Lessons

Lesson Info

Techniques to Build a Network

There's another thing that we've run into very often that it's surprisingly works out really well, you want to know people before another famous, all right, so you're probably thinking, how do I know who's going to be famous? I mean, you're meeting all kinds of people all the time, and somebody could make in other people can't like a lottery ticket, right? The key to this, the key to this is to hang around with really creative people that have aspirations you don't know which of them are going to actually make it anywhere for one of them might, and in particular, this is something that we did. It started when one of our friends who did second city decided to do a show. Yeah, dr show it was a sketch comedy show, and they were looking for somebody tio to do music with them, and they said, hey, we had an idea we'll do a saturday night live style think you guys will play behind a couple of sketches, and then we'll have a part in the middle where you can kind of play your songs, and it work...

ed out really well for them, by the way, what we all got out of it was that they got our draw to help them bring people into the comedy show because when you're a second city you actually bid to get one of the three stages if you've gone through the whole second city program that's how it works so yeah, one of the things they're looking for as well how can you market this how can you tell me how many people are going to show up right? So like we teamed up with the band and they have a drawn will bring people and they had their own draws so we got to bring in new people we got something that I like t call basically something to add to our band resume that we've played in second city which is really cool on something that it helps establish our credibility and then from all of this after all of this we actually ended up with a huge new group of creative people associated with and they went on did another show actually did music for another show and then amongst all these people one of them and aspirations to create a production house and what happened from there again while he created a tv show called dvd geek dvd dvd geeks and so when he thought of well we need a theme song for this thing hey immediately thought of us because we were always helping people again going back to the main point of working try to solve their problems on then then eventually something can connect you khun ask them directly or something like this could happen so he's like you guys have the right style of music and way would like something that very surf rock and fifties ask in hawaii five o type thing and that's kind of my vision and can you do that? And the answer was no course not no we couldn't answer yes, of course should you do that? And so we went to the studio I wrote something went back presented a couple ideas, he said, I want that one back recorded that one developed that and there we go and that became the theme and then we did a lot of little state in the beds, bumpers and themes that and there's three things you normally do a television, by the way. But the theme song most people are familiar with the bumpers are those little audio cues in between scenes that kind of cute things and that's music to accounts and then there's beds, which is music that goes on underneath while they're actually doing the talking and everything that they're doing well. We did all the music for the show and then it was shown in how many homes then he got had picked up and it was showing the twenty six million homes uh so this season was played out on tv and uh and again, how did that happen? How do we how do we do that? It was actually knowing somebody before they were famous, just like now we know you before you guys are family and, uh, you guys and that's just the point again of that story is to think long term, if you're in it to make money ah, and if you're in it in music as you love it thiss networking thing doesn't it cz not just a one off thing, you build it into your character and what you do and you should always be out looking out for people who are going places and try to help him. It really paid off for us. Our recommendation is to team up with people who are creative, who are not your type of artist. You know what I'm saying here? I'm not just saying you khun hanging around with other musicians, you will you won't be able to handle, you know, I mean, we're musicians, right? Normally we play in groups, but it goes beyond that. We really think you should team up with people who are visual artists, people were theater people, even though they defense like oil on water. I know thank you you guys have had to have run into that before, right, yeah, okay matting in the audience there so you have that but no matter what it is those groups of people they end up doing different things and the amazing thing is pretty much every type of creative tends to need music and you can fill that slot and actually that leads still point that I don't think we have a slide for this but I usually talk about it which is that when we network we don't tent we go to some music conventions and people are is asking us you know are you going to damn are you going to south by southwest? I like to go to conventions off creators of other sorts especially people with new media because they're all looking for music because they need the music I very often when I go to some of these conventions or when we go where the only musicians in the room actually one of the people that we deal with says you know what? I don't network in other places with music actually go to chambers of commerce like what do you do that and he had a studio among other things is like because I have a studio and everyone else is like I'm an accountant or a computer consulting right? You know you could imagine the types of people that are coming there and he goes I'm a musician and they go well that's different is like and I guess you know what I'll do one free radio spot for you you can come into my studio I mean syria time doesn't cost anything when you own the studio radio spots are easy to do compared to music and this is this is advice for any of you who are starting a music studio or have an idea like this try this I have to do is show up at a chamber of congress meeting be the only musician there make an offer to do a radio spot some of those guys will become repeat customers from then on there like, wait I never thought that radio is in my zone I never thought I could afford it. I never even thought of doing a radio commercial you know, it could even happen with video nowadays since it's much easier to put together than you ever could and I think the point is taking it back to the networking is that you stand out if you go to if you go to music conventions well then you're just a musician with other musicians if you can think of other gatherings like this is I mean this really unique the chamber of commerce think yeah, but it's like you stand out and then it makes it actually easier to network because people like walter you I'm a musician oh ok, I'm not used to talking to a musician here uh and then you can start um uh, fishing out opportunities and stuff a cz well in that in that context definitely so we like to give very practical material we don't just like to say network go get