What makes a marketer/musician/businessman/individual truly “great?”
This is the ongoing debate I’ve had with a friend of mine. He believes greatness (particularly in the political arena) is defined by being “the smartest person in the room.” I disagree.
It’s not just about being the best, smartest, or fastest, or knowing the most notes, or helping others. Greatness is also defined by your limitations.
Can you look at a situation, acknowledge that you can’t pull it off alone, and bring in the pros? Can you hire for your deficiencies rather than just employ people who think like you? Do you play with musicians who are better than you or strive to be the best musician in any project?
I am TERRIBLE at arranging music. I like to write tunes and noodle around a bit with it but when it comes to arrangements I’m lost. Back in Chicago I discovered an awesome piano player and arranger. No matter how uncomfortable I felt with his suggestions, I did my best to implement them because I knew he had a skill set that I did not have.
It is hard to stifle yourself when you disagree with an idea, but sometimes that is exactly what you have to do to grow and become great.
Other Random Stuff
….wow. I never thought my guest post on Music Soul and Music Sold would create such a dust-up by fellow musicians. I’ve had people calling me names (although for some reason they all got “G” rated when posting here – wimps), questioning credentials, criticizing my approach, ethics, morals, blah blah blah. Flush it.
In the middle of it all, much to my surprise, some readers are more open-minded than I originally gave them credit for (thank you, Baton Rouge). He gets that – as a band/business person/blogger – you have to be different if you want to be noticed. “Different” might mean unique, controversial, fresh, smarter, better, more obnoxious (as so frequently is the case with me). Sometimes it just amounts to throwing your readers/fans a curveball.
A band that isn’t very good but dresses up like girls.
A “diva” who open mouth kisses another woman on stage.
A guitar player who makes loud, unfamiliar noises on his very loud guitar and ends the night by torching it.
A guy who changes his name to a symbol.
“Wardrobe malfunctions.”
All of the acts listed above were different – intentionally so – and were listened to and discussed. And they sold records. Wait – what? Discussed? Like 8 pages and two weeks worth of traffic on a forum you’ve never been to? Like driving huge traffic to your blog? I guess we can add “sales tips for musicians” to that list, huh?
Here’s the deal – if I sound like I’m cocky it is because my approach works. I have been using it for years. It grew a Chicago-based band and we played some really cool gigs as a result. To be honest, we had NO BUSINESS playing some of the rooms we played - but my client, the owner, was always left happy and I NEVER EVER burned a bridge.
I have set sales records at every company that I’ve worked for.
I use the same sales techniques training new internet marketers. Many of them are the most successful folks in the affiliate marketing space, and several of them manage $20 million + books of business.
That said, know your audience and if you are uncomfortable DONT DO IT! Oh, to address one final question…here’s the point of it all:
Q: What happens when the bar owner realizes what you’ve done to get the gig?
A: Nothing. They don’t care because you have just given them one of their most profitable nights of the season.
If you didn’t pick that up from my 2nd post, you need to slow down on hating and read again.
P.S. Thanks for the inbounds and SERP help guys. 
Other Random Stuff
[Ernie is my 5 year old bouvier des flandres. As a special surprise for my birthday, he has agreed to take some blogging burden off of my shoulders and answer some reader questions. -Joe]
Hi everyone! I’d like Joe to have a fun birthday weekend, put the laptop down and play catch with me for a bit, so I’ve hijacked his MBP and will be answering reader questions this weekend. So if there’s anything you want to know about me, Joe, Las Vegas, guitar, or internet marketing, go ahead and send me some questions! I look forward to hearing from you! – Ernie.
Other Random Stuff
I hope you’re having a great start to your Memorial Day weekend! I’m currently flying home from Dallas, reading a bunch of post from posers as they attempt to flame me for my guest post on Steve Nixon’s Blog earlier this week. I had no idea that it would cause such a stir, nor did I know that one of the largest music forums on the web had so many contributors with limited reading comprehension skills. Although I’m not remotely interested in starting a bunch of point-by-point rebuttals, there are a few clarifications that I would like to make.
