, in e-commerce optimization. What did you learn from your work and how has that influenced your direction since? Michael Sloane: Oh, that's a good question. I really started my pursuit of the music industry in 1996. I came to Belmont University, initially, with the thoughts of being perhaps an artist, which was thwarted very quickly. And then decided it would be maybe a better use of my talents to work on the business side. I really thought I was going to get an A&R in the publishing side of things. Got freaked out, left Nashville, got a degree in finance from the University of Kentucky, worked in banking as a loan analyst for three years prior to coming back and getting my MBA at Belmont and getting some jobs in publishing only to get fired. And then, I realized that I was better, more on the technology side, which fortunately for me, is really where the industry has gone. First job was with a company called Echo Music, which was an early web development and fan club company back when the only portal to an artist was really their website. We grew to six when we ended. Got acquired by Ticketmaster. That wasn't a very good fit personality wise for the team. Like the executive the executive team there didn't really jive too well with corporate leadership so I got a job over at Live Nation which have just launched Live Nation Artists Group and 360 deals. Got to work with some pretty notable artists there. Kenny Chesney, Zac Brown band, Cheech and Chong, the Gaither vocal band. I mean on the roster we also had AC DC and the stones and some other really large artists but in that 360 deal was really able to see the ins and outs of the workings of the industry and how things were changing and monetization of you know, real core artists or real core fans there. What's a dedicated fan willing to spend on a Rolling Stones coffee table book if they know there's only 500 of them? That kind of thing. Still got to see the ticketing side of things as well. Ticketmaster and Live Nation merged. And all those companies went away. I started my own firm called Strategic Blend in 2000. I guess that was 2009. And just began to experiment in social media, which was kind of new at the time or for a while we were actually optimizing Myspace pages, but still building websites. And then just figuring out how best to market to fans digitally there for about three years and then sold my interest to my business partner when I got an opportunity to go work with a little artist named Taylor Swift. And so, I joined her digital team and really ran all digital projects. A lot of the eCommerce pieces there were trying to integrate with Amazon, very early days of you know, get direct to fan shipments there. Really build her in entire eCommerce presence on Amazon retail space. And it went really well. From that, I flipped over to the to the label side, to Big Machine label group. They had obviously Taylor but also Florida, Georgia was breaking at the time, Thomas Rhett. They had Tim McGraw and let's see, Rascal Flatts, are some other large artists. We had 13 artists when I started and 36 when I departed. I really departed over my vision of where consumption services were going. 1989 had been released by Taylor and the CEO of the label. Pulled all of her music off of the streaming services in an attempt to sell more records. That worked perfectly. He also pulled the music off of the streaming services for Brantley

Is it possible for musicians to earn money from their passion? Where can musicians go to learn the skills, they need, to increase their effectiveness? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, Bree Noble of Female Entrepreneur Musician shares what the Profitable Musician Summit is all about. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – Are you investing in your ongoing education? 01:30 – Introductions 01:39 – What brought you to this point? 08:30 – Do you need permission to be a musician? 12:51 – What is the Profitable Musician Summit? 16:40 – What have you learned from putting on the Profitable Musician Summit? 19:46 – What has been the response to the Profitable Musician Summit? 21:28 – Is it even possible to be a profitable musician? 23:11 – People are stopped by the smallest things 24:35 – Make the commitment first, work out the details later 25:28 – Making money in music 28:14 – What are your thoughts on music entrepreneurship? 30:49 – Learning from failures 32:05 – What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered as an entrepreneur? 34:41 – Getting coaching 35:55 – What are some of the biggest successes you’ve experienced as an entrepreneur? 37:11 – Hacking book writing 38:39 – Are there any books or resources that have helped you on your journey? 40:07 – Is there anything else I should have asked? Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: I have a question for you. Are you investing in your ongoing education? I'm not talking about the education that you get in school. I'm talking about the kind that you get through personal development through reading books, through listening to audios and podcasts, watching videos, getting mentorship. Is that something that you're regularly engaging in? There's so much great content out there and if you don't take advantage of it, and you don't apply it to your music career, but continue to complain about the fact that you can't make money from music, then you're really just shooting yourself in the foot. I have a special guest on today. And I think you're going to love this interview. There is a huge opportunity to contribute to your learning, to your knowledge, to your expertise if you take advantage of some of the things mentioned in this episode. I'm not going to say anymore. Here's my special interview. Today I'm chatting with music business trainer and mentor Bree Noble. How are you today, Bree? Bree Noble: I'm doing great. David Andrew Wiebe: Excellent. It's great to have you on the show. I've had the opportunity to read your bio so I have a pretty good sense of where you're coming from, but for the sake of our listeners, I would love for you to touch on your story and what brought you to this point of founding an online radio station, starting the Female Entrepreneur Musician Podcast, producing the Profitable Musician Summit and more. Bree Noble: Oh, man. Okay. I'll try to keep it brief. You know, I'm a musician at heart of course, and my background is as a musician, a vocalist and a singer songwriter. I grew up performing a lot in high school and every choir I could do and solo competitions. I went to Westmont College to get a degree in music and vocal performance. And somewhere along the way, I got practical. I decided that I also needed a degree in business. So just in case this music thing fell through, which is kind of funny to think about it that way because I wasn't thinking about, “Oh, I kind of need the business in order to do the music.” It didn't occur to me, I thought these are two separate things. And you know, this is my fallback plan. Because I looked at it that way, when I got out of school, I really didn't have any guidance on how to make a career as a musician so I went ahead and went into the world of accounting and finance and ended up kind of marrying those by being a director of finance at a Top 15 Opera Company, which was a really cool experience, but you know, after working in the corporate world, all that time, I just really wanted to share my music, my talent, and just share my song writing with an audience and I didn't have any idea how to make that happen. I tried all kinds of weird things getting together with certain producers that I thought were going to catapult my career, trying to fit myself into different bands that didn't really match. I never really having the confidence to go out there as a soloist because I didn't know what I was doing, you know? And so, I also thought I needed permission to start working as a musician and starting a business. I thought I needed a record label. I needed a booking agent, somebody to tell me that I was now legit and I could now have a career. We now grant you The Crown of music career, you know. And so, I was stuck for a really long time. But once I left my job at the opera because I had a baby and life was getting super overwhelming. And so, I

Sometimes, it might seem like building a music career is all about the hustle. But sometimes, you just need to let the opportunities come to you. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I interview award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Troy Kokol, who shares his journey as a songwriter and how he’s been able to make songwriting his full-time gig. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – Who is Troy Kokol? 03:00 – Revenue streams you can create with songwriting 05:10 – How do you get into writing songs for others? 07:36 – When opportunities come to you (and not the other way around) 10:16 – Do you have a team helping you? 11:51 – How to write hits and become a professional songwriter 17:52 – Being prolific vs. being perfectionist 19:58 – Is writer’s block real? 22:56 – Getting passed analysis paralysis and staying true to yourself 24:07 – What are your thoughts on the Calgary music scene? 28:05 – Grants and funding for musicians 29:31 – What is Calgary Songsmiths? 33:21 – Concluding thoughts Transcription: D.A.: Today we’re chatting with award-winning Candian singer, songwriter, and producer, Troy Kokol. How are you today Troy? Troy: Doing good. Doing very good, David. D.A.: Awesome. Thanks for joining me. I was trying to learn a little bit about you for this conversation but you're a bit of a mystery online, so I would love for you to take a moment to share about your background, who you are, and what you're up to. Troy: Yeah. So, I started late in the business. I didn't pay my dues like everybody else. I had a job and was just going about my life, and we had a fortunate break with songwriting. It's a super long story but ultimately, what ended up happening was a song that we wrote was cut by a Canadian artist with a brand-new label, brand new artist, and it blew up. It did as good as a song could have in that type of situation. And so, all of a sudden, we were thrust from doing a day job thing to like, “Oh, okay. I guess we're songwriting now.” And so, that was about 10 years ago. A little over 10 years ago. And so, from there we just have evolved. It's evolved into songwriting. I started producing and then of course the more you start singing, the more you start doing your own stuff. Right now, what we do business wise is pretty broad. I'm an independent artist as well. I mix, and master, and produce, and record all my stuff myself but I also produce, mix, and master for other artists. And most of the stuff that we do and most of the things that we have had success with are in the country pop genre but I do work in folk as well with folk artists. It all feels new even though it's been 10 years. Like I say, I never suffered sleeping in the van down by the river. Nothing like that. I kind of have the best of both worlds. And so, yeah, I'm really enjoying it. And we make our home here in Calgary and we decided to do that a long time ago. We could have moved south and that was an option but we decided that Calgary was going to be the place where we’re going to set our roots and just do what we could from our home. And so, we've been really glad to do that. D.A.: That's awesome. It strikes me that there are a lot of opportunities in songwriting just from having talked to a few other people out there who are doing the same thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but sort of what I'm seeing is it actually offers quite a few different revenue streams, right? Because you could be writing songs for others and collecting royalties on that, but you could also be making your own music. And like you said, you're producing other people's music too. So, creating more opportunities for yourself really allows you to draw from a bit of a bigger pool, right? Troy: That's right. I think the other part of it is that when we got in the business, it was a different world. And now, especially because of the digital era, a lot of people I feel think that digital era has crushed the music business and it certainly has for the large companies but I feel like the smaller independent artists, the independent labels, and you know even someone like myself, I mean because we can now… I mean I can do all of the things I need to do to make a record sound, you know, half decently pro and put it out. And so, I think as a songwriter, yeah, you're absolutely right, David. If you can write your own music and you can release that music, there are five major revenue streams you can draw on as a songwriter. And so, you can take advantage of that because you own the master, because you're paid for the recording, because you are the singer, because you are the songwriter. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of, you know. You're collecting pennies from all over the place but there's the more exposure and of course the better the songs are. I always tell artists it's so important to focus on the quality of your songs. Until tha

If your music isn’t going to sell, wouldn’t you like to know sooner rather than later? Is there a way you can rapidly release music at less risk to test the market? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share what a Minimum Viable Product is as well as how The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship came into being and who it’s for. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship 00:50 – The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship 01:46 – Minimum viable product 04:46 – An offer that converts 05:05 – The inception and development of The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship book 08:16 – What is The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship about? 11:28 – Creating a series of Essential Guides Transcription: It’s The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship. I've been holding up this book a lot in videos lately. I don't know what's up with that. I do want to make you aware of the book so it's good in that sense. Anyway, what is this all about? Why would you want it? Who cares? Last year I came out with The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship, and that sold very well. I actually got a really great response for that book as well, which is something that surprised me because here's kind of the secret behind that whole book – most of the content was already written before I put it out. It was on the website. It was on davidandrewwiebe.com. I had written this guide on what it meant to be a musicpreneur or music entrepreneur here in the digital age. What I did was I took that content, I edited it, I updated it, I revised it. I added an introduction and a conclusion. I curated a few more blog posts, and voila, that was The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship. The feedback has been far better than I ever anticipated. So much so that I thought, well, this is what I would call a minimum viable product. If you haven't heard of that term before, if you don't know what an MVP is, a minimum viable product is like the least amount of content you need to make something that people would buy, or people would be interested in. That's a good concept for you to know as a musician to learn this whole thing about minimum viable product because as musicians we tend to obsess over perfection, getting something just right, making sure the vocals are in tune, making sure the guitar sound right, making sure the drums are exactly as we want them to be in the studio. And then that often ends up being relegated or delegated to a producer or an engineer and sometimes musicians do it themselves too, right? I've certainly produced my own tracks. We obsess about all these things not realizing that maybe 80% is good enough to get a feel for what people think about it. 80% is maybe not enough to get on the radio, to get in front of influencers, to get your music in front of a major label or anything like that, but it's enough to get a feel for what people think about it. They might go, “Hey, this is great. I love this.” Or they might go, “This is all right.” But the thing is if you got it 80% of the way there and people didn't like it then you didn't waste a ton of time and energy and money. You still wasted some of your resources. I still wouldn't say it's a waste because everything is a test and experiment anyway as an entrepreneur, as a musician, as a creative. In some capacity, practically everything is an experiment. I've experimented with a lot of things. Trust me, a lot of them didn't go well. But there's that extra 20% to take it to 100%. That 20% probably would cost you more in time, and resources, and energy, and everything to get your product perfect. If nobody likes the product, what was the point in spending all that time and money and energy on that? No point, right? So that's the whole thing about a minimum viable product. Guess what? The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurshipdid well as a minimum viable product. That was enough. It was straight to the point. It was no BS. There wasn't a bunch of extra stuff in there. There wasn't just rambling incoherent text, which I hate about some books anyway. I love reading books. It's just that some books go on and on and on about nothing. They're not talking about anything. They're saying a lot and not getting any kind of message across. I'm sure you've experienced that as well. I just want to make you present to that fact that you can do that too. You can create a minimum viable product. Put it out there. Test it. See how people respond to it. If it's good, you can iterate on it, make it something better or something like it. If people don't like it then you can make kind of a bigger adjustment based on the feedback that you've been getting. For me though, with The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship, I found a winning formula. I found

It’s time to announce the launch of another brand-new book. What could it be? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share about Start Your Year the Right Way, who it’s for and how it’s structured. I also read the introduction. Download the PDF Transcription Highlights: 00:34 – The new book has arrived 01:12 – It doesn’t matter when you pick up and read this book 01:46 – Who this book is for 02:06 – Introduction to Start Your Year the Right Way Transcription: Maybe you were expecting it. Maybe you weren’t. Either way, it’s here – the new book, Start Your Year the Right Way: Goal-Setting, Planning & Achieving Big in Your Music Entrepreneurship Career. You might recall that I hinted about this book in episode 94 of the podcast. That was almost a year ago now, so of course there’s the possibility that you don’t remember. Now, if everything had gone according to plan, I would have launched this book in January or February. I had to get permission to use some of the content I included in the book, which is why it took a little longer to publish. 2019 still feels fresh to me, even though we’re already into March. I’m up to a lot right now, and the year is going by very quickly. Anyway, my point is that it doesn’t matter when you pick up and read the book. If you’re having a great year already, you can use it as a springboard onto bigger and greater things. If you’ve starting to lose your steam, then you can use it to reset and set yourself up for an effective 2019. If you’d like to check out the book now, just go to davidandrewwiebe.com/year. That’s musicentreprenuerhq.com slash y-e-a-r. You’ll be brought to the book’s Amazon listing. And, of course, why wouldn’t you want to check out this book? You need it. Just so you know, this book is a journal and workbook as much as it is a content-driven book. So, it’s for those who want to take some time to think and reflect on the year they just had and what they’d like to accomplish in the year ahead. What I’d like to do now is read the introduction for you. I hope you enjoy it, and thanks for your consideration. Introduction to Start You Year the Right Way: Goal-Setting, Planning & Achieving Big in Your Music Entrepreneurship Career At the outset, I want to point out that this is a different kind of book. I know that may sound a bit ominous, so let me clarify (don’t worry, you didn’t buy a weird book by accident). Every year, on The Music Entrepreneur HQ (my online business), I publish a series of posts to wind down the year past and clear the way for the year ahead. I affectionately call this our New Year Content, which is typically comprised of several blog posts and podcast episodes, and sometimes videos too. At first, it wasn’t anything spectacular or out of the ordinary. I shared a post or two about goal-setting and productivity and went on my merry way with publishing relevant content for my audience. But as the years progressed, I started adopting more processes and habits that my life now revolves around. It’s become hard to imagine not following these New Year rituals now. They’ve become a part of my DNA (and my business’ DNA too). From closing the chapter on the past year to setting theme words for the New Year, these processes have brought a lot of clarity to my world. They’ve helped me reflect on what I’ve learned and achieved, unload baggage from years past and set my intentions for the year ahead. It sounds simple, but the results have at times been surprising and even miraculous. And, with more processes and habits came more blog posts too. I started publishing more New Year Content to help people like you achieve clarity around your goals, be more productive and stay motivated throughout the year. Motivation is important. But we all need access to something more than the hype-based rah-rah motivation which doesn’t last. Motivation is important. But we all need access to something more than the hype-based rah-rah motivation which doesn’t last.Share on X Let’s face it – the entrepreneurial journey isn’t always easy. Challenges can come in many forms. And, it’s essential to build a strong mindset and find motivation and fulfillment in the work we do. If there’s no motivation to do the work, then there’s no motivation in the work either. If that’s the insane cycle you’re in, you need to find a way out. As we work hard to make our visions a reality, we can easily lose perspective on what we’re doing and why we’re doing it in the first place. But there is a solution to all this. Here’s what I’ve come to realize: Thought and reflection are powerful tools, and I don’t think most people understand their value or tap into their power often enough. Thought and reflection are powerful tools, and most people don't understand their value or tap into their power often enough.Share on X In the hustle-obsessed culture we live in, people mostly seem concerned with how many hours they’ve worked as opposed to whether they were doing something wor