out there we like to give you more specific things so these air all techniques that we have used that have worked really well for us when you network top five first of all cross promotion, it should be obvious should be the most obvious thing that we have here you have fans, they have fans introduced your work to each other spans guess what most of these guys that you deal with that or even in media, especially when there's somewhat smaller media they're hungry tow actually get their material exposed to new audiences that is their problem remember we talked about networking the beginning solve their problem get in their heads. The number one problem that immediate person has is how do I grow my audience? Well, once you're a musician, you've actually established yourself you've got a web presence, you've got some of these other things use it, they're happy to see that and actually very closely tied to this is what we call link love you've probably heard that term before this is so easy to do, I don't know why everybody doesn't do it all the time why don't you just spend all your time shining lights on others they'll pay back they'll start talking about you in fact people's the thing that's music to everybody's ears is their own name it's probably the number one thing well their name on the internet when you're talking about somebody else works and then they tend a link back to you which we've gotten a lot of mileage out of this one we've used it clean off well this one just to be specific it's about hyper linking that's actually linking to their blogger looking to there twitter a counter what what have you but if they've helped you out then you know or if it's something that you really appreciate you can link to them and they find out about this because of analytics and all these civic and I think that we talked about in the book but they find out and then they they know what we often tell them well we also go out and we tell him that's right and you should know I had to send him an email saying we talked about you you know they may not answer but you'd be surprised people who you might think are out of reach ago thank you very much you know especially because like we talked about this prior slide these podcasters and bloggers even though they might have large audiences are a little bit easier to reach that's what I love about new media nowadays it's really great from that standpoint so next giving credit another thing that we don't know why everybody doesn't do all of the time I mean put their name in lights what does it cost you? I mean this this ironically this business that seems like it's all about ego it's all about ego is actually about pushing it out and giving credit to everybody else constantly thinking of the other person and your stature gets raised because you're the one that's do you mean you're still there here in the picture you're not like giving anything up by doing it and yet you do liner notes and you don't thank everybody that helped you with your album and every single way you're making a mistake because if you're going to try and get their help later they're going to be more willing to do it if they actually got acknowledged right that's a good point so tying it back to the story about the girl in the apartment upstairs we did credit her in the album as well um uh and it's very easy to do and then since you have the program he type your name and think about it I guess we couldn't even keep her out of the notes that we went oh no ok wave a quick side note here from sure dt two k on twitter it was just curious to know what kind of music do you guys play for those who are not honor really helpful that just kind of address because we have musicians here who play all different types of yes trying to get everyone okay that's a that's a very good question and weaken take a pause here to weigh describe ourselves as horn powered geek rock so we are a innate pete's piece band uh like a rock band though then with a trumpet trombone saxophone ready play saxophone baritone saxophone actually ivo for yeah, and we're kind of in this style of they might be giants kind of quirky with a little bit of sense of humor that's our thing uh by the way, what jason just did right here being able to lay out exactly what we sound like both with a description of the music and then comparing it to unknown band is your most effective and easy way to do it. You'd be surprised at how hard it is to do this for your own music. It actually took a lot of practice to get to the point where he could just say way sound like this? Yeah, no, that we'll talk about this in a little bit during the market's just me speak for a lesson a future less of future uh yes so that's the type of music that we play so then again this is very important there's many different styles many different genres and musicians do so many different types of things, the idea is not to get lost in any of our examples, uh, per se these air the example like these air, we're applying the principles and the principles of the key thing to keep in mind this what were teasing them out and then apply that to your own music? Um, not the, uh per se like, we're going after the gaming, uh, there's the various things that we did specifically or stories just they fit our music really, really well. And so that was that's kind of the thinking that we did it, that but the principles can be applied, what, no matter what genre you're in, no matter what you do or what have you and, uh, yeah, sure, a couple of the things about our band we've like I said before we have nineteen albums, we've licensed music to disney and viacom and had music videos played on spike tv, we played at second city plated second city, all establishing our resume and probably are. But my favorite achievement that we've done is that in two thousand seven, we released a song every single day of the year for a year, three hundred sixty five songs in order to build our audience, do marketing, get pr. And to grow what we had and it worked extremely well we had lots of by the time we were doing it every hour of every day and then after a while, like every fifteen minutes of every day somebody was listening to a song of ours from our website because we could tell from the web analytics you really have to do something that stands out right that's part of the whole thing. The other thing, of course, is that it gave us an awful lot of music to make on toe work with his license and to sell and that alone was twelve of the nineteen albums that we have one per month and they're not normal like that one's naturally right they're twelve, they're there between twenty eight and thirty one song that's very good, randi, you know, your months they said no, my money well, it wasn't a leaf here, so it's like, twenty eight, twenty nine, twenty eight I don't believe you know, it was no, no, no way had one last song remember we got a shoe? Oh yeah sixty six it wasn't so we've we've been out there, we're good at writing music and so one of the key things is it made it easier for us to do licensing in royalties and try and get stuff play because we had a lot of opportunities to try and take various songs of ours to do it, plus three road signs about just about every topic you can possibly imagine and that helped us. We'll talk about this a little later and what