I. Some knob with the handle “TrickyBoy” wrote the following:
“Not to be a dick, but as a professional sales manager, I wouldn’t hire anyone who took this type of approach. Fuck, I wouldn’t trust you to cut my grass. A recap of this article is one sentence: ‘When trying to book your band, lie your ass off.’ This used car salesman sleazy approach drives me crazy in the professional world and I certainly would never apply it to booking our band.
In a nutshell, I would tell anyone to disregard anything in this article.”
I did a bit of research and found out that our buddy TrickyBoy is a guy named Jason. He lives in the southern portion of the US and, as of last update, is an Account Manager for a small technology outsourcing firm. But hey – let’s take the “professional sales manager” thing at face value and disregard the fact that he could very well just be doing inside sales or telemarketing to pay the bills until his band really takes off. Four things to note here:
1. I learned an important lesson about hiring over these last few years. I put down gigging to run sales and business development for a multi million dollar internet marketing company. It went so well that I became president of that same internet marketing company, increased their revenue up by $60 million or so in 36 months and grew the employee base from 8 to 50ish. All before I was 31? That can’t be – according to TrickyBoy I’d never get hired or called back by a single client! I digress – the lesson is this: You can’t teach, train, compensate, or motivate aggression and tenacity. It’s better to start with a salesperson who is too tenacious and mellow them out rather than have an employee who is too tentative. You’ll never turn the latter into a top performer.
2. I never said lie. (This is where I first began to question my detractors’ reading comprehension skills.) I said act as if you are booking a great band and that you are the agent for that band, and don’t disclose that you are in the band. None of that is lying unless you think your band is incredibly shitty and are asked directly “hey by chance are you also a band member,” which BTW has never happened to me. Create a sole proprietorship or LLC (as I did) and act as your own agent. No “lies” or “sleazy” there. I also said “act as your own receptionist.” Is there anything dishonest about answering your phone “Joe Lilly’s office?” No. Not if you are answering while you’re at work, aka IN YOUR F’ING OFFICE.
3. A “used car salesman sleazy approach” is typically a high-pressure, 1-call type close. Used car salesmen are very short term thinkers. Someone comes on the lot, they close a sale, done. None of my techniques can be applied to that environment. So Jason has either never taken a sales training course or he’s never purchased a car. I’m not sure which.
4. Applied correctly, none of your prospects will realize that you are using these techniques. Once they do you’ll have made them so much money that they will think it is funny. More on that below, as we meet another “muso” that we can call NashvilleDoucher.
II. .Some other wank whose user name I can’t recall, aka NashvilleDoucher, wrote:
“…This is a forum for musicians to HANG. I don’t come here and PROMOTE my band(s), I come here to hang and talk with other musos who are digging in the trenches. This dude is your typical biz asshat. Saw TONS of ‘em in my years in Nashville. And some got work, but once word got around, it was funny how their work dried up. I was a sideman for signed artist for years, and I would NEVER recommend someone for a gig who acted like this. So what happens when the owner finds out your are willing to lie your ass off? He’ll look for a reason to NOT trust you. This is the kind of bullshit that gives musicians a bad name…..”
1. What does musicians hanging and you not understanding fundamentals of self-promotion have to do with my blog post? Here’s a free tip for you – if you are allowed to promote your band on that forum (if it’s not against TOS), you would be a fool not to. Google LOOOOOVES links from forums to your site. It will help your search rankings and more people will find you and want to know what band they can come see you in this week.
2. I thought being late, flakey, not drawing, drinking too much, doing drugs and being an unambitious loser is what gives musicians a bad name…but that’s just me. I’m proposing pretty much the opposite of all that – that you act professional, are punctual, and do you what you need to do to get through the gatekeeper/get the decision maker’s attention – and get booked. Simple as that. That said, I’m sure this guy knows what professionalism is all about with his dozens of bands and side work that he’s doing.
3. If you over-book yourself to the point where you can’t draw an audience, shame on you for being a moron. I never suggested you should play rooms that you can’t fill. We didn’t get to my post on “how to get more people to show up to see you be a sideman years ago in Nashville with biz asshats” post. That one is coming soon.