Does it feel like you’re stuck in the rut? Are you trying to get a different kind of result but unsure how to make it happen? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share my mindset around keeping your promises, being a person of integrity and doing whatever it takes to make your dreams a reality? Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – Heading to Vancouver 01:18 – Make the decision first, work out the details later 01:37 – Making uncommon decisions 02:27 – Why build a community of average? 03:32 – Doing whatever it takes 04:00 – Being a person of integrity Transcription: As I put together the content for this episode, I’m staring at the possibility of having to stay up later than I would like. This wouldn’t be a big deal if I could sleep in tomorrow. I can’t. And, the reason I can’t is because I’m flying out to Vancouver for a few days. Now, why on earth would I be flying out to the west coast in the middle of the week? The answer is much simpler than you might think – because I promised. I’m going to Vancouver to witness the completion of a seminar my friend is attending. Does this decision have financial repercussions? Absolutely. Will I need to let clients and collaborators know that I will be away for a few days, especially if it impacts them? Definitely. But I’m a person of my word. And, I knew I would be going to Vancouver months in advance. So, I’m keeping my promise. My mentors taught me to make the decision first and work out the details later. And, I will openly admit that there are a lot of uncertainties here. I know when my flights are and where I’m staying. But beyond that, I don’t know anything. I don’t even know where the final night of the seminar is going to be held. I’ll figure that out tomorrow. The interesting part is that this behavior seems weird on the outside looking in, doesn’t it? It’s uncommon. What’s more common is we let ourselves and others get away with not keeping promises. And, I’m not suggesting we should be critical of others. Our fingers should be pointed at ourselves first and foremost. But how can we expect to hold up a standard of excellence for others when we can’t be counted on to deliver on our word? And, when we don’t deliver on our word – which will happen unless you’re playing it safe in life – do we take the steps necessary to acknowledge the impact we’ve had on others and what structure we’re going to put in place so that it doesn’t happen again? If that’s not how you think about the promises you make, then it’s important to realize that you can’t be counted on. Trust me – I’m not pointing fingers here. I’m speaking to myself as much as anyone else. But I don’t want to build a community of average. I don’t think you want to be average either. As I’ve shared before, extraordinary results require extraordinary effort. You can’t do what everyone else is doing and expect to get different results. Although I’ve tried to be sensitive to the needs of the community, I think if we just let ourselves off the hook when we don’t live up to our word, we’re not going to stand out. I know that it can be scary to step out and express who you really are. But isn’t the opposite just as scary, if not scarier? What if you just sat on the sidelines and never made an inch of progress in your career for the rest of your life? What would the impact of that be? Seriously – think about it. That’s not the type of community I want to create. The type of community I want to create is one where we’re being held accountable for our actions. Not because I want to create a culture of guilt but rather because I want to create a culture of support. We should care so much about our fellow man or woman that we’re not willing to let them off the hook. We’re not willing to let them settle for average. That’s the type of community I want to create. We’re all capable of making a difference in this world. But we must be willing to do whatever it takes. Have you set goals for the New Year? Then don’t just sit there and wait for them to achieve themselves. Get moving! Stop being reasonable. Stop coming up with so many reasons why you can’t do something. You do realize none of it’s real, right? Your reasons are all imagined. They only live in your head. An action taken is an action taken regardless of what your reasons were for taking it. Why am I going to Vancouver again? Because I promised. I could have come up with dozens of reasons why I shouldn’t go. But I’m not being reasonable. There’s a reason why I’m going. Because I said I would. If you’re serious about what you’re doing, I should be hearing from you. There’s no way you’ve listened to the podcast to this point and got nothing out of it. Your progress reports should be hitting my inbox. If you’re having trouble or if you have any burning questions that need answering, those should also be hitting my inbox. Even if I don’t have the answers, I will find someone who does. Let’s be that kind of community. Let’s be th

Do you know what your goals are? Are you aware of what steps you need to take to achieve your goals? What’s your plan? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share some ideas on how to create or revamp your music career strategy for 2019. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – The focus of this episode 01:12 – The Music Entrepreneur HQ strategy 03:24 – Crafting your music career strategy 03:59 – Determining what tactics to fit around your strategy 04:25 – Tip #1: Keep doing what’s working 05:36 – Tip #2: Study everything you can find on relevant topics 07:06 – Tip #3: Take a break and let ideas come to you 07:59 – Tip #4: Keep it lean and high impact 09:24 – Tip #5: Keep the winners, cut the losers 10:27 – Make your strategy with full confidence Transcription: Originally, when I began working on this podcast episode, I was planning to talk about strategy from a high level. But then I realized that we could be here all day. There’s so much that could be said about strategy, whether it’s the definition of strategy or the exact tactics to use to get your music or product out there. And, as I’ve expressed on the podcast before, I don’t think business plans or marketing plans should be sequentially ordered, multi-page documents organized by category. When and where possible, we should collate and organize a single-page document where every element is interconnected and purposeful. So, that’s the goal to strive for but getting there can be problematic. After my conversation with Brent Vaartstra – he was on episode 126 and 127 of the podcast in case you missed it – I had some important realizations around strategy. This had led to the creation of a new strategy for The Music Entrepreneur HQ from the ground up. The strategy I’m developing isn’t complete by any means. But the foundation of it is clearer than ever. What I started to see was that there are only three components to my strategy. The first is content. Whether it’s blog posts, podcast episodes or videos, content is designed to do two things - to drive traffic to the website and to capture email addresses. Now, some people will come to the website and buy products too. Obviously, that’s a desired outcome but I’m not counting on it. What I’m hoping people will do is take the next step in the relationship and want to follow along over the long haul. That means greater Customer Lifetime Value. Now, CLV is a little technical, but this is basically what it means. It means the average amount of money you make from every customer. The second component is email. The importance of an email list simply cannot be denied, and I think most marketers would agree that it’s more important and effective than social media. My email campaigns are designed to do two things – to nurture those who aren’t ready to buy yet and to make people aware of the products that are available, and by extension, sell those products. The third and final component is products. That term isn’t used as much in the music industry. Maybe “merch” is a better term. But the creation and delivery of products is what’s going to make this business viable. No sales equals zero viability. I may as well spend my time doing something else if money is all I care about. Fortunately, I do have sales and money isn’t all I care about. Fulfillment and impact matter to me far more than money. But because I have certain financial goals, I’m going to be aggressive with the creation and delivery of products. But that’s another aspect of strategy entirely. First and foremost, the products educate my customers. Second, they offer next steps for my customers, whether that’s buying another book, getting on a coaching call, purchasing a course, joining the community or otherwise. So, from a high-level view, that’s all there is to my strategy. Simple, right? Your strategy won’t necessarily be the same as mine unless you have the same business model. But the idea here is to break it all down into the core components so that you’re clear on what the purpose of each of the components are. Now, what I’ve just shared with you could easily fit on one page. So, we could call it a day. But a strategy isn’t complete without a couple of other elements, especially tactics. I like to think philosophy or operation guidelines as being part of the strategy too, but what we’re going to focus on in this episode is tactics. So, how do you go about filling in the blanks in terms of tactics? Tactics Now, I admit that my strategy is a work in progress. But based on what I’m about to share with you, the reason for that is probably going to become a lot clearer. So, here are a few steps I suggest you follow when you’re working on your strategy. As you work through these steps, keep in mind that you’re fleshing out the specific activities you will be doing under each component of your strategy. As I’ve already shared with you, mine are content, email and products. 1. Keep Doing What’s Already Working If you’ve be

Do you feel stuck in your music career? Does it seem like no matter what you try you end up in the same place? Don’t worry – there is a way out. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I talk to drummer and career coach Matt Starr about how he rose through the ranks to establish himself in the music industry. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – Matt Starr is in the house! 00:46 – The struggle of becoming a professional musician 13:47 – Your life is not your fault, but it is your responsibility 15:22 – How did you get to the point of working with many known rock stars? 18:55 – Why is networking important? 24:56 – Action 27:12 – The importance of business as it applies to music 31:59 – Knowing your own value 35:52 – How important is coaching? 40:32 – What is The Workbook? 44:13 – What books have helped you on your journey? 48:56 – Closing thoughts Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today I'm chatting with drummer, singer, producer, career coach and public speaker, Matt Starr. How are you today, Matt? Matt Starr: I'm doing great. How are you? David Andrew Wiebe: I'm fine. Thank you for asking. And thank you for joining me today. You know, there's so much we can talk about, but I think one of the first things we should get into is your story. I'm sure you've talked about this lots so not to belabor the point but I would love for you to talk about the struggle of becoming a professional musician. Matt Starr: Yeah, no, I'm happy to talk about it because I think we... I know from when I was a kid, you know, you see somebody who has achieved a certain level of success, and then you assume that, well, they were just born like that, or you only see what they do. You don't see all the times they tried and either 'failed" or all the takes that we do that don't sound so great that don't make it onto the record. And you just assume that oh, well, you know, some people are just born to do this, and maybe I'm not. And so, I saw my first Kiss album at age seven. Scott Cabala lived up the street from me. He was a few years older, and he had some records and Cheap Trick live at Budokan was one, one of my favorite records to this day, Shaun Cassidy Da Doo Run Run, which you know, I like that record too. I have to admit. It's not quite, you know, as edgy as I like, but just some cool stuff. But when I saw Kiss Alive II picture of jeans and blood, and you open up the inside, and there's flames and sparks. It just blew my mind. I wasn't thinking about career or even about being a musician. I just was mesmerized by that world that they created. And I knew that world, whatever that is, whatever these guys are doing, I just want to be in there. That feeling never went away. So, looking back, as I've gotten older, I realized that was really a divine moment and such a blessing because I knew tons of people in high school. I said, "What are you going to do when you get out of high school? Like, "Well, I don't know. I'm going to go to college." And like, "Oh, what? I don't know. I got to figure it out." I'm thinking, well, you're going to spend all your parent’s money, go away for four years and invest into something that you're not... you don't even know what you're passionate about. And so, that was a gift that I knew that at age seven, even if I didn't know exactly what it was, but I knew like the feeling that I got, and nothing else ever gave me that same feeling. And so, I started playing in six-grade. I had a band in junior high. We played the local talent shows. We actually won a battle of the bands by playing a Judas Priest cover, so go figure. But we had a lot of fun. We just wanted to be great. And we would go... I was born in 1970 so we were going to concerts by Kiss, Twisted Sister, AC DC, Iron Maiden. So, we were going to see them at the local arena, Harvard Civic Center in our town, watching these guys and we would watch Alive perform. We would watch how they paced the set, how they came out, if they did encores, where they placed the guitar solos, you know all this stuff. Enjoying it as fans but really like being objective about it too. I always had an eye on... I'm always a fan and I still am but I was also looking at the behind the scenes and kind of trying to understand how did they make this thing work. So, did that. I actually moved to LA for one year in my early 20s. I didn't like it. I didn't understand it. I didn't know how to get along with people. I was used to being in a big fish in a small pond back in Connecticut where I grew up. So consequently, I went back home. And then I got into the scenario that a lot of guys have gotten into, which is I was making a living playing music but I was not living my dreams. I was playing covers. I was playing in bars and we were having fun, making music, making girls, d

Life is moving at a dizzying pace. Technology is evolving quickly. Distractions are increasingly at a rapid rate. So, how do you stay productive (and more importantly effective) when there’s so much going on? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share some ideas on how to reduce distractions and how this will make you more productive in 2019. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – 80% of people who make resolutions drop them by the second week of February 01:12 – Kaizen 03:25 – The fewer the options, the better 09:16 – 5 concrete tactics for reducing distractions 11:41 – Final thoughts Transcription: Most of us begin the New Year with the best of intentions. We set goals and resolutions, vow to make positive changes in our lives and head off to the races. How does that turn out for most people? According to an article on Inc.com, titled A Brutal Truth About Keeping New Year’s Resolutions That Few People Are Willing to Admit, roughly 80% of people who make resolutions drop them by the second week of February. I don’t find that surprising myself, but it is sad to see so many people lose momentum and give up on themselves. And, 2019 will be no exception. 80% of people will have dropped their resolution by the second week of February. One of the problems is that we try to do too much too fast. I’ve noticed that people like to talk about the Japanese concept of kaizen with regards to this topic of resolutions, which is a term used to describe “progressive improvement”. Unlike what some experts say, it does not mean slow, continuous improvement. But there’s no Breakthrough in the idea of “continuous improvement”, is there? And yet, kaizen seems to have made a huge difference for some well-known companies. See, here in North America we’ve taken the first character in the word kaizen to mean “change”. Then we’ve taken the second character to mean “wisdom”. Change plus wisdom equals improvement? We’re still missing something here. See, the character “kai” doesn’t just mean “change” It means to stop the old and change it to the new. The character “zen” doesn’t just mean “wisdom”. It means to do good, to do what’s right. It also refers to justice, something that has value, and the root of our motivation behind benevolent acts. Now we’re getting somewhere. Kaizen, as a whole means to correct, or to improve the terms of a contract or your staff. Sorry YouTube videos, you’ve done a horrible job of letting people in on this secret. Next time you need someone to explain to you what a Japanese term means, you should ask someone like me, that actually speaks Japanese. See, what makes kaizen effective, what produces Breakthrough, is stopping what’s not working and doing more of what is working. And, it’s to have a sense of justice and value about taking things in a new direction. At first glance, this may not appear profound. But let’s say you’re on a mission to lose 20 lbs. What would happen if you applied kaizen to this process? What if you stopped eating junk food and other unhealthy foods and just ate healthy, organic foods instead? You’d achieve your goal relatively quickly, right? So, with that, I’d like to revisit another podcast episode from last year, entitled The Fewer The Options, The Better. In this episode, I described how only having a laptop to do my work boosted my productivity and helped me accomplish more in less time. Let’s go back and have a listen, and I’ll be back to close this episode at the end. You can find 077 - The Fewer The Options, The Better here And I’m back to wrap up today’s episode. As I’m sure you’re beginning to see, reducing distraction will make you more productive this year and in the years ahead. Although I hinted at several tactics for improving your productivity in the original recording of episode 77, I’d like to make these a little more concrete. So, here are a few things you can do to reduce distraction. Disconnect It’s a good idea to disconnect from your phone and the internet every once in a while. This is a healthy thing to do. Plus, it leaves space for ideas to coalesce in your mind and inspiration to hit. Sometimes, not being connected can help you get more done because it means fewer distractions. Change Your Environment Try doing your work in a coffee shop, in a library, at a bar or a pub and so on. Notice what impact the environment has on your psyche. Notice how your surroundings can influence what you’re thinking about. Determine whether you get more or less done in that environment. I like to do my work in a coffeehouse at least once per month if not weekly. I’ve found that changing your surroundings can lead to new ideas and even help you achieve more clarity overall. Turn Off Notifications I’m not a fan of notifications and I’ve turned most of them off on my phone. I try to turn off notifications on my laptop and desktop computers too, because they annoy me. The only notifications I still leave on are phone calls, texts or instant me