we did so question come in just in regards to this lines about alexa loosed, rowe said, how did you how big do you think your audience has to be in order for you, teo approach media for cross promotion and you know, if if you think that that's something, what would you say to beginner musicians that are feeling that way? That is an excellent question, and the truth is there's no limit, because there's no general way to tell how biggin audiences in the first place now there's a website called next big sound, which kind of aggregate ce the counts of the number of subscribers on youtube and people following you on each of the various social media's like twitter and everything, it kind of agra gates that to a number, but not everybody knows toe look too that the truth is just starting out is enough especially, and this is where when we just first started, it was more effective for us to give music because that was more concrete, but the media that you should approach when you're starting out isn't this size me, d'oh, it's things within your reach and we're constantly surprised at how successful we can do things within our reach, and then how that increases their scope every time, partly because some of the things that we did added to what I like to call our band resume or a topic that will talk about in the marketing slides called borrowed credibility will talk about that in the future. The second city thing that we did just to give you an idea was not something we did with a huge sketch comedy group that we had to reach up for it was some guys that we hung around with in a creative circle and so that's why we like starting out with, like, theater schools with groups of people who are like you guys, what you're doing, what you're doing, you have in just your local school people, that you should be connecting less because they're people who are before they become famous types. And then for each thing that you do, what you do is you bring it to them and say, oh, I've played its second city, and then all of a sudden, once you say that you actually get that one mark and you can raise the notch up that makes sense, and I think there's one more point to that, and that is, uh, just ask just do it anyway like when we did the cheap ass games thing that just seemed like a good way out of our reach right? But we asked and it was a great connector and it really worked for us and like if we never asked if we doubted like well, I don't know if our audiences x amount what there is is um we might have not done it but we did it and all you need is a few of those things to connect and then you can start growing it which is what randi was just saying so that's a very good question yeah so where a number three here's another one the's air cracked come that working techniques just to remind us where we've been coming from celebrate successes we like to borrow this one from theater was the cast party after every run right and it's surprising how often people will do it and then we'll celebrate and they won't include everybody that helped him we'll just get a keg and thank you everybody it's not hard you're under age don't buy ok get somebody else to via cag pizza's good pizza civil wars is the same case you should say that considered ok right pizza and a cake so you get that and the thing that's not on this slide that's sort of something we want to bring up here is that we won't just have this party well, actually usually talk about the next project that we're working on, which we have been planning before this one ended so we congratulate of the energy in the momenta mme and pull him along with us is like, yeah, we did it you know, we did the song of the day and it's done and yeah, let's do the next project and all of a sudden they're coming along with you and continuing to help you and be part of your circle and that's how it rose that's how your team grows and there will it more willing to help you in the future once they've done that? I mean, talk about doing things for free that just part of your creative circle it's not necessarily about business in that case. So I mean it's kind of funny because here we're talking about business but it's bigger than that music is something that really happens very organically it happens where they've actually shown in studies that once money becomes part of creativity it makes people less creative, not more they did it by taking people in that cake come up with ideas they took another peep group of people like will pay five cents for every idea, and they said that the the ones where they paid for it had not only less ideas but lesser quality ideas every question from your transistor again, that kind of it feeds off of that statement was asking is the principal really to just think like an entrepreneur? Yes well done yes, I like that better really good way to think about it. Okay? And there is one unique aspect to this entrepreneurship question when you are in music which is that people root for musicians they love to say I was part of this artist you know, when they were starting ii helped out this band make their album or put on this tour or whatever it is that you're crazy project is so there's another aspect to this that people really want toe be involved and you need to sell it that way you need to build it up and make it into something that's a great point I think it's a great point and um in a way that's what this course is going to be about well, it's one thing to think like an entrepreneur and it's a great I think bumper stickers actually say that but then what we're going to do is actually give you all like techniques that you can actually apply to be thinking like an entrepreneur and then you'll be able to do as randy said in the beginning right away not anywhere within the music business perfect well it's not exactly good excellent itself and then there's the most effective networking technique of all this is one you should always be thinking about the warm hand off now the warm hand off is just like this that says in one sense can you introduce me to if you have are submitting your stuff to somebody who's inundated with submissions and now it's not as physical as it used to be you know, like there'd be a physical stack of stuff maybe it's a huge set of e mails you compare that tow actually having a situation where somebody who they already know is saying this you've got to check out this artist there great the second one will always win we'll always win always work out and considering this you really should always be thinking about not just the three things we talked about earlier which is just, you know, opportunities and skills and is this a business partner for me but also who do they know who do they know? And the surprising thing is you I guarantee this you do not know who even the people in the circles that you already have you do not know who they know and if you just asked I really like to get in touch with well we did it with david bash on and then you know given doll the locals said yeah I know I can introduce youto no problem it's the same thing is the problem thing we were talking about earlier but this time it's with a name people's names it's. Very specific, right? You introduce me to somebody who does this, or can you introduce me to david bash david bash? Anybody could help it's, very powerful.