4. I would never ever ever ever screw a venue owner out of money. If I booked a gig I expected to be a profit center. We jammed lots of the places we played, and if I overbooked us (which happened a few times while I was learning about audience management), we took our earnings and used them to tip the staff or we didn’t take any money. That’s right. We played for free.That made it REALLY easy for these guys to book us even when we drew just a handful – in fact, we got quite a few opening slots exactly that way. We met a lot of other bands, networked a ton and pulled a bunch of fans over to our group.
In short, I guess with all their years of experience in sales and music and business and being flamer dicks on forums, these guys MUST know better how to get bands booked. So you should indeed disregard everything in my guest post, unless, of course, you’d like to play great venues (Taste of Chicago, Buddy Guy’s Legends, Great American Music Hall, Hard Rock Casino), get repeat gigs, fill up your calendar, and start making fans and money. We were able to finance all of our band-related activities including equipment, several CD’s, some small regional weekend-warrior tours, and even put some money in our pockets at the end of the year.
But why would you want to do any of that?
P.S. The best part – I’m not an exceptional singer or guitar player and I STILL got the gigs and the people to show up! I’m sure NashvilleDoucher can play circles around me!
Other Random Stuff
I made $2,650 in 34 minutes on Saturday. Almost. My day started out normal enough. Went to visit a client, got a bunch of work done, took a dog to grooming. Somewhere along the line I was derailed – I read about a group called Internet Pawn (dot com), which is basically cash for gold but with nicer stuff. I called them to see how it worked. The basics are this: They ship you an envelope for your watches, rings, etc. You mail it in, they make you an offer, and if you default on the pawn loan they sell the item on eBay. Sounds pretty simple, right?
I got to wondering about all the hack musicians on my local CraigsList who are selling their axes for a song. Could I buy on the cheap and then resell? For that matter, are there any pawn shops in town that are undervaluing their musical instrument inventory? (I picked guitars to start due to my expertise.)
I stopped by a pawn shop a few miles from my house. I looked at all their amps, guitars and basses. I saw a few instruments that I would call “aggressively priced” – I could maybe pull $200-$300 out of them given enough time. But I’m impatient. I don’t want money over time. I want it now. And then I saw it – a beautiful semi-hollow body with the magic words “Gibson” on the headstock. I checked the price tag. $180.00. That can’t be right. The serial number told me the guitar was manufactured in the mid 80′s. It sounded too good to be true. I was so suspicious that I went home to research Gibson guitars from the mid-80s.
Some 90 minutes later, I returned to the pawn shop, confident that I was looking at a 1985 ES-175. I had no idea for the price discrepancy but I was 100% sure that I was gonna clean up. Upon arrival, I checked the neck. No bows. Checked the body. No checking or de-binding. “I’ll take it,” I said. My friendly salesperson offered me 10% off for coming back so quickly.
Understand – this is one of the finest mass-produced guitars available. I could move this puppy on eBay for $3,000 in under a day. My hands were trembling. I was sweating. I handed her my credit card and ID. She ran my credit card. It was TURNED DOWN. Turns out an identity thief stole my credit card and ran up a bunch of offshore porn last week.
Totally kidding.
I handed her my credit card, she ran it and gave me the signature page. As I was touching pen to paper, the manager walked up to confirm the sale and in one fell swoop grabbed the guitar, looked at the salesperson and said “What the hell are you doing? That’s a $3,000 guitar.” I was refunded the $170.00.
FML.
Other Random Stuff
Here’s yet another case in which the FTC teamed up with a BBB office to go after a company generating lots of consumer complaints. I’ve heard through my counsel that the FTC and AGs are starting to surf Rip Off Report and BBB sites to find businesses to target…here’s the latest evidence of that.
FTC vs. Interest Rate Reduction Scams
If you’re unconcerned about your little product or site generating BBB complaints, it might be time to re-evaluate. AGs and the FTC need to generate revenue in order to operate, and in these tough economic times you just might find yourself the target of some scrutiny.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this should not be construed as legal advice. If you are concerned you should hire a lawyer and get their opinion.
Other Random Stuff
Thank God I could get that off my chest. I finally said it – and I’m talking to you, Mr. Assvertiser. (That’s what I am going to start calling advertisers who are a pain in the ass. Which is most of them, including me when I’m talking to my friend Christine.)