Today, I have a little surprise for you. I feel like I’m moving at a whiplash pace this year, so it’s kind of a surprise even to me. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I make a special announcement concerning a new product. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – Special announcement 01:29 – Introduction to The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship Transcription: Believe it or not, it’s here. Although you may have missed it, I announced it at the top of the year. What am I talking about? My new book, The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship: Making and Selling Your Neon Yellow Tiger. There is a bit of a backstory behind the creation of this book, but that’s something I’ll cover on another occasion. What I’d like to share with you right now is that this book is the perfect companion to The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship. Where the music entrepreneur guide was more about mindset, the creative entrepreneur guide is more tactical. This isn’t to say there isn’t some overlap, but I think you’ll get a better idea of how to set up and run your business if you have a read through this one. So, I’d like to invite you to check out the book at davidandrewwiebe.com/creative. I don’t have an info page set up for it just yet, so that link will take you directly to Amazon, just so you are aware. With that, I’d like to take a moment to read the introduction of the book for you. Introduction to The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship: Making and Selling Your Neon Yellow Tiger In the gig economy, side hustles have become increasingly popular. For many, traditional job roles simply aren’t cutting it. The Balance indicates that in October 2018, U.S. consumer debt rose 7.7% to $3.964 trillion. Credit card debt, auto loans and school loans account for most of this debt. The Balance also points out that, while home mortgages are a major loan category, they don’t classify it as debt–mortgages are considered a personal investment. I don’t agree with that assessment, but that’s beside the point. Others pursue side hustles as a means of finding expression for their greatest passions. Whether it’s to augment their income, spend time doing something that makes them come alive, or save up for a rainy day, there are plenty of good reasons to diversify and be less dependent on jobs to make a living. Then, there are those whose side hustles have become their full-time hustle, in the form of a small, independent business. Whether it’s selling hand-crafted jewelry on Etsy, publishing unique music videos to YouTube and monetizing them through Patreon, or taking on freelance graphic design work through a freelancing site like Upwork, there simply isn’t a shortage of opportunities. As someone who’s been working entirely from home since summer 2016, I consider myself a proponent of the gig economy. Up until that point, I was dividing my time between ghostwriting and content work, audiovisual tech work at the University, helping organize and host unique creative events, teaching guitar and playing live gigs as a musician. In case you’re wondering whether I was “making it” during those years leading up to 2016, I was paying down my debt at a ferocious rate and even stockpiling my savings. But it was madness. As my ghostwriting and content work started taking off, I decided to leave “organized chaos” behind so I could focus on what was becoming a more lucrative opportunity for me–ghostwriting and content work. That also freed me up to put more time and effort into creative communities, gigging and building my small, independent business–The Music Entrepreneur HQ. As I look towards the future and what I’m planning to accomplish, I can see that the possibilities are nearly limitless. My small business doesn’t need to stay small forever. My earning potential isn’t capped. I can make my own hours and work when I’m at my personal best. And, though outreach is still a crucial part of what I do, people often come to me wanting to work with me, whether it’s independent musicians, music business owners or other creatives. And, that’s the same opportunity that’s staring back at you. This isn’t to suggest that entrepreneurship–or freelancing, for that matter–is easy. But it is simple. It’s all about finding a need and filling it. It’s about serving a hungry audience and presenting a solution that’s right for them. But these ideas might seem a little elusive as a creative. You’re bound to have many questions: How can I serve an audience with my art? Do I need to sell out to make it? Am I required to adapt my art so that it appeals to a larger audience? And, the answer is “it depends”. It depends on what you’re hoping to achieve. There’s nothing wrong with creating art for the sake of creating art. If it fulfills you and you find joy in the process, I think that’s worth more than any price tag you could put on it. And, if you’re lucky, simply engaging in what you love can attract an audience.

Are you looking to make 2019 your best year yet? Are you looking for a better way to plan your schedule and activities? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I review a method I refer to as “defaults”. By setting defaults in your life, you can significantly cut down on wasted time, get more done, and foster more happiness in your life. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – Getting more done in 2019 with defaults 01:27 – How defaults work 03:18 – Setting your defaults 10:45 – My methods for planning and organizing are constantly changing Transcription: Are you looking to get more done in your music career in 2019? Then this podcast episode is for you. Last year I shared about a concept I call “defaults”. The idea here is that you have a default plan for your day. What this does is it eliminates wasted time and energy. If we’re constantly having to think about what to do now and then what to do next, then a lot of our time is being wasted having to plan moment by moment. A much easier and more productive way to go about your day is to have a clear plan and to follow it. Time blocking is a popular way to go about this. People will use tools like calendar apps or spreadsheets to color code different parts of their schedule and account for every hour in their days and weeks. So, maybe they would use red blocks to indicate when they’re going to be practicing their instrument. They would use blue blocks to indicate when they’re in a rehearsal, and so on. If you’re a particularly organized person, I think this might be a great way to ensure you’re doing the right things to achieve your musical goals. A default is far more flexible and less rigid. It’s a bit like conditional statements in computer programming: If this, then that. For instance, let’s say you typically rehearse with your band on Thursday night. We’ll call this variable A. If A happens, then you go to rehearsal. We’ll call this variable B. But rehearsals will sometimes get cancelled or moved to another night. That’s variable C. Finally, you have variable D, which is what you do by default when C happens. When A happens, B is your default. When C happens, D is your default. Let’s say you typically have Wednesday nights free and you’re looking for something to do. If you leave this to chance, you’ll probably just end up sitting on your couch and binge-watching Netflix. But you’re looking for something more worthwhile to do with your time. So, you could have going to an open mic on Wednesday night as a default. You don’t necessarily need to decide which open mic to go to. You would simply hold Wednesday night as your open mic night and keep that plan in front of you. And, of course, you’d follow through with that plan. The benefits of going to an open mic as a musician are obvious. You can network with other musicians, gain live performance experience, sell some merch and maybe even get booked for a feature or a gig. Now, it’s all well and good that defaults can set you up to be more productive. That’s something I addressed in last year’s podcast episode too. I mentioned that rest, leisure, entertainment and even spontaneous fun could all be made defaults in your life. For instance, if you know that you don’t typically have any work to do on Monday, you could have going to the mountains as your default. Getting out into nature is good. It’s refreshing. You can get some exercise. And, it could be a good opportunity to think and reflect, too. The value of regular reflection can’t be overstated, so just in case, here’s a little reminder – please remember to reflect, at least on a monthly basis! Now that I’ve introduced the topic, why don’t we go back and listen to episode 76 which was all about setting defaults for yourself? You can find 076 - Setting Your Defaults here And I’m back to wrap up today’s episode. Now, I should let you know that my methods of planning and organizing are always changing. Last year, defaults made a lot of sense to me. This year, things are a little different. One thing that hasn’t changed is the fact that I continue to use a desk calendar and yellow legal pad to plan my life. Honestly, it’s come to the point where I feel naked without these items. Recently, I’ve been feeling the need to digitize my calendar as well, though I am somewhat reluctant to go in that direction. While I do work from home, I’m often on the go because of meetings, events, open mics, performances, recording sessions and so on. But you might be wondering why I decided to revisit this idea of setting your defaults with you if it’s not something I’m actively doing right now. That’s because I still see value in it, and I want to continue to share with you any ideas that may help you better organize your schedule, be more productive and happier overall. If it’s not this method, then there will be another that’s right for you. Though I’ve adopted some of David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology, I’ve tailored it to my needs.

We were publishing content at a feverish pace in 2018. So, it’s entirely possible you missed out on some great posts that could make a difference in your music career. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, we look at the top 10 HQ posts of 2018. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – 2018 was the year of guest posts 01:58 – #1: How to Make Money as a DJ 02:22 – #2: Top 10 Tips for Beginner Vocalists 02:46 – #3: My Top 5 Favorite Pieces of Guitar Gear 03:03 – #4: Musicinfo: a Music Distribution Platform That Can Help You Reach Music Fans in China 03:40 – #5: How Important is Social Media Marketing for Musicians? – with Melina Krumova of Drooble 04:02 – #6: The Big List of Resources for Musicians 04:20 – #7: The Best Electric Guitars for Beginners in 2018 04:42 – #8: How to Set Up a Home Recording Studio 05:01 – #9: 5 Ways to Become a Better Band Member 05:21 – #10: What do I Bring to a Gig? 05:41 – Conclusion Transcription: Although we’ve been accepting guest posts for a while at The HQ, I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that 2018 was the year of guest posts. One of the reasons I decided to begin prioritizing guest posts was because I knew I couldn’t cover every topic under the sun. So, it was a way to tap into the expertise of other musicians and music entrepreneurs. And, the result is that we got plenty of outside perspectives on the industry and there were some that were especially valuable too. Unfortunately, pretty much everyone under the sun - from marketers to content agencies started contacting me about the opportunity to write guest posts. And, it was clear that most of them didn’t read our guidelines or even understand the concept behind The Music Entrepreneur HQ. Since I’m looking to build our brand around Confidence, Breakthrough and Fulfillment, it no longer makes any sense to accept low-quality guest posts that I end up spending all my time editing and formatting. Unless you’ve already contributed to The Music Entrepreneur HQ to this point, I will not be accepting guest posts from you in 2019. Another reason I felt it important to do this is because I’d like to simplify my efforts and continue to optimize the hundreds of value-adding posts we’ve already got. I’m not saying there won’t be plenty of new content too, but at this point I think it’s more important to put my energy into eliminating bottlenecks in my business. In any case, as I already mentioned, a lot of great content went live on the site in 2018. Here are the top 10 posts from 2018. 1. How to Make Money as a DJ https://davidandrewwiebe.com/make-money-dj/ The most popular post in 2018 was a guest post. I think Graham Aubrey picked a great topic - one that many are sure to be interested in right now. And, I’m glad he contributed, because there isn’t much I could say about how to succeed as a DJ. It’s not something I’ve ever done, though I have friends who have. With the popularity of EDM, I think being a DJ is also top of mind for a lot of people. 2. Top 10 Tips For Beginner Vocalists https://davidandrewwiebe.com/top-10-tips-beginner-vocalists/ Guest poster Pamela Brown put together this listicle for us. This is essentially a back to basics post featuring simple tips for beginner vocalists. But I’m sure there are plenty of vocalists out there that would find some value in this. If you’re interested in finding out how you can care for your voice and ensure that it’s always in ship shape, you should have a look at this list. 3. My Top 5 Favorite Pieces of Guitar Gear https://davidandrewwiebe.com/top-5-favorite-pieces-guitar-gear/ I had a lot of fun putting together this post, because over the years, I’ve owned a lot of different pieces of guitar gear. This list features the best of the best. Honestly, there isn’t much I would change about any piece of gear on this list because they’ve all served me well. 4. Musicinfo: a Music Distribution Platform That Can Help You Reach Music Fans in China https://davidandrewwiebe.com/musicinfo-a-music-distribution-platform-that-can-help-you-reach-music-fans-in-china/ Music distribution services generally purport to distribute your music worldwide. In a general sense, this is true, but there are many that don’t reach every corner of the world. There is a huge listening audience in China, to the tune of 720 million people. So, if you’ve ever thought about getting your music into the hands of Chinese music fans, you’ll want to check out what Musicinfo has to offer. And, if you’re planning to use the service, use the promo code DAWESOME at checkout to get 10% off. That’s d-a-w-e-s-o-m-e. 5. 082 – How Important is Social Media Marketing for Musicians? – with Melina Krumova of Drooble https://davidandrewwiebe.com/082-important-social-media-marketing-musicians-melina-krumova-drooble/ Having played with it a little, I can honestly say that Drooble is a cool social network for musicians. I’ve often thought about adding this channel to my marketing efforts but ha

Reading books is a great habit to get into. Some of the most successful people in the world are voracious readers. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share what I was reading in 2018. I highlight one book specifically that I read multiple times and had the biggest impact on me. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – Cultivating the reading habit 01:01 – The one book that stood out for me in 2019 01:18 – Who is James Schramko? 01:33 – What is Work Less, Make More? 02:14 – What can you expect to learn in Work Less, Make More? 02:35 – An effective workday is about energy management 03:21 – An offer that converts is the beginning of a viable business 04:09 – Making money on books 04:49 – Set the thing you love as the thing you do every day 05:28 – Fewer products and services can be more profitable 06:09 – Is the book worth checking out? 06:42 – Getting more reading done in 2019 Transcription: I’ve talked endlessly about the importance of reading books on the blog and the podcast. And, judging by how much traffic posts about books tend to generate for The Music Entrepreneur HQ, it seems like most of you agree that it’s a habit worth creating in your life. I consider myself an avid reader, though I will readily admit that my reading habit took a bit of a dive in 2017 and 2018. I was still reading up on a variety of topics, especially online, and I did get around to finishing a few books too. But there’s only one book that stood out for me. And, it’s also the only book I read multiple times in 2018 because I wanted the concepts and ideas to become a part of the DNA of The Music Entrepreneur HQ. What book am I talking about? Work Less, Make More by James Schramko Who is James Schramko? James Schramko is the Founder of SuperFastBusiness, an online community where business owners go to receive coaching and learn how to grow and optimize their online businesses. If you’d like to learn more about James, you can have a listen to episode 86 of the podcast. What is Work Less, Make More? Work Less, Make More: The counter-intuitive approach to building a profitable business, and a life you actually love (affiliate link) is James’ first book. I liked it so much, I bought two copies and gave one away. In the hustle obsessed culture, we now live in, working less and making more sounds both counter-intuitive and refreshing. James is a contrarian in this regard. He doesn’t agree with the many experts who are constantly pushing the idea that if you aren’t working 16-hour days, you aren’t going anywhere fast. James himself is living proof. He works about 20 hours per week, and spends the rest of his time surfing, watching movies and spending time with his family. What Can I Expect to Learn in Work Less, Make More? Work Less, Make More is a shorter book with minimal fluff, and that’s by design. So, virtually every sentence is packed with value. That’s not something I can say about the majority of books I’ve read. Even if wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to communicate everything I’ve learned from this book. But here are a few examples: 1. An effective workday is about energy management, not time management James talks extensively about the fact that what matters most as an entrepreneur is effectiveness and not productivity. There are plenty of people out there who are obsessed about getting things done. And, while we all have things to get done, especially as business owners, if we aren’t focused on getting the right things done, we can waste a lot of our time and energy on the wrong things. Further, a lot of people seem to focus on how time is a finite thing without considering that their energy is also finite. When should you work? At a time when you are awake, alert and focused. So, tackle the most important items on your to-do list when you’re feeling you’re best. Leave low-impact activities for when you have less energy. 2. Once you have an offer that converts, then you have the makings of a viable business It’s amazing how many people launch blogs and websites without even considering what their audience wants or what they’re going to sell to them. There’s nothing wrong with having a blog. But a blog in itself is not a business. Now, there are plenty of people online saying you should build your audience first and sell to them later. For the most part, there’s nothing wrong with this approach. The one downside I see is that when you finally do create something, you have no assurance that your audience will buy it. But if you have a product that sells, you might have a real business on your hands. So, starting with product is not a bad idea. And, before you even build it, you can try selling it first. If no one buys it, don’t make it. If a few people buy it, then start making it. 3. People who make money on books do so because they have a high-value product or recurring membership to sell This was an important insight for me, because when I was first reading it, I didn’t have something to sel

Setting theme words has become a habit of mine in the last few years. I first read about it on Chris Brogan’s blog and decided to adopt the process as my own. As you begin to think about what you hope to accomplish in 2019, what do you want your year to look like? What intentions are you setting? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I look back on my theme words from 2018 and share my theme words for 2019. Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – Theme words are like intentions 01:05 – Where the idea of theme words originates 01:21 – First theme word for 2018: War 02:36 – Second theme word for 2018: Initiative 04:12 – Third theme word for 2018: Connection 05:41 – First theme word for 2019: Confidence 06:35 – Second theme word for 2019: Breakthrough 07:13 – Third theme word for 2019: Fulfillment 07:57 – In 2019, my theme words represent a commitment I’m making Transcription: Each year, my theme words have a passive impact on the outcomes I experience. I think of my theme words as intentions. They set the tone for the year, and I believe they even influence the people, events and circumstances that enter into my life. So, setting theme words isn't something I take lightly. But I also follow my intuition when coming up with them. Because I have seen incredible things happen in my life as result of keeping my theme words in front of me, especially in 2017, I'm also quite intentional about the process now. It has become habit. I always mention this, but I want to let you know that the idea of theme words originates with Chris Brogan. In the last few years, I've made it my practice and have adapted it to suit my needs. So, it's time to reflect on last year's theme words and clear the way for the new. 1. War The idea here was to wage war on the mediocre and things that weren't serving me. I feel like there was a bit of a prophetic element to this theme word. Maybe I knew that I would have to make tough decisions in 2018. In the end, I won a few battles. But I'm not sure I won the war. There were a few people and projects I said “no” to in 2018. And, it wasn't necessarily easy to say “no”. But I also had to realize some things about my personal value. My time is worth something. And, it's crucial that the people around me respect that. Because I'm self-employed, I don't get paid when people don't respect that. If you help me, I can help you. But it doesn't work any other way. I recall one project that I got knee deep into that in the end I had to let go of. I tend to be a stubborn and giving person, so in the past I probably would have stuck with that project until the bitter end – and been miserable doing it too. The fact that I stepped away is a victory of sorts. So, there were a few battles I won. But that doesn't mean there aren't some unwanted things that persist in my life. If I won the war at all - and I'm not saying I did - it's only because of the personal growth work I did. And, I think that set me up for a better year in 2019. 2. Initiative Initiative was all about taking more initiative in life, especially in the area of personal relationships. And, again, though I feel like I won some battles here, I wouldn't necessarily say I won the war. I now realize the reason for that. I came to see that I had a lot going on in my head around connecting with others. What I now understand is that I didn't have my actions separate from my reasons for acting. But the two are not mutually inclusive. An action lives in the real world. Your reasons for doing something only live in your head, meaning they are imaginary. When I began to understand that, my reasons for doing or not doing began to fade. The only thing left was my actions. And, I either did something or didn't. Either way, I had to learn to be complete with happened. In terms of actions taken to further my business, I certainly had some proud moments. I turned some of my pre-existing content into eBooks and handbooks. That was something I was somewhat afraid to do, but in the end, I discovered that there was nothing to fear. So far, I've only heard good things about those products. And, that led to the creation of additional products that will be launched in 2019. In the last quarter of the year, I also gave myself permission to focus on promoting just The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship Pro Packs and nothing else. That's not exactly how things worked out in practice, because I got sidetracked at times, but it was a different approach to launching and promoting a product, and it was worth trying. Finally, I got around to launching The Headquarters membership, something I'd been planning but putting off for a long time. Regardless of the outcome, I'm proud of the action. 3. Connection Again, connection was mostly about connecting with people. And, prior to some of the personal development work I did, I'm not sure I had access

2019 is officially here. What happened in 2018? Do you feel like you achieved a lot? Was it a difficult year for you? Regardless of what happened, it’s important to close the chapter on the year past so you don’t drag it into the year ahead. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I close the chapter on 2018 and explain how you can do the same. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:18 – Happy New Year! 01:21 – An overview of 2018 02:01 – Michael Hyatt’s process for closing the chapter on a year 02:53 – #1: Genre of the year 03:29 – #2: Themes of the year 04:09 – #3: Achievements of the year 04:56 – #4: Lack of acknowledgement in 2018? 05:20 – #5: Disappointments in 2018? 05:58 – #6: Missing from 2018? 06:27 – #7: Life lessons in 2018 07:22 – Final thoughts Transcription: Hey friends, welcome to 2019. Although I published a blog post discussing what’s to come in 2019, I realized that not everyone who’s listening to the podcast is watching the blog or vice versa. So, before getting into today’s topic, I just wanted to give you a quick overview of what to expect moving forward. Here are a few bullet points worth mentioning: One of the things I want to do is create content that’s more centered on whatever needs you have and challenges you might be experiencing in your career. So, if you have any suggestions, I hope you’ll leave a comment in the show notes. I’ve decided on Confidence, Breakthrough and Fulfillment as the words that represent The Music Entrepreneur HQ brand. So, as much as possible, I’ll be creating content that revolves around these themes. I’m planning to launch several new products this year, including Flashes of Elation, The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship, Growth Hacking for Musicians and other handbooks. Keep an eye open for these. Alright, so with that, let’s get into closing the chapter on 2018. Unlike 2017, it felt like 2018 breezed by. And, as I started reflecting on 2018, I was feeling as though I didn’t accomplish much during the year. That’s not the conclusion I eventually came to, as you’re about to find out. But for now, let’s forego the spoilers. Regardless, if you don’t feel like you had a great year, that’s certainly a good reason to close the chapter on it. After all, you don’t want to carry last year’s baggage into the new year. You need to get complete with whatever happened and didn’t happen, or you’ll just repeat the same mistakes, make incorrect assumptions and add to your convoluted view of the world. This will all begin to weigh on you like an anvil. There’s a process I like to follow when it comes to closing the chapter on a year, and it’s the same process I’ve been using since 2014. Thanks to Michael Hyatt for creating this framework. Here are the seven questions Hyatt asks himself as he looks to close the chapter on another year (and I’ll be asking myself the same questions): If the last year were a movie in your life, what would the genre be? What were the two or three major themes that kept recurring? What did you accomplish this past year that you are the most proud of? What do you feel you should have been acknowledged for but weren’t? What disappointments or regrets did you experience this past year? What was missing from last year as you look back? What were the major life-lessons you learned this past year? Now, here are my answers to these questions. My Answers to the 7 Questions 1. If the last year were a movie in your life, what would the genre be? Science Fiction. I say that because 2018 was a bit of a whirlwind and at times unreal. I admit that there was quite a bit of video game time compared to years past, and at times it was entirely necessary for me to distance myself from my work because of exhaustion. All that gaming put me in a bit of a trance-like state. Another element that made it feel a bit like a Sci-Fi is the discoveries I made about myself because of the personal development work I was doing. I came to understand some things about being human I never knew before. 2. What were the two or three major themes that kept recurring? Financial challenges. I experienced a bit of a low time in my business from about November 2017 to February 2018. That didn't do me in by any means, but I don't feel like I've fully recovered from it either. Regardless, I'm looking forward to a more prosperous 2019. Personal growth. “Personal growth” isn't even the right term for it. What I experienced was change, an emptying of past baggage. I shifted as a person when I started unloading many of the mental blocks that have been holding me back. I think my discovery of self is far from over, and I can see myself clearing more space for what's ahead. 3. What did you accomplish this year that you are most proud of? Launching the How to Record, Promote & Sell Your New Music Release - Single, EP or Album eBook. I nearly forgot about this project, but I think it was worth putting my time into. This launc

Are you wondering how you could be making more money as a music instructor? Is there a way to generate income passively without having to trade hours for dollars? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I bring Brent Vaartstra of Passive Income Musician and Learn Jazz Standards back to talk about revenue streams and passive income streams for musicians and music instructors. Download the PDF Cheat Sheet Podcast Highlights: 00:18 – Brent Vaartstra is back! 00:47 – What Passive Income Musician is about 02:14 – Is it possible to make income passively? 03:24 – Finding your way as a music instructor 06:26 – Internet marketing is a key component to modern day success as a musician 08:16 – Serving a beginner market 09:30 – What is passive income? 10:18 – What types of revenue streams are there for music instructors? 17:37 – Some income streams are disproportionately better than others 19:20 – Putting ads on your website 20:08 – Membership sites 22:02 – What is your strategy around generating regular sales on eBooks and courses? 23:46 – How important is it to have multiple streams of income? 26:56 – How do you find out more about your audience? 28:02 – Did you have a plan to build Learn Jazz Standards to six figures? 29:45 – Doubling down on what’s working 31:06 – How do you build a large social media following? 35:30 – Final thoughts Transcription: Coming soon. Upgrade to Members Only Audios for more exciting, exclusive training.

Are you a music teacher? Do you wish you could find more ways to earn money from your passion? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I interview Brent Vaartstra of Learn Jazz Standards and Passive Income Musician to discuss his journey to this point and how he built a six-figure music instruction website. Download the PDF Cheat Sheet Podcast Highlights: 00:18 – Who is Brent Vaartstra? 00:31 – When did you first start getting into music? 02:31 – What is your background? 04:30 – How profitable was it for you to play jazz? 06:34 – The importance of networking in the music industry 07:57 – How did the Learn Jazz Standards website come about? 11:09 – How did you come to know that there was a hungry market in jazz? 12:31 – Obsessively practicing as a musician 14:25 – How long did it take for you to build Learn Jazz Standards into a six-figure business? 17:20 – Passive Income Musician podcast 18:29 – Making books for Hal Leonard 21:53 – Why engaging an audience is an important skill in today’s music industry 23:17 – What is one of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered as an entrepreneur? 26:21 – What is one of the biggest victories you’ve experienced as an entrepreneur? 28:57 – Are there any books or resources that have helped you on your journey? 31:22 – Closing thoughts Transcription: Coming soon. Upgrade to Members Only Audios for more exciting, exclusive training.

Social media can be a massive distraction. But if used correctly, it’s a tool that can help you work smarter instead of just harder. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, Monica Strut answers some of the most common questions you’re likely to have about social media and how to make the most of your online presence. Download the PDF Cheat Sheet Podcast Highlights: 00:18 – Who is Monica Strut? 00:57 – Social media reset 01:51 – How to fail on YouTube 03:16 – Consistency on social media 04:50 – How important is Instagram? 06:48 – Maintaining brand consistency on social media 07:49 – Using your personal profiles to promote your music 10:45 – How often can you post to social media? 11:38 – How important is social media for musicians? 15:40 – Working smarter not harder 16:40 – Why did you start your business as an artist coach? 20:55 – The issue with traditional business plan 21:48 – Is it overwhelming to offer a lot of different services? 27:55 – What’s the biggest challenge you’ve experienced in your business? 29:13 – What has been your biggest victory? 30:07 – Overcoming mental blocks 31:34 – Are there any books that have had an impact on you? 34:15 – Wrap up Transcription: Coming soon. Upgrade to Members Only Audios for more exciting, exclusive training.

It’s important to be aware of the rhythms of life and go with the flow. Sometimes, you need to take time in your schedule to think and reflect. Don’t ignore those moments. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share why you need to take time to reset. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:18 – Early reflection 00:34 – The holiday season 01:21 – Challenging business decisions 02:04 – important realizations about myself 02:43 – Do less 03:44 – Evaluating the work you’re engaged in 04:06 – Reset 04:55 – Don’t throw pearls to swine 05:48 – The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship Pro Packs Transcription: As I record this, we’re headed into the last month of the year. And, I figured it’s never too soon for a little early reflection. Typically, I would leave that to the beginning of the year, because if you’ve been with me for any length of time, you know I put a lot of effort into the early year content as it were. This is the time of year when retailers go crazy trying to capture as many sales as they possibly can. The Christmas and holiday music start to spin on high rotation. Christmas lights begin to go up, warming the cold air and lifting our spirits. Well, that’s what it’s like where I live anyway. I know that if I spent a lot of time scanning Black Friday sales that I could easily be tempted into buying a lot of things, so I try to avoid the hustle and bustle and instead concentrate on my projects. But this time of year, I also like to spend time relaxing, watching movies, playing video games and so on. The cold winter tends to force me inside, and though I’m a huge fan of summer, this time of year isn’t so bad if you’re intentional about making it fun. And, as I’ve already hinted at, it tends to be a great time for reflection too. Recently, I’ve had to make some challenging business decisions. And, these decisions were in-line with one of my theme words for the year – war. The idea, from the very beginning, was to wage war on the mediocre and the things that aren’t serving me. But it took a while for the lessons to sink in. I’ve finally come to the point where I’m no longer willing to accept anything less than excellence, especially in the area of fulfillment and payment. There were several things I said “no” to earlier in the year, and this is something I talk about in more detail in The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship Pro Packs, specifically the ones containing the video titled The Top 10 Lessons I’ve Learned in Music Entrepreneurship. Little did I know that the hardest “no” of the year wouldn’t come until much later. But having gone through the personal development work I’ve done this year, I’m beginning to see, with increased clarity, my way of being to this point. I can see that I didn’t have access to a different way of being until I discovered some things about myself. In the past, I spent a lot of time engaging in pro bono or discounted work. I gave my best in situations where the people or organization didn’t deserve it. I took on projects at the risk of my own health, wellbeing and financial wholeness. That simply can’t happen anymore. The steaks are much too high now, and the projects I’m working on are more important than anything I’ve every worked on before. I’ve come to the realization that I must protect that with everything I’ve got. My business coach, James Schramko often tells business owners to “do less”. I now understand this better than I ever did. Doing too much doesn’t allow you to focus on the big domino. What’s the big domino? The task, project or activity that could potentially make all your other activities unimportant or irrelevant. So, knocking down the big domino could mean knocking down a lot of the little dominos that are taking up space in your mind. When coaching others, depending on what stage of business they’re in, I will advise them to go after that big domino. First, it causes you to think about what’s most important in your business right now. Then, it leads you to prioritize it over other plans, ideas and squirrels that come to distract you. So, clearing space in your life allows you to focus on that big domino. For me, that’s either marketing my current offer or creating my next one. If I could spend all my time doing those two things, I could get so much more done. That’s not realistic right now because I have other projects, I’m engaged in. Those projects help me make a living, fulfil me in some capacity, or both. But I am taking a more serious look at projects these days, and I’m letting go of what isn’t the highest and best use of my time. My naturopath recently shared with me that he asked one of his clients why he was so successful. Apparently, he responded by saying that his secret to success was that he let go of five clients every single year. Wow. So, doing less is doing more. Doing less is doing more.Share on X And, that’s why I’m taking a bit of time to reset and consider my priorities. As with any other y

How do you build a strong mindset? How do you brainwash yourself into believing in your personal success? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I chat with Richard “Younglord” Frierson, who describes his approach, as well as numerous revenue streams musicians can tap into. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:18 – New podcast theme 01:03 – Monetizing the entire process of being an artist 02:43 – Going for broke and being a full-time artist 04:47 – Getting buy-in from your parents 06:19 – Problem-solving skills 06:54 – Marketing campaigns, outreach and going through the numbers 11:44 – Being prepared for the big breaks 12:46 – People in the music industry don’t have time to blacklist you 13:39 – Cultivating a strong mindset 15:19 – What types of revenue streams are artists missing out on? 21:42 – Licensing your music 27:42 – The value of building relationships in the music industry 30:38 – Other methods of monetizing your career 32:29 – Having a hand in everything 32:50 – What’s the biggest challenge or obstacle you’ve overcome? 35:18 – What has been your biggest victory? 38:06 – Are there any books or resources you would attribute to your success? 39:59 – Rich’s final thoughts 40:55 – Concluding thoughts Transcription: Whoa, what was that? Well, a few months back, someone by the name of Brian Young approached me with the idea of writing some music to the podcast. He politely pointed out that for a podcast that has to do with the music industry, I had very little music on the show. I thought that was a fair point. I’d thought about updating the music and adding a few things myself, but I have so little time for that. Brian offered to put together some new music for me to use in the show, and I decided to take him up on it. So, what you just heard is one of Brian’s tracks, and towards the end of the episode, you will also be hearing a couple more themes he put together for me. Be sure to let us know what you think of the new tunes in the show notes. With that, let’s jump into today’s interview. Richard "Younglord" Frierson [Interview with Richard “Younglord” Frierson – transcription coming soon] Conclusion And I’m back to wrap up the episode. I hope you enjoyed the interview. I know I got lots out of it. You might not know this, but one of the main ways I generate revenue for The Music Entrepreneur HQ is with my books and courses. So, as always, I’m going to offer a gentle nudge to check out my current offer, The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship. I’ve received a lot of great feedback on this handbook. Christopher Sutton from Musical U said: For any musician wondering what it’s going to take to make a living with their music in the modern world, this book is a tremendous all-in-one resource to answer that question for you. Interested in finding out more? Simply go to davidandrewwiebe.com/essential. And, don’t forget to check out our limited time offer while you’re there. Upgrade to Members Only Audios for more exciting, exclusive training.