One of my newer clients is a retail startup in a fairly…trendy….niche. Thankfully, they have the presence of mind to build their program and technology around the needs of affiliate marketers. They understand that they might have to risk some dough and make a big investment in payouts if the affiliate marketing channel is going to work for them. So far, so good…best case scenario.
Got me to thinking about the worst case scenarios, though. This stuff has happened to me more times than I’d like to admit….any of it sound familiar?
You are approached by an advertiser who thinks they have a phenomenal product/service that would be perfect for the web. It is life changing. A total reinvention of the market. It’s the Keebler model of using tree-dwelling elven sweat shops to churn out delicious confections, except they do prepaid cards. Or shoes. They talk to you about how great the model is and how it is so different from everything else out there. You bite your tongue, worried about those poor, raw-fingered little midgets dribbling fudge all over a graham cracker. AT WHAT COST?!?!?!!?!!?? You close the deal with some over the top credential (“I did Wonka’s affiliate program…”) They offer you no retainer, just $1 per sale (on a $49.00) stating “well, if we sell six million of these things next year I’ll be your biggest customer!” You leave that meeting longing for a tree full of teeny tiny bakers.
They have heard about affiliate marketing from (pick one: an investor/a relative/some guru) and want to build a program. You, being a fan of money and having been tasked by the board to diversify, attempt to oblige (after negotiating a small program management fee that you will soon come to regret).
Over the course of the next few weeks, you meet, talk about his business, and discuss some of the more important launch issues. You hit several impasses. For instance…
Trademark/keyword bidding: Client thinks that his in house team has it nailed even though they haven’t heard about Google Analytics. They are located in Missoula and have “bring your sheep to work” day. You want to let affiliates go to town because any sale to your client is not a sale to the competitor.
The payable action: You talk about building a nice pipeline of incoming data for his people to work and convert, paying $3 per lead. Client (pick one: will be damned if he’s going to pay for anything but a sale/can’t understand why $3 leads don’t convert at 100%/still doesn’t understand what a “pixel” is). You can’t get him to understand that recovering abandons is more important than making sales.
The team: You would like for him to hire an experienced technologist. His staff is comprised of three or four assholes with MBAs who have never actually run a business, as well as (pick one: his wife’s brother/the helpdesk guy from his last job/just him, outsourcing and learning Hindi on the fly/some chick he knocked up a few years back).
Three months later, they’ve paid you $25,000 for $200,000 worth of time and resources. You part ways and refer him to a competitor, figuring that it’ll set them back at least a few months and give you some time to get your core business back together.
Epilogue: A year later, you see that he is running an arbitrage, aggressively allowing TM and keyword bidding, and is implementing everything that you taught him. He calls you and asks why you aren’t running traffic to him. Another year goes by. He’s fired the network and purchased direct track, can’t understand why affiliates call him so much and gets caught up in a fraud ring. He turns anti-affiliate, lowers payouts, cuts subcodes and his sales plummet. He calls you for advice. You chuckle and refer him to Warrior Forum.
Anyway, I put together a brief list of to-do’s. My hope is that it’ll get my clients in the trenches a bit sooner and ensure they have a couple of the basics down. They need to be educated, and not just by me. (This is all intended to be pre-launch, pre-buildout stuff). My hope is that the transparency will make them realize “Christ this is complicated” and further add value to the service I’m providing. Or I might just get circumvented. FML.
Take a look and let me know what you think!
(PS Sorry Christine it’ll get better)
Other Random Stuff
I never really had to deal with SEO at PartnerWeekly. We got most of our traffic from affiliates. Whether they were PPC, email, organic – we really didn’t care, we just knew that we didn’t have to do it.
When I started this blog (and, more recently, a couple other projects) I had the rude “you need to get your own traffic beotch” awakening.
It’s cool to see that I rank for such in-demand phrases as “bald guitar player” and “joe lilly las vegas dog trainer,” but in my infinite wisdom I totally spaced on including the word “guitarist” in any of my shit.
….not that a blog about internet marketing, guitar, politics, rescuing dogs and whatever else is gonna ever amount to much…..but still…..that was pretty friggin’ stupid.
So for the record, I am a bald guitar player guitarist that plays guitar guitarist in Las Vegas who rescues dogs while being a guitarist and guitar player and internet marketer.