If you’re looking to achieve anything of consequence, you need a plan. A well-defined plan can help you filter through the many distractions that exist and assist you in becoming laser focused on what you’re trying to achieve. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I explain the steps you need to take to put together a strategy for growth hacking as a musician. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – How to be laser focused on growth 00:49 – The importance of a strategy and how to create it 01:00 – The problem with traditional business plans 01:31 – Your entire strategy needs to be laid out on a single page 02:02 – How to put together your one-page growth hacking plan 03:22 – Creating systems around your strategy 04:06 – Turning repetitive tasks into checklists 06:01 – Defining your target audience 08:11 – Concluding thoughts Transcription: As I said in part one of this series, a growth hacker is laser focused on growth. The problem is that there are many ways to grow. In part one, I mentioned at least eight tactics you could build your strategy around. If you’re going at this alone, you’re going to want to choose just one tactic and hammer it with everything you’ve got. Even if you’ve got a small team, you may not want to deviate too far from the central strategy. So, at this point, you may not know what your strategy is going to be. You may want to listen to the rest of this series and then decide how you want to go about this. Creating Your Strategy But either way, you need a strategy, and it should be written down. This is a key point, so I’m going to say it again: Your strategy should be clearly documented and visible to you always. And, I’m not talking about a business plan. There’s a huge problem with business plans – the information is laid out sequentially. The reason this is a problem is because each component of a strategy is – and should be – interconnected. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this, but with most business plans you can’t just start at page one and work your way through to the end. You end up needing to jump around. This is a terrible way to organize information you’re constantly going to be referring to. To be honest, this is an outdated way of doing things too. Your entire strategy needs to be laid out on just one page, a whiteboard or poster board. If you need more retail space, then a whiteboard or poster board is a better option. So, one of the first hacks you’re going to execute as a growth hacker is in creating a one-page strategy that makes it clear who your audience is, what resources you have access to, what your value proposition is, what channel you’ll be using to attract your audience, what strategic partners and alliances you could make, how you’re going to make money, and so on. There are different ways of putting together a one-page growth hacking plan. I think it’s best to make it visually appealing, and it shouldn’t be a wall of text. I recently learned about the Strategyzer Business Model Canvas, and I think this is one tool you could use to lay out your strategy. Now, there are a few components we’re not going to pay heed to as a growth hacker. The Business Model Canvas has a section for “Cost Structure”, and cost is not something we’re going to pay a lot of attention to. You’re either going to put in a lot of sweat equity, utilize a bit of your own money, or find another source of funding before you even get started. To me, the most important sections to use with a Business Model Canvas are: “Key Partners”, “Key Activities”, “Value Propositions”, “Channels”, and “Revenue Streams”. You’re going to spend some time thinking about “Customer Segments” but not a lot. We want to get our targeting down to broad strokes as opposed to fine-tuned buyer personas. As for alternatives to the Business Model Canvas, you could also take advantage of Allan Dib’s 1-Page Marketing Plan or even adapt something like the Kanban system to suit your needs. Again, the key points here are that you take time to document your strategy, that it gives you a good bird’s eye view of what you’re trying to achieve, and it’s visually appealing. So long as you follow those rules, the rest is up to you. Building Systems Around Your Strategy A business owner recently shared with me that there are three personalities in every startup. I’m sure he got this from somewhere, but I don’t know where. There’s the Hipster, the Hacker and the Hustler. The Hipster is the creative person who’s skilled at connecting with an audience. The Hacker is the systems person. They create processes and checklists that enable the team to function at peak efficiency. The Hustler is essentially the salesperson. They work hard to convert leads into customers. So, if you’re running a solo operation, I’m inviting you to see yourself as all three. Naturally, you’re going to be stronger in one area and weaker in others. But for the intents and purposes of what I’m about to discuss, I want you to try on

So, you’re putting together your latest release and you’re interested in promoting it. Or, maybe you’re a marketer looking to help a musician get the word out about their new album. But what does a DIY music marketing campaign look like? What can you expect as you look to share your music with the world? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share five things I’ve learned about executing DIY music marketing campaigns. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – DIY music marketing campaigns 01:17 – Music marketing campaigns aren’t always pretty 02:45 – Take advantage of spreadsheets to manage your data 04:03 – Music marketing is a numbers game 05:08 – How to get funding 06:21 – Powerful tools you can use for your music marketing campaign 08:55 – Concluding thoughts Transcription: Right now, I’m working on what I would consider to be my third major music marketing campaign. I’m anticipating that I will be doing more of these in the future, especially since I’ve been working on a solo EP since August. I haven’t said much about my EP to this point, though I do plan to create more content around it as the release nears. Stay tuned. But that is beside the point. What I wanted to talk about today is DIY music marketing campaigns. Now, I will preface this by saying that the three campaigns I’m referring to were and are being executed on behalf of my clients. But most of what’s mentioned here is just as applicable to independent musicians or marketers looking to start their own campaigns. And, if I’ve given the impression that the marketing campaigns I’ve been involved in were on par with what a label might do to market their artists, you should know that I’ve always been working with a small team on a shoestring budget. But as I’ve discovered, you can do a lot with a little, especially if you’re willing to put in a little sweat equity. You can do a lot with a little, especially if you’re willing to put in a little sweat equity.Share on X So, the first thing you should know is this: #1 – It probably won’t be pretty. Where others are involved, there is always the chance that things will get messy. You could end up saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, offending people, posting something to social media that’s not in character with yourself or the artist, uncovering opportunities that aren’t right for you, causing scheduling conflicts, miscommunicating your message and so on. I admit that this was one of my biggest fears when I was first beginning to promote my music. I was worried that I might offend someone, or that they would berate me for contacting them in the first place. Incidentally, I had to face some of my biggest fears when I was working with a music industry startup a few years ago. I did offend people and some of them did berate me. In retrospect, it’s not the worst thing that could have happened, and I doubt I’ve been blacklisted by the industry. Either way, I’m not trying to scare you, but I think it’s important to set expectations. If you’re working with a client, then make them aware that mistakes may be made, but that you’ll be doing your best not to cause trouble. And, if you’re working with clients, don’t be surprised if they call you a lot or send a lot of emails your way. This isn’t to say that these will all be negative interactions, but many will try to understand why you’re doing things the way you’re doing them and will ask for a lot of direction along the way. You should be aware that you will have a greater responsibility to your clients, especially if you’re requesting access to their website, email marketing software, social media accounts and so on. #2 – You should make friends with spreadsheets. Now, you can use whatever system works for you. For my first two campaigns, I ended up using a Word document to store and manage all my data. But campaigns requiring more outreach will demand that you be more organized. You’re going to need to keep track of who you contacted, what their contact information is, when and what the status of the request is, and so on. After all, you don’t want to waste time contacting people twice, especially when they’ve already said no. As nerdy as it is, and boring as it may seem, I think spreadsheets are the best way to handle this type and volume of data. As much as I enjoy this work, I admit that sometimes staring at spreadsheets is the last thing I want do, and I don’t feel like opening the document. But I will do it anyway because it’s critical to staying organized throughout the process. Now, it’s also important to realize that you don’t need to collect all the data yourself. With my latest marketing campaign, I decided to enlist the help of freelancers on Upwork to put together a list of prospects for me. I found the quality of data provided was generally good, and I also recognized that creating a list of prospects wasn’t the best use of my time, so this was the right move. I’ll be talking about some tools you can use to

Life presents us with many challenges. And, sometimes we end up carrying our negative thoughts and feelings into a variety of unrelated situations without even being aware of it. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share how you can “leave it at the door” and be present and fully engaged in everything you’re doing. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – The challenges we encounter in life 00:53 – The costs of burnout 01:43 – Anxiety and depression 02:37 – “No Ego Beyond This Point” 03:17 – “Keep Calm and Carry On” 03:51 – The baggage we carry with us 04:51 – “Leaving it at the door” 05:32 – Concluding thoughts Transcription: Every one of us has challenges in our lives. It could be physical, emotional, mental, financial or otherwise. At times, everything feels like it’s going great. At other times, it feels like things are taking a turn for the worse. Adopting a long-term mindset allows us to make peace with all of it, regardless of how it appears upfront. Because it’s through those difficulties and challenges that we grow, evolve and find new ways of being. There is nothing truly bad. But there is nothing truly good. It’s mostly a matter of perspective, because if your heart is still beating in your chest, there is always the possibility for change. Seemingly bad circumstances can turn around. But if you’re burned out, it can be hard to see the forest for the trees. I’m not talking about the kind of burnout where you catch up on your sleep for a few nights and you feel great. I’m talking about the kind of burnout where every positive action you take only brings a miniscule amount of improvement or relief. Maybe 1%. Maybe less. When you’re going through that kind of burnout, you feel lethargic. You have no energy. You’re extremely sensitive. Things that usually make you happy don’t make you as happy. You waver between bored and restless. You’re not sure what to do with yourself. You may even be depressed or become depressed. That kind of burnout makes it hard to distinguish what’s going well and what isn’t going well in your life. It all gets painted with one color, because you’re seeing the entirety of life through one lens. You want to see it another way, but your emotions don’t allow for it. Look, I will admit that I’ve had my fair share of encounters with anxiety and depression – especially in the last two years. There has been plenty to get excited about, plenty to be happy about too. But depression and anxiety are quite common among musicians and entrepreneurs, and it’s worth talking about. When everything is doom and gloom, you need a support group to lift you up. You need people in your life that will walk alongside you and encourage you. And, as hard as it might seem, you need to take baby steps to restore your health, your wellbeing, your emotional state and your confidence. You can rest and sleep more, meditate, exercise, eat well, get craniosacral therapy and chiropractic adjustments, acupuncture treatments, massage and more. I’ll talk more about these in a future episode. If all you can do is put one foot in front of the other, that’s all you can do. But going through burnout has taught me something important. I used to own a home studio along with my roommate and business partner. In due course, he hung a little sign above the entry to the rehearsal space that read, “No Ego Beyond This Point”. Artists can easily become precious about their musical and creative ideas to where they don’t want to make a compromise. But when you’re playing in a band, it’s important that everyone work together and feel like their contribution matters. So, I think what my roommate realized was that a lot of the conflict in that room tended to come out of a sense of ego. If you allow a song to evolve with the help and input of your band members, it can turn into something amazing. But if you stubbornly insist on your own way, you may cause conflict and achieve far less with your music in the process. In Calgary, there’s a venue called Café Koi. Several years ago, I used to go to their singer-songwriter open mic nights on a weekly basis. In the bathrooms, I would always see these words on the wall: “Keep Calm and Carry On”. Every time I would see those words, I would take a deep breath and say “okay” to myself. Then, I would go back out with a sense of relief. At the time I didn’t know that this was a poster devised by the British government in preparation for World War II. Regardless of its original intent, I still recall that those words had an impact on me, even if it was small. The point is this: We tend to carry our baggage with us where we go. Lately, I’ve been recording in the studio, going to rehearsals, attending meetings, looking after my autistic cousin and more. Having gone through some of the recent challenges I’ve gone through, I’ve realized that it’s important not to drag your baggage into situations where it doesn’t belong. When you’re at a meeting, you should be ful

Have you ever thought about composing? Have you already started your career? Are you interested in taking your composing game to the next level? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I talk to composer Steven Lebetkin, who shares about his forthcoming release, Perpetuum Immobile, New Age Chamber Music and his specific way of approaching composition. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Introductions 00:23 – Who is Steven Lebetkin? 02:23 – Perpetuum Immobile 05:29 – What is New Age Chamber Music? 10:11 – Is it costlier to work with real instruments and musicians? 12:30 – Who are you influenced by? 17:33 – Is there a specific way you approach composition and making music? 22:24 – Is there a specific message you’re looking to share with your audience through your music? 27:32 – What are your plans moving forward? 29:23 – Is there anything else I should have asked? Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today, I’m chatting with composer, speaker, and thought leader, Steven Lebetkin. How are you today, Steve? Steven Lebetkin: I'm great. How are you today, David? D.A.: Great. Thank you so much for asking. So, for those who don't know, why don't you paint us a picture of who you are and what you do? Steven: Okay. Well, I'm a composer. I've been doing this for quite a long time. I started out in my young teenage years taking composition lessons and studying classical music, and going pretty much every weekend to Lincoln Center in New York at the Library of Performing Arts as a 13, 14-year-old young boy adolescent. I just traveled to the library for years learning music, listening to vinyl -- yes, those were the days of vinyl -- and studying scores. And then went on to college at City University of New York Queens College and had the very good privilege and distinction of studying with about five of the great giant composers of the 20th century. Unfortunately, no longer with us today as we are in the 21st century. Learned a very solid and rigorous background of traditional Great Western compositional techniques. That forms the basis of all of my work for many decades since then in whatever style I choose to write. Whether it’s classical, symphonic, popular, or commercial, new age, as we're going to be talking about shortly in this interview medium than any other framework. So, I have a solid foundation of compositional technique which gives me the ability to build and create in whatever language or style is called for at the time. D.A.: That's great. Composing is definitely an art form. You have a new album on the way and I want to make sure I'm saying this right, although I'm not sure I am. Titled Perpetuum Immobile. What can you tell us about it? Steven: Well, it's Perpetuum Immobile. D.A.: Immobile. Steven: Yes, correct. That’s the title track of the album and the title of that track seemed to get a good sense of what the sound is and who is on that track for the listener. D.A.: So, what sort of mood were you trying to evoke with this music? Steven: Well, it wasn't really such a mood. I was actually… I gave a considerable amount of thought and preparation prior to the composition and then ultimately the production of this album to music in the 21st century, particularly for a larger commercial audience as what's going on in the last 15, 20 years and how I could approach a commercial genre with a sense of compositional integrity at the same time but not losing the audience to something that was too deep or too deeply entrenched in the classical or you know avant garde 20th century type of sound. The idea was consistent with my other works to approach and embrace a much wider audience than classical music generally is able to achieve, which is declining. The audience is declining, that's pretty well established. The idea was to take a classical set of contemporary techniques, actually a classical set of techniques, and apply that into a very, very appealing set of compositional styles that people can really relate to and enjoy without getting lost. Not too challenging but just enough so that it bears repeated listenings. That's the key. You want to be able to write music that is not only here for today but will be here tomorrow, where each time the listener presses the play button for one or more of the tracks on the album, hears something new that they hadn't heard or focused on before. That's the key to writing great music in the classical vein or the jazz vein or any other vein. So that you could hear it again and derive some additional sense of joy that maybe they didn't get some of the other times. D.A.: Yeah. I think that's great because I think a lot of the music that I've come to love certainly has layers and depth to it that I wouldn't have noticed the first time around. And there's yeah, there's many albums like that that I definitely have an appreciation for. I thin

There are a lot of social networks out there. And, there are some clear favorites among musicians, such as Instagram, YouTube and SoundCloud. But what about LinkedIn? Could it be used to enhance your music promotion and networking efforts? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, guest Vik Rajan of phoneBlogger.net shares how you can use LinkedIn to advance your career. Download the PDF Cheat Sheet Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Introduction 00:40 – Why LinkedIn? 03:14 – Video engagement and native video on LinkedIn 05:19 – Professionalism and posting on LinkedIn 07:42 – LinkedIn Publisher 12:03 – What are some other advantages of using LinkedIn as a musician or music entrepreneur? 18:09 – On LinkedIn, your personal profile is your resume 18:59 – How much time does it take to maintain a presence on LinkedIn? 21:07 – What’s annoying on LinkedIn? 24:28 – LinkedIn groups 25:03 – How do you become a thought leader or influencer on LinkedIn? 28:19 – Networking on LinkedIn 30:13 – LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft a couple of years ago 32:24 – LinkedIn may not be for everybody, but it’s worth exploring 33:24 – Final thoughts Transcription: Coming soon. Upgrade to Members Only Audios for more exciting, exclusive training.

Do you feel like you could never be a music entrepreneur? Do you feel discouraged by this thought? Then this episode is for you. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, we try on the idea that there are no alternatives or options, that music entrepreneurship is indeed all there is. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Connection 00:36 – “Music entrepreneurship is not for me” 00:54 – Do you feel incapable? 01:43 – Is risk taking not for you? 02:28 – Are you too sensitive? 03:10 – Do you feel disempowered? 03:43 – Do you feel discouraged? 04:24 – Is music entrepreneurship all there is? Transcription: You and I connected for a reason. It didn’t happen by accident. Maybe you just listen to the podcast every week and never leave a comment or email me. Perhaps you never look at any of my products or books. But you keep listening to the show and you get something out of it. I think that’s awesome. Keep listening. Even if I never hear from you, I know that you’re learning and growing, and that’s what matters to me. But while I have your attention, I want to share something with you. Recently, I had someone tell me that music entrepreneurship wasn’t for them. So, I decided to give some thought as to why they felt that way. I asked myself whether I was communicating this message properly. I wondered what it was that ultimately turned them off. Did they see themselves as incapable of pursuing this path? As far as I’m concerned, we are all on a path of growth. Some may tell you otherwise, but I don’t believe there’s a pinnacle or a summit to reach. I believe we should all adopt the mentality that we are lifelong learners, and that life is full of fresh and new discoveries every single day. If for some reason you don’t feel qualified or capable yet, don’t worry – just keep growing. I think we all feel like imposters sometimes. I’ve felt the same way. There are many tensions I feel in my personal and work life – but I’ve been learning to embrace them because I know that’s where the growth happens. So, it’s never too early to begin your journey. You’re not too young or too old, too small or too big, too white or too black… You aren’t too anything. You are perfectly capable exactly the way you are. Did they feel like risk taking wasn’t for them? I believe the best things in life are waiting for us on the other side of fear. I’ve experienced a lot of fear in my life. I even had a full-blown anxiety disorder in 2008. And, I’ve had to deal with iterations of the same anxiety in 2017, and even here in 2018. And, I’m coming clean here – I still have many fears surrounding the opposite gender. There are subjects I avoid or have trouble broaching with women. I find it incredibly difficult at times to express myself around them, even though I always enjoy their company. So, you shouldn’t feel like you need to be perfect to take risks. All you need to understand is that when you take a chance and put yourself out there, it’s rarely the giant you made it out to be, and there are rewards waiting for you on the other side of the fear. Did they feel like they were too sensitive to adopt a tougher mindset? Look, I’m about as sensitive as they come. Last night, I worked myself into a frenzy and ended up unleashing a violent rampage on my bed because of how things were going in my career and relationship life. No, things weren’t that bad. But I had made a mountain out of a molehill, as us humans tend to do. There’s no way you’re too sensitive to be a music entrepreneur. Being sensitive is a gift, as it allows you to tap into how others are feeling and what they’re thinking. It enables you to be sensitive and empathetic to the needs of others. I can’t imagine a person more qualified to run a business than someone who understands others. You’ve got the makings of an amazing leader. Did they feel disempowered? For several years now, I’ve been encouraging musicians to think of themselves as entrepreneurs as opposed to starving artists. I’m not sure if there is a more empowering message I could share with you. When you understand where the stereotype of a starving artist comes from, you soon realize it was typically based on people who were outright antisocial, had no interest in promoting their art, or even had a tendency towards self-sabotage. Does that describe you? Probably not. So, you should feel empowered – you are already doing way more than those artists were ever willing to do for themselves and their careers. Did they feel discouraged? Have you ever listened to an interview with a successful artist who shares what they had to go through to get to where they are, only to say to yourself, “I could never do that”? Be honest – I admit that I’ve said this to myself many times before. What you must understand is that your journey is uniquely yours. It won’t be like anyone else’s. Will there be obstacles and challenges ahead? Absolutely, and I’m always upfront about that. But if you’re passionate about what

Is it possible to forego certain steps to achieve success in music? Is it imperative that you pay your dues to get to where you want to go? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I explore what growth hacking is and how it could apply to the music industry. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – What is a growth hacker? 00:23 – The norm in the music industry 01:00 – Why the music industry can’t be growth hacked 01:20 – What if you want to be signed to a label? 01:42 – Growth hacking in the music industry requires a different way of looking at things 02:18 – Independent success is what’s available to all of us 02:29 – Monetization opportunities many musicians aren’t taking advantage of 03:17 – What a growth hacker in the music industry looks like 03:47 – An overview of what I’ll be covering in this series 04:15 – Can you do it all yourself? 05:24 – It’s about what you do know that you can do well consistently 06:50 – Concluding thoughts Transcription: A growth hacker describes someone who only cares about one thing – growth. Today, it gets talked about quite a bit in the internet business world, but not in the music world. In the music industry, typically, people talk about working hard and paying their dues, spending countless hours making phone calls, making a 10-year commitment to their eventual success and so on. I have nothing but respect and admiration for those who worked their way to the top. And, I don’t mean to take away anything from the efforts they put in to get to where they are. You and I will need to adopt a similar work ethic if we intend to create that level of success too. When I think of bands like KISS, they were essentially music entrepreneurs. They experienced a lot of hardship early on, and they weren’t promised success, but they just kept going until they found it. That took persistence and resilience to achieve. So, why can’t we growth hack the music industry? Well, it’s mostly because of the gatekeepers that exist – namely record labels. Music for the masses is still a big business, though it certainly has its failings. And, the music business is what it is because people continue to consume Top 40 hits at a ferocious rate. Those with the most visibility tend to be the winners. But what if you want to be signed to a label? In that case, you need to play their game. There’s no sense in cursing the darkness. If a label contract is what you want, then so be it. Go after it with gusto. And, to be fair, there are more independent labels out there than ever. So, if you’re not attached to the idea of working with a major label, then your chances of achieving your goal just went up. But the fact that there are gatekeepers in the industry doesn’t need to stop you from growth hacking in music. If a startup or internet business can do it, certainly you and I can too. All it requires is a different way of looking at things. Getting signed to a label is the traditional model of success. And yet, even if you do get to sign on the dotted line, you aren’t assured fame and fortune. You can just as easily get chewed up and spat out. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to keep 10 to 15% of your total revenue. Ironically, if you achieve independent success and build a significant following and fan base, labels may begin approaching you and not the other way around. Label or no label, independent success is what’s available to all of us. But it may require that we create our own revenue ecosystem along the way. Does that sound complicated? Well, it doesn’t have to be. I’ve talked about plenty of opportunities on the blog and the podcast that many musicians have yet to take advantage of. Here’s a short list: Blogging. Advertising. Bundling and packaging your music products. Membership sites. Affiliate marketing. And, that’s just the beginning. I’ve helped many people identify revenue streams for their music careers and businesses. I happen to think I’m pretty good at this. If you listened to episode 108 of the podcast with Jules Schroeder, then you already know that it’s possible to cobble together many revenue streams to create a living and beyond. But this may not be possible if you focus entirely on music streams and live performance opportunities. That’s just not cutting it for many musicians out there today. I’ve never talked to him before, but I’ve read many of Tom Hess’ articles, and I know he would agree. If you want to make it in music, you need to create many revenue streams – not just one. When I think of someone that’s growth hacking the music industry, I imagine someone who’s focused on creating a great product and appealing to a specific audience. I think of someone that’s taking an aggressive approach to their career, focusing on their strengths and making the most of every opportunity available. Forget the numbers. Costs are irrelevant. You can make it up with sweat equity. Streams don’t matter. So long as you’re trending upward, that’s what counts. I’m going to b

Hardly anyone is searching for the term “music entrepreneurship” online. So, why do I continue to talk about it? Does it matter? Is it relevant? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I discuss why music entrepreneurship matters to you. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Why music entrepreneurship is for you 00:36 – Why you should take a different approach 00:46 – How you think determines your career and life 01:19 – Doing the same things expecting different results is insanity 02:59 – You are the culmination of the five people you spend the most time with 03:57 – What have you learned about yourself? 04:08 – Creating new possibilities Transcription: In episode 112 of the podcast, I shared a little bit about what music entrepreneurship is. If you’re fed up with no one listening to your music, not getting the results you want, having to pay your dues, being turned down by industry influencers, then it’s probably for you. To me, music entrepreneurship is about hacking your way to new horizons not previously available to you. But why take a different approach? Why think of yourself as a business person when you’re clearly a musician? Or, why engage in what you’re already doing in a different way? There are a couple of things I want you to think about. Now, what I’m about to share with you isn’t undisputed truth. I’m constantly sharing new ideas with you on the podcast to help you grow and become everything you want to become. But that doesn’t mean it’s all truth. It’s just a way of thinking about and approaching your career. So, what we’re talking about is a way of thinking. A mindset. What I want you to do instead is try this on. Try it on like you would try on a pair of shoes. If it fits, wear it. If not, discard what doesn’t make sense and hold on to what does make sense. First, I want you to consider that doing the same things expecting different results is insanity. Look, I understand this sounds like a platitude. But I want you to empty your mind for a second and take a moment to see how this applies to your life. Are you trying it on? What are you beginning to discover? Are you seeing areas in your life where you’re doing the same things time and again only to achieve the same results? Have you been playing to the same audience at the same venues for years on end? Have you been publishing album after album that no one buys or listens to? Are you trying to drum up affiliate sales, only to be met with the same results month after month? Now, first off, I want to acknowledge your persistence. Good job for sticking it out. But is it possible the reason you’re not seeing breakthroughs in your career is because you haven’t changed a single thing around the way you’re doing things? Dig deep into your experiences. What do you see? Now, it’s important to acknowledge that we all do this from time to time. It’s human nature. We do our best to get outside of our comfort zones, only to return to our old habits. We’re like elastic bands – we can stretch to fit the core we’re surrounding, but the moment the core is removed, we snap back to the same size and shape. Doing something different takes work. It may require more planning, more effort and more energy than you’re giving your career or business right now. It may even require a greater financial commitment. But if we don’t take risks, we risk not knowing what’s possible. We end up living a reasonable life. Keep in mind that this is not what others consider reasonable. It’s what we think others think is reasonable. Now, here’s the second thing I want you to consider, and it goes hand in hand with the first. Consider that you are the culmination of the five people you spend the most time with and the books you read. Again, this may sound like a platitude. But I want you to dig deep. Try those shoes on. How does it feel? Are you doing exactly what those five people are doing expecting different results? Do you take advice from those around you? Do you generally have the same attitudes they have? Does your financial outlook look about the same as theirs does? Of course, it does! It’s not hard to see into your future – I guarantee it. I don’t have a crystal ball. And, rest assured I don’t have a time machine either. But if I just looked at somebody who is five to 10 years down the track from where you are, I would know exactly where you’re going to end up. If you follow their formula for success, you will end up exactly where they’ve ended up. Depending on who you’re hanging around, that’s an encouraging thought. But it can also be a terrifying thought if you know you don’t want to end up like them. So, what discoveries have you made about yourself by going through these exercises? If you haven’t learned anything, that’s okay. Just stay with it and see what you come up with. Now, there’s one more thing you should be aware of. Before we can do anything about our insanity, first we must acknowledge and recognize it. It’s impossible to

“Influencer marketing” is a bit of a buzzword these days. But how does it apply to the music industry? Can a musician take advantage of influencer marketing to grow awareness for their music? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I chat with Johnny Vieira, CEO & Founder of TribeFluence, and he explains why influencer marketing represents a significant opportunity for musicians. Download the PDF Cheat Sheet Get in Touch with Johnny: Johnny has graciously offered to speak with anyone who’s interested in taking advantage of influencer marketer to grow their career. You can get in touch with him at: [email protected] (310) 691-4487 Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Introductions 00:22 – How did you come to launch a tech company? 02:07 – What are some of the most challenging aspects of building a music career in the digital age? 03:16 – How does TribeFluence help musicians? 05:16 – How did the idea for TribeFluence come about? 09:10 – How do you define influencer marketing? 11:12 – How has influencer marketing evolved over time? 13:11 – Why should musicians focus on working with microinfluencers? 15:29 – Are there certain products that benefit more from influencer marketing? 17:30 – What are the best platforms for influencer marketing? 19:15 – What makes TribeFluence stand out from other tools? 20:57 – What’s the best advice you’d give to a musician utilizing your platform? 22:32 – What’s the biggest challenge you’ve experienced as an entrepreneur? 24:32 – What are the greatest victories you’ve experienced as an entrepreneur? 25:50 – Are there any books that have impacted you on your journey? 28:22 – Closing remarks Transcription: Coming soon. Upgrade to Members Only Audios for more exciting, exclusive training.

You’ve heard me talk about it before. It forms the foundation of everything I do online and offline. What am I talking about? Music entrepreneurship, of course. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I offer a brief explanation of what music entrepreneurship is, and resources you can tap into to learn more about it. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – What is music entrepreneurship? 00:20 – Launching The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship 00:31 – Music entrepreneurship: an uncommon term? 00:53 – Ideas about music entrepreneurship 01:09 – An emerging way of approaching your music career or business 01:22 – An entrepreneur is someone who put forth an extraordinary effort 01:36 – The mindset of an entrepreneur 01:42 – Bonus content Transcription: And in this video, I wanted to answer the question, “what is music entrepreneurship?” As you know, I recently launched The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship. And, this is my latest mini book, detailing what it means to be a music entrepreneur. But I had a question from an artist – a friend of mine – and he asked, “what is music entrepreneurship? It seems like a term that’s not commonly used in the music industry.” And, he is partially correct. There isn’t necessarily a lot of people calling themselves musicpreneurs or music entrepreneurs, although I would argue that is beginning to change. So, you might be saying to yourself, music entrepreneurship… that’s somebody who has a business in the music industry, right? Or, you might be saying to yourself, that’s a musician who’s approaching their career like a business, right? And the answer is… both! I actually look at it as an emerging and new way of approaching a music career or business that allows you to create the types of results that entrepreneurs have. Music entrepreneurship is a new way of approaching your music career or business that allows you to create the types of results entrepreneurs have. Share on X Because, as you know, there are many entrepreneurs out there. And, it’s not necessarily that they’re extraordinary people. They just put forth an extraordinary effort. And that’s how they got an extraordinary result. And you and I can do that too. So, I wanted to share with you what the mindset of an entrepreneur is, and that’s what my mini book gets into. Now, you can also find all the bonus content I created for this – the action sheet, the audiobook and the video training, if you go to davidandrewwiebe.com/essential. So, I hope that answers your question. Upgrade to Members Only Audios for more exciting, exclusive training.

If you’re in your 20s or 30s now, project yourself ahead 50 to 60 years. Where would you be? What would you be doing? How will your life have turned out? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I have a chat with musician, conductor, life coach and author Dobbs Franks, who shares about the wonderful journey of life, and the advice he wants to pass on to the younger generation. Download the PDF Cheat Sheet Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Introductions 00:40 – Tell us about yourself 11:14 – Tell us about your book, So, You Want to be a Musician… 20:30 – As a musician, you could spend your entire life in relative anonymity 24:25 – Your personal relationships will have to write their own rules 27:23 – What’s the number one thing you see getting in the way of people living a happy and fulfilling life? 35:04 – The traditional model of success 36:27 – If there was one piece of advice you could pass onto young people, what would it be? 40:54 – There’s no instruction manual to life 42:30 – The moment you take complete responsibility for your life 43:23 – Are there any books that have helped you on your journey? 45:43 – Is there anything else I should have asked? Transcription: Coming soon. Upgrade to Members Only Audios for more exciting, exclusive training.

Many people will cross your path. Some will want to work with you. Others will offer you valuable opportunities. What do you do when you’re confronted with a new possibility? Do you jump on the chance and hope it works out? Do you weigh your options carefully before moving forward with it? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share some thoughts on who to align yourself with. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Choosing who to work with 00:42 – Thinking like an entrepreneur 00:55 – Who to align yourself with 01:40 – #1: Working with people because it will make you look good 02:45 – #2: Working with people who share the same values 04:06 – #3: Working with people you’ve worked with before 05:08 – #4: Working with people you trust 06:05 – There’s no perfect way to choose who to align yourself with Transcription: As your career or business advances, you’re going to have the opportunity to partner, collaborate and work with a variety of people. What’s surprising to me is how some people make decisions. I’ve seen some artists turn down offers from well-intentioned, well-meaning people who would have fairly compensated them for their work. But because of some underlying emotional baggage or stress in their daily lives, they made the rather unlikely choice of staying put instead of moving forward with their creativity and passion. Now, I’m an entrepreneur. So, if I was in their position, I would have jumped at the opportunity. But not everyone thinks like an entrepreneur, and not everyone is comfortable taking a chance upfront and problem solving along the way. This is what got me thinking about this topic of who to align yourself with. Sometimes, no matter how influential or highly regarded someone is, associating with them can bring you down. At other times, you might be surprised by how the most unlikely people come to your aid or rescue at just the right time. Regardless, you become like those you spend time with, so as you continue to build your career or business, it’s going to become increasingly important to be more selective in who you associate with. You’re going to want to build your support group or inner circle, because you’re going to come to depend on those people, especially when the going gets tough. Who you align yourself with is critical to your success. Here are several methods people use to decide who to work with, and the upsides and downsides of each. 1. I Choose Who to Work with Based on How I’ll Look This is one of the worst criteria for choosing who to align yourself with. Now, given, there may be some people you don’t want to be associated with, such as extremists, controversial figures, criminals and so on. I’m not saying there aren’t reasons why you might associate with people like that anyway, but you must consider your reputation as well as the long-term consequences of associating with someone, no matter who you’re choosing to be involved with. So, to make all decisions based on how you’ll look is the most superficial way to decide who to work with. If this is how you make decisions, more than likely, you’ll make some poor choices and miss opportunities to work with some great people. We as people are much too concerned with appearances. Just look at all the ways people look for validation on social media. My coach, James Schramko, once described seeking validation on social media as a mental disorder, and I don’t think he’s too far off. If you’re only concerned with looking good, then you’re not making a balanced decision. And, odds are you aren’t living authentically either. 2. I Work with People with Whom My Values are Aligned The best way to decide who to work with is to choose people with whom you have shared values. The best way to decide who to work with is to choose people with whom you have shared values.Share on X Honestly, virtually every relationship works better when the people involved have shared values. This goes just as much for romantic relationships as it does for business relationships. In a romantic relationship, your intense feelings of attraction can subside after a few years. But if you have shared interests and values, the relationship can continue to flourish long after those emotions have started waning. This isn’t to say there aren’t ways of stoking those fires again. But generally, the relationship has a much better chance at surviving if both people involved value the same things. In a business arrangement, if the people you’re working with are convicted about the same things you are, they are less likely to make decisions that go against your conscience. So, they are more likely to make decisions that are congruent with your big picture objectives. In a business partnership, if one values money and the other values adding value to people, priorities can quickly get out of order. If they can find a way to complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses, they still have a chance at success. But if both people keep

In April, I released my first mini-book, The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship. To my delight, it has been well-received by musicians and music business owners alike. In the meantime, I’ve been working on several pieces of bonus content that perfectly complement this resource and will help you get more out of it. So, in this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share about The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship Pro Pack and what you can expect to find inside. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Bonus content for The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship 00:32 – The three Pro Packs 01:07 – This offer will expire 01:50 – Special bonus 02:10 – Reading from The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship Transcription: I’m excited. Would you like to know why? Well, you might recall that I shared about my new mini-book, The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship in episode 87 of the podcast. So, what’s this got to do with that? Well, I recently finished working on all the bonus content. You may have heard me mention it on other podcasts or masterclasses. Regardless, here’s what you need to know: For a limited time, I’m making it all available for a nominal cost. And, I’ve prepared three different packages depending on your needs. The first package includes just the paperback and eBook version of the book. For those who already bought the book, the second package is ideal, as it includes just the bonus content and not the book. And, there’s a third package for those who want it all. It includes a signed copy of the paperback, the eBook, the audiobook, the action sheet and the video training. At any time, you can go to davidandrewwiebe.com/essential to learn about this offer. But as of January 1, 2019, this offer will no longer be available. You’ll still be able to buy the book at any time, but the additional content will be going away and finding a new home after that. If you order now, you will get instant access to everything except the hardcopy of the book, which I will be sending manually. If you happen to get the third package, then I will be signing the book and then sending it over to you. But you will get access to all the digital content the moment you purchase one of the The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship pro packs. So, again, you can go to davidandrewwiebe.com/essential to learn more about this limited time offer. You’ll even see a counter there, which is counting down to the last day you’ll be able to take advantage of one of the pro packs. Now, as a bonus, I’m going to share with you a segment from the audiobook. I’ve already read you the introduction in an earlier episode, so this will be from a different section. The audiobook isn’t available anywhere else, so if you’d like to get hold of it, don’t let this offer pass you by. Now here’s me reading a segment from The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship. [Audio excerpt from The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship audiobook] Get The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship. Upgrade to Members Only Audios for more exciting, exclusive training.

What is your purpose? What were you meant to accomplish in your lifetime? Are you living life to your fullest? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I interview Jules Schroeder of Unconventional Life. She shares how she came to understand her purpose in this world, how she encourages others to live a life of passion, what we can do to find a platform for our message, and much more. Download the PDF Cheat Sheet Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Introductions 00:25 – How would you describe what you do? 02:08 – Multipotentialites and the traditional model of success 04:10 – Creating a connection through passion 06:16 – Near death experience 10:24 – Spiritual experiences and living life to the fullest 15:05 – What does music entrepreneurship mean to you? 20:04 – Being unreasonable 21:46 – The unconventional life is becoming the conventional life 26:37 – What is your number one tip for building a podcast audience? 30:28 – How do you find a platform for your message? 35:43 – Are there any books you recommend? 37:11 – Closing thoughts Transcription: The following transcript was generated using Descript. David Andrew: Today I'm chatting with the founder of Unconventional Life, Jules Schroeder. How are you today, Jules? Jules: I'm doing wonderful. Good to be here. How are you doing? David Andrew: I'm doing great. Thank you for asking. So you're an entrepreneur, musician, speaker, and podcaster. I'm sure there are other things you do and other titles you have, but just so we can create a bit of a context for my listeners, how would you describe what you do? Jules: Yeah. Um, well at times, uh, people have come to my website and said, it's a little ADD. It's kind of sporadic. Like, who are you? Cause you'll see stuff like, On my Instagram, you'll see travel photos. You'll see me leading workshops. You'll see me in the recording studio performances. You'll see me snowboarding. I was a sponsored snowboarder for a while. And I think at the essence of [00:01:00] it, I'm a very multi passionate. And for so long, I used to think that was a problem that, you know, like I like doing all these different things and that I didn't have much focus. And what I actually realized is that as I've learned to own all of the different areas of self expression, Literally created my company unconventional life almost as a, a home to embody the non traditional it's allowed me to, uh, not only create more impact in the world, but also just have a lot of more fun in the process. And so, you know, for me, I'm someone that really believes that this conventional frame we've been inherited, you know, that I inherited, which was, you know, go to school. Get good grades, get into a good college, get a good job and then get a better job and then eventually die, um, is outdated and there's a million and one ways to make money in this world and to create a life that you love in this world and I love storytelling and I love giving people permission using my own self as an example so that more of us can do what we want, um, with our lives and ultimately take these gifts that we have inside of us and really create structures and, uh, ways to, to play, um, so that we have more fulfillment and more fun. David Andrew: Mm-Hmm. And by way of a couple of comments. You know, I think that movement is beginning to grow. The whole thing about Multipotentialite, I think Emily Watnick at uh, putty like.com, that was one of the first times I'd heard it's okay to be, you know, involved in whole variety of different things and. And pursue what it is that you want to do and enjoy every aspect of that, which is really cool. And then the other thing that you touched on was that traditional model of success that so many people still subscribe to. It's actually incredible to me, but my first exposure to something outside of that was network marketing. And I've talked to others who share that experience and some people have had it. you know, huge success in network marketing. I never did. I would love to say that I exceeded in every area of life. And that hasn't necessarily been the case. I felt like I felt more so that everything that I was involved in pushed me to what I'm doing today. Push me closer and closer and closer towards the music entrepreneur HQ and being engaged in that side of things. So everybody's story is unique in that regard, but it's, it's cool to hear that. I think a lot of people do need to hear that and just to wake up to that reality. Jules: Absolutely. And especially like as creatives, you know, I find that part of being the artist is one that allows emotions or forms of expression or gifts to flow through them. And often I've felt misunderstood. In my life many times, uh, just because of how I interacted with the world and how I create in the world, it's just different. Um, and being that artist

There is so much change going on around us, whether it’s technology, search engine algorithm updates or the needs of our target customers. It isn’t necessary to keep up with everything, but there are some things that can have a major impact on our careers or businesses if we aren’t prepared for them. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I talk out lout about some of the recent changes that have impacted my business and what I’m thinking about doing moving forward. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – A different kind of podcast episode 00:35 – The challenge I’m facing 01:22 – Mitigating risk and building more traffic sources 01:45 – How to manage my time 02:29 – Time to hire? 02:51 – A month creation and a month of curation 03:51 – Redesigning a website 04:18 – Increasing engagement 05:09 – Creating more videos 05:39 – Adapting 06:20 – Final thoughts Transcription: Whenever I record a podcast episode, I like to prepare some thoughts and ideas that will benefit you in some way. I don’t think today’s show will be any exception, but unlike previous episodes, this is going to be one where I’ll be thinking out loud a little bit because I don’t have a concrete action plan for how I’m going to move forward just yet. You might benefit from hearing me think out loud too. So, here’s the situation: Since about August 13, which was my birthday, I’ve been seeing a marked decline in traffic to the website. Up until that point, I certainly saw some fluctuation, but overall it was on an upward trend. But recently, the traffic essentially halved. I know that Google is constantly updating their algorithm, so I’m sure that plays a part in this decline. I’m also aware that my website has certain issues that could affect its rankings. So, that’s one of the things I’m beginning to think about tackling in the coming months. A decrease in traffic isn’t necessarily something to be alarmed about, and there can also be other factors, such as the fact that it’s still summer. But I want to continue to get my message out there to as many people as possible and don’t like sacrificing in that regard. Building More Traffic Sources Now, I’ve shared before that I like to mitigate risk and build more than one traffic source. This might be an opportunity to explore that idea a little further as well. I could better utilize platforms like YouTube, Instagram and Facebook to connect with my audience. My website is my home base and that’s what I care about most, but these platforms can certainly support my efforts to share my message. I could also advertise on these platforms. Dividing My Time Between Creation & Curation Something else that’s been floating around in the back of my mind is how to manage my time. As you probably know, I spend a lot of my time creating content. And, when I have a product to share with you, generally it’s a course or a book or an eBook, unless it’s an affiliate offer. I like spending my time creating content, as I think it’s more effective than sharing my ideas with one person at a time. When I publish a post, it reaches many people. But because of how I’ve structured my life, most of my time ends up being spent in the business instead of on the business. This isn’t to suggest I don’t want to create more content. The reality is that I have more ideas than I can realistically keep pace with. I have so much more to share with you. That’s a good problem to have, and I’m sure some content marketers wish they had that problem! This is where you say I should begin hiring and bringing people on to handle some of the workload, and you wouldn’t be wrong in saying that. Personally, I would like to see some of my revenue streams build a little more before I look at hiring, as I tend to be conservative with spending. But it might just be a matter of overcoming that mental hurdle. And, don’t kid yourself – we all have mental hurdles to overcome. We all have mental hurdles to overcome.Share on X But back to what I was saying about how I use my time. One thought I had recently was alternating months between creation and curation. So, I would spend one month just flat out creating content and the next month marketing, organizing and repurposing that content. I think this would be a good way to get more leverage out of the content I’m creating, and it would also allow me to spend more time on the business instead of just in it. It would allow me to work on bigger picture things like SEO as well. I’m not sure how this would affect the production of content. In some ways, it might make me more prolific. At the same time, if continually producing and publishing more content doesn’t boost numbers, then it’s not benefiting me. Slowing down and resetting might be a good idea. Do you have any thoughts on this? Would it be okay if I cut down on the amount of content I publish for a while? Would it affect your overall experience of The Music Entrepreneur HQ? Either way, I think it might be helpful for me

Are you thinking about going to a music industry conference? Have you thought about staring your own music conference? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I chat with Kevin Breuner of CD Baby who shares about the forthcoming DIY Musician Conference. Download the PDF Cheat Sheet Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Introductions 00:30 – What is the DIY Musician Conference? 01:34 – Education for independent artists 03:10 – Developing focus as a musician 04:43 – Why should people attend the DIY Musician Conference? 07:35 – What are some things musicians typically walk away with after attending the conference? 10:09 – Live music production 10:42 – What are some of the most common questions musicians come to you with at the conference? 12:31 – Is there anything musicians put too much focus on? 14:52 – What are some questions you wish musicians would ask more? 19:34 – Unsolicited emails and press releases 20:09 – Is the DIY Musician Conference profitable? 22:13 – How much time and effort does it take to put on a conference? 23:51 – Do you have any tips for those looking to start their own conference? 25:07 – What the market will bear 26:37 – How a conference deepens the relationship with your customers 28:29 – The best time in history to get your music out there Transcription: Coming soon. Upgrade to Members Only Audios for more exciting, exclusive training.

If you want to keep your business over the long haul, you can’t leave it all to chance. Legal troubles can ensue, and it may have nothing to do with anything you’ve done wrong. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I interview Scott Smith of Royal Legal Solutions who shares not only about how to protect your business but also the steps we need to take to scale our businesses. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Introductions 00:26 – How can we legally protect our companies? 02:09 – Do online businesses get sued too? 03:47 – What steps do people need to take to fully protect their company? 06:27 – GDPR and compliance 10:53 – How can you invest tax free to increase returns by 20% automatically? 13:21 – Are there any advantages to being set up as a self-employed or entrepreneur from a tax perspective? 15:09 – How do attorneys think about startups? 16:50 – What sort of missteps do people make when scaling their business, and how do we avoid them? 18:53 – Why jumping on the latest technology might not be helping you grow your business 22:29 – Selling your personality as a product? 26:10 – What social media is for 28:56 – The basics of music copyright and analysis paralysis 37:45 – The downside of attaching meaning to every event 39:43 – Burnout and the benefits of meditation 41:16 – Working excessively 43:57 – The high costs of burnout 46:07 – What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve experienced on your journey? 48:30 – What are some of the biggest victories you’ve experienced on your journey? 52:39 – Balance and sustainability 56:03 – Are there any books that have helped you on your journey? 57:59 – Is there anything else I should have asked? Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today I’m joined by Royal Legal Solutions’ Scott Smith. How are you today, Scott? Scott Smith: I’m having a great day today man. How’s it been going with you? David Andrew: Not bad at all. It's been a crazy day but I’m looking forward to this conversation. So, today we're going to be looking at something that has yet to be discussed in the podcast but could be one of the most important aspects of running and growing a rock-solid business, which is the legality of running a business. Now, some of you might be starting to tune out already but maybe when you hear this stat you'll begin to pay more attention. “Over 90% of corporations will be sued in the US.” So, Scott, please elaborate on this. How can we protect our companies fully? Scott: Yeah. Well, you just got to know that if you're in an active business that you should anticipate a lawsuit. The reason why is not because most people are shystey or anything like that. If you're in an active business, you should anticipate a lawsuit.Share on X It really has to do with its people having disagreements about what they think they agreed to and then whatever's on the piece of paper. Right? And then now you have a lawsuit because people get angry. So, to really think that you're never going to be sued is really to say like everybody I do business with for forever is always going to love me no matter what. I'm never going to be angry with them. That’s silly. We, at Royal Legal Solutions, we principally are working with a lot with real estate investors because those have huge amounts of capital tied up into assets and what they need to be doing with their portfolios of assets in combination with litigation protection. But for everybody in your audience, you really got to think about what are the really simple things that you could be doing immediately to just take you from having zero protection into having some protection. The best way to do that would just be like… I don’t know. Just like a simple even one to two LLCs would take you from having nothing into having a very high level of protection if you use them correctly. David Andrew: Now, this is something I’m sure people are wondering a bit but does this is applied to online business just as much as a brick and mortar business? Scott: Oh yeah, for sure. Right? Websites get sued just like anything else. Right? You can get sued for all types of compliance issues like the people's credit cards, note that you put up, like music that will have copyrights attached to it and now people want to sue you over it. We live in the most litigious lawsuit happy country in the world. Really, the right way to do it no matter if it’s with a brick and mortar or whether it's online – Royal Legal Solutions is online. It's a huge online law firm. We help people all across the country no matter where they live. That was one of the things that we looked at initially too was our own asset protection, which was we compartmentalize everything that we have that's worth anything – all the IP, domains, graphics. Everything all belongs to a separate asset holding company. Royal Legal Solutions is really an operating company. It doesn't own anything but it conducts al

It’s one thing to talk about doing something. Quite another to be doing it. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share my motivation behind adding a revenue stream to my business and how it’s been panning out so far. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Adding a revenue stream 00:47 – Why Medium? 01:14 – Leveraging content I had already created 01:38 – Writing on topics other than music 02:05 – Repurposing the articles I’m writing 02:23 – Building a following on Medium 03:03 – The results so far 03:04 – Sharing my ideas on Medium 03:18 – Being known by a difference audience 03:34 – Getting views on Medium articles daily 03:58 – Early traction 04:11 – Using the stats as a feedback mechanism 04:35 – Getting away from perfectionism 04:48 – What is the payoff? 05:43 – Conclusion Transcription: In episode 100, I shared about the upsides and downsides of adding a revenue stream to your music career or business. In that episode, I shared that I was planning to take advantage of Medium’s partner program. So, I thought it might be fun to share with you how that’s been going so far and continue to update you on my progress as it develops. I’ll be sharing about the “how” another time, because so far, my success has been limited. I’ll be more than happy to share about my process once I begin to see some tangible results. This episode will focus on the “why” and the “what”. Why Medium? There are many ways to generate income online. I could just as easily put my time into writing another book or creating another course instead of leveraging another platform. So, you might be wondering why I decided to take advantage of the Medium Partner Program, especially since I don’t own Medium and I’m essentially building on rented land. You might recall what I shared about the two dangerous mistakes us musicians and music entrepreneurs make in our marketing in episode 88 of the podcast. For one, I had a couple of posts sitting on my hard drive waiting to be published. They had very little or nothing to do with the music industry, so I was already planning to publish them elsewhere, such as on my personal blog. But for some reason, I had the inkling to publish them on Medium. And, when I went to check out Medium that day, I discovered they had launched their Partner Program. So, in a way, the stars kind of aligned. Second, I’ve often had the desire to write on topics other than music. I felt Medium could work as an outlet for my musings on business, personal development and spirituality. I already knew this type of content was pervasive on Medium, so it felt like the right platform for it as well. Incidentally, just today I came across Larry Kim’s Medium post on 5 Smart Reasons to Create Content Outside Your Niche. Reading that piece affirmed the direction I was taking. Third, I was present to the fact that I could take all the content I was publishing on Medium, package it up, and later sell it as a book. So, in a way, it’s streamlining the book writing process. And, that way, I get to capitalize on the content twice! And, I have other ideas for repurposing the content too. Fourth, I also knew that publishing regularly would allow me to build a following on Medium. This wasn’t my primary motivation for getting started, but if I do manage to build a following that’s interested in my work, I could turn them into paying customers down the line. That following could boost my income on Medium as well. To earn on a story in Medium, you need to turn it into a locked story. And, there are certain guidelines you need to follow if you want to earn money from your stories. That may sound constricting. But I recognized it would be possible to make the occasional self-promotional post, by not making it a locked story. So, I can promote my books and products on Medium too. The Results so Far First, it’s worth noting that I’ve had a lot of fun sharing my ideas on Medium. That in itself is a victory of sorts. I like writing about entrepreneurship, self-help and beliefs, so it serves as a great outlet for that type of content. Second, it gives me an opportunity to be known by another audience. I understand that there may not be a lot of musicians on Medium. But there are a lot of marketers, entrepreneurs, investors and so on. So, being known in that circle could create new opportunities for me. But right now that’s strictly hypothetical. Third, I now get some views on my Medium articles every single day. Prior to beginning this project, I already had several articles on Medium, but I was not getting many views. Since starting this project in late June, I’ve been able to boost my stats. A couple of articles in particular have gotten over 100 views. They are: The Beliefs That Hold You back Why I’ll take self-employment over employment any day When you’re engaging in a project of this nature, it’s always nice to see a bit of early traction. That gives you the motivation you need to keep going. And, as I often say,

Music entrepreneurship courses are beginning to pop up in more colleges and universities. But with that also comes some important questions, such as what is music entrepreneurship and why does it matter? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, Assistant Professor of Arts Management and Entrepreneurship at Baldwin Wallace University and owner of Murphy Music Press Publishing Sean brings some much-needed insight to these important questions. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Introduction 00:28 – What is the definition of music entrepreneurship? 02:13 – What sort of qualities would you be looking for in a music entrepreneur? 03:21 – People skills 05:26 – Why is music entrepreneurship important? 08:21 – Choosing yourself 09:46 – Why are you passionate about music entrepreneurship? 12:46 – Why hasn’t music publishing adapted to the needs of composers? 16:07 – How did you end up at Baldwin Wallace University? 17:59 – What is it like to live in Ohio? 19:27 – Employment and music entrepreneurship? 24:24 – What kinds of freelancing opportunities are available today? 29:06 – How do musicians make money today? 35:29 – What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered as an entrepreneur? 38:57 – What are some of the biggest victories you’ve experienced as an entrepreneur? 42:08 – Are there any books that have inspired and helped you on your journey? 43:52 – Is there anything else I should have asked? Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today I’m chatting with Assistant Professor of Arts Management and Entrepreneurship at Baldwin Wallace University, and owner of Murphy Music Press Publishing, Sean Murphy. How are you today Sean? Sean Murphy: I'm doing well. Thanks so much for having me on. David Andrew: Yeah, it's a pleasure. So, it seems like people can’t agree entirely on this. I'm going to start off by asking what your definition of music entrepreneurship is. Sean: That's a great question. I think a lot of musicians are maybe averse to the term entrepreneurship in general because the idea of mixing business concepts with the idea of musical performance, I think to some people it's kind of like an unholy marriage. So, I would define entrepreneurship as kind of the intersection of creativity and innovation. For musicians, I feel like that's just what we do every single day in our product and what we do. Entrepreneurship is the intersection of creativity and innovation.Share on X So, my definition of music entrepreneurship is really just the skillset that is necessary for one to survive in the music industry itself because without any entrepreneurial abilities I think we see a lot of unfortunate cases where some musicians have to change careers or change music into more of a hobby than an income generating device. David Andrew: I can get behind everything you just said for sure, because there are so many musicians out there that go “Oh, but I just want to focus on the creative side of things.” which I totally understand but if you don't market your music, if nobody knows who you are, if you don't build your email list, or know anything about social media or building websites, pretty much you don't have a career, right? Sean: Yeah. It's difficult to be a musician but a lot of people already possess these entrepreneurial qualities they just don't think of them in that way. Part of what I do, I think it's also educating people on the fact that they already possess a lot of these qualities and then just manipulating them in such a way that would be beneficial for their long-term success in music, is really what I should go about doing. David Andrew: I think that's true too. What sort of qualities would you be looking for? Sean: Well, I think creativity is definitely at the forefront but as I kind of referenced before, all the musicians I feel like are inherently creative or they wouldn't be in this field to begin with. David Andrew: Yes. Sean: Beyond creativity, I think the next quality that a lot of musicians sometimes have to overcome is the ability to speak to other musicians and other non-musicians in kind of like the general topic of public speaking and general communication. A lot of musicians... we're insular people. We go in the practice room for eight hours a day. We don't talk to anyone but ourselves. Sometimes we're going crazy. And then oftentimes we can use our instrument as kind of like a veil to hide behind instead of articulating our thoughts with our words. So, another quality I like to look for or encourage is someone who's like well-articulate and able to speak clearly and not feel intimidated by the idea of communicating their entrepreneurial thoughts and their musical thoughts with their voice and not just their performance medium. David Andrew: Wow! That's huge. And I do talk about the fact that people skills are extremely important in my latest mini-book The Essent

Are you thinking about starting a tribute band? Are you wondering what to expect on the path ahead? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share what I’ve learned from performing with a tribute band for nearly a decade. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Performing with a tribute band 00:37 – Upsides to playing in a tribute band 00:40 – #1: Commanding a High Fee 01:24 – #2: Performing for a larger audience 02:09 – #3: Growing as a musician 02:51 – The downsides to playing in a tribute band 02:54 – #1: You’ll never be as popular as the original act 03:36 – #2: Becoming a target of criticism 04:33 – #3: Limiting your merch selling opportunities 05:05 – How to succeed as a tribute band Transcription: At this point, I’ve been performing with a tribute act for several years. It’s a bit of a feast or famine situation because sometimes we have a lot of gigs, and at other times we don’t have any. This means I generally have plenty of time to work on other projects. But when we do perform, I usually have a lot of fun. Over the years, I’ve come to recognize there are both upsides and downsides to playing in a tribute band. So, I thought I would share these with you. First, let’s look at the upsides to playing in a tribute band. 1. You Can Command a High Fee It’s a good day when you get paid for your performance as an original act. I’m not saying it’s impossible to get paid for your gigs if you’re performing original material. But for the most part, the fee structure hasn’t changed in decades. These days, some bands even pay to play. This is where cover and tribute bands have certain advantages. Generally, you can command a higher fee out the gate. Since there’s a built-in audience for the music, it isn’t as challenging to attract an audience, and most music venues know this. But there is a downside here in that there is a limit to how much a cover or tribute band can earn in one go. Meanwhile, there is virtually unlimited earning potential as an original act. Getting to the point where you can earn more can take a long time, mind you. 2. You Can Perform for More People This goes hand in hand with the last point I made. Since the music you’re performing already has a built-in audience, drawing a crowd generally isn’t a problem. You might not have a huge audience every time you perform, as it’s still contingent on the marketing that goes into it, but for the most part you’ll find yourself performing for more people than a new original act. But because you’re playing someone else’s material, hardcore fans might not like how you perform the original band’s music. I’ll share more on that later. Additionally, what I said about payment also applies to audience. As a tribute act, there will always be an upper limit to the number of people you can play to. As an original act, you can keep playing to bigger and bigger audiences assuming there’s still room for growth. Again, getting to that point could take you a long time though. 3. You Get to Grow as a Musician As a singer-songwriter and rock musician, playing in a tribute band is a side gig for me. It was never meant to replace my other musical projects or even other work. But when I started learning the material for the tribute band, it took a lot of time and effort to figure out. It wasn’t the most technical music I’d ever played, but the arrangements were a lot weirder than anticipated. So, it took me a while to wrap my head around the arrangements. As I went through that process, I ended up growing a lot as a musician. I had to figure out how to sing over complex guitar parts. I had to learn both the bass lines and the guitar riffs. I had to learn and employ new techniques. When you grow as a musician in a tribute act, you can apply what you’ve learned to your original music, which is a significant benefit. As a musician, you can apply what you learn in one project and apply it to another.Share on X Now, let’s look at the downsides to playing in a tribute band. 1. You’ll Never be as Big as the Original Band or Artist More than likely, you’ll be starting a tribute band around a popular act like The Beatles, AC/DC, Def Leppard, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, KISS and so on. This isn’t to suggest you can’t start a tribute band around a more modern artist. But then, the catalog to draw from could be limited, and so could your audience. Certainly, there are still plenty of fans of the bands already mentioned. But there’s no way you’re going to draw the kind of audience they did or still do. Some tribute bands do end up playing big theaters or even stadiums. But that’s usually only possible if your band sounds amazing and you’re able to team up with another popular tribute act or two. 2. You’ll Likely be on the Receiving End of Criticism I’ve seen all kinds of criticism lodged against the tribute band I’ve performed with. For instance: The singer got accused of not being capable of producing original material, which is why he just plays in a tri

Unless we're physicians or psychologists, we don't often engage or fully understand the monumental connected reality of genetics, matter, energy, structure and relationship that enable us to be born and simply exist. From this beginning place, we're flung into all those other connected realities that make up the total experience of living on this earth – philosophical, social, economic, technological, ecological, political, sexual and relational. As if being in relationship with our own messed up, complicated selves wasn't enough, we're flung into relationships with everyone else – navigating the same complicated life of connected realities. This occurs whether we want all those extra complications or not, escape it, simplify it or even medicated it. We are ultimately confronted with the connected realities of our complicated life. Ultimately, we reach a crossroads question about the message of this overwhelming complexity. In this episode of The Question podcast, you will hear highlights from Frederick Tamagi's presentation on "The Symmetry Within" as well as the music of Tim Gareau. Thank you for listening! What questions will you be taking with you after listening to this episode? We encourage you to connect with us via social media: Facebook Twitter