00:02 CJ: Welcome to the Savvy Musician Show. This is CJ Ortiz, I’m the branding and mindset coach here at the Savvy Musician Academy. I hope you’re staying safe during this time, but I also hope you are working diligently on your music business. Adding the online component to your music business is so critical right now and I hope that this podcast is helping you to that end. If it is, please do us a favor and leave a review and some stars on whatever podcast player you listen to. This helps other people to discover the podcast and we read every review that you leave in our team meeting. So we love to hear from you. So please do that for us today. Before we get into this, let me share again, a student spotlight. This is from one of our TOM students, TOM means, The Online Musician. This is Firas Al Bakri and he writes, #win, it’s been a week since I started my Facebook cold conversion opt in ads, and here are the results. 100 complete registrations, spent about $60 and that means the cost per result is about 69 cents per conversion.

He goes on to say, I’m going to be testing out how I can double my completed registration numbers in a short time, search, a key word there is testing. And if he continues to test, he’s going to amp up those results considerably. You might be thinking a hundred registrations in a week. Is that a lot? Is that not a lot? Let me tell you something. The issue is never the quantity, the issue is a quality. He has a hundred people that are probably going to be the most ideal super fans for his music business. And that’s, what’s important. I’ve seen people with very small email lists make a good deal of money because the leads or the people that they have on their lists are so ideal to what they’re doing. That’s the key. That’s what we teach here at the Savvy Musician Academy. Getting you in connection with your ideal super fan is the core. It’s the recipe for success in the online music business.

Now in light of this, we recently just completed the three week pop-up mastermind. I don’t know if you had the opportunity to join us in there. It is something that Leah and I began, and then I continued it on to complete the three week workshop and it was awesome. Hundreds of people from all over the world joined us. Why did we do that pop up mastermind? Because everybody has suddenly been isolated to the home, the live music industry was completely shut down for everybody. Mega stars to somebody playing in a corner bar. The whole live music scene was completely shut down and we were hoping that people would now start to listen to what we’ve been banging the drum on here on the Savvy Musician Show for so long. You must start an online music business. You must add the online component to your music business. And well, now it’s just not an option, now it is a must. It is a have to, it is something you simply have to begin to do today.

But here’s the problem, man. Here’s the problem and it came about when someone wrote in to me, they were asking about marketing help and whatnot. And I said, listen, you should join and sign up for this popup mastermind. It’s only $47, three weeks private Facebook group. So he looks at it, he eventually writes me back and this was a talented player, a talented musician. He writes back to me and he says, ‘Is this legit? Sounds impossible.” Now, granted, I’m teaching this thing. So not only is that an insult, but I thought, wow, this is so emblematic of what I see all the time. So what did I write back to him? A long defense? Did I try to sell him on it? Absolutely not. I simply wrote back and said, “Then don’t sign up for it.” And you know what he said? He said, okay. And it just confirmed, he is his own biggest obstacle. Doesn’t make him a bad person, doesn’t make him less talented. None of that, it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with you standing in your own way.

If you begin with the premise that it’s impossible, if you begin with a premise that it’s too good to be true, if you begin with the premise that I don’t know if I can and all of the self-defeating doubt, then guess what? It doesn’t matter how good the information is. You’re not going to apply it consistently. Why? Because with every little piece of resistance that you experience, as you start to implement these things, if it gets too difficult, you’re going to throw in the towel and say, it’s not meant to be. You’re going to throw in the towel and say, this is too difficult, you’re going to throw in the towel and say, it’s too much. It would never work for me anyway. You can’t be successful when you’re self defeated before you even start, I could take somebody who has heart and desire and passion and the willing to push through.

And I could make them successful with half of the information we taught in the three week popup mastermind. With half of the information, because if there was any gaps in the information, they would figure it out. They would look it up, they would find out, they would push it, they would discover. As I even said in that three week mastermind, I said, you know what? I would rather have the person who’s doing so much that they’re doing too much, that I have to reel them back in and say, “Hey, don’t post so much.” Than the person that I have to continually light a fire underneath them to get them going or the person who’s constantly neutralized by their self doubt. I’m talking to you today about the key to success is mastering fundamentals and that is the premiere fundamental. It doesn’t matter what the information is guys, if you are stopping yourself before you even start, you have to get out of your own way.

You have to stop saying everything is so hard, everything is so difficult, because the more you say that something is so difficult and the more you say how long something is going to take, then guess what? The more difficult it’s going to be. And the longer it’s going to take, you have to begin with belief. Number one, a belief that principles when applied will create results. And number two, that you have the ability to apply those principles to whatever it is that you’re facing. If you believe that there are principles that cause the kind of results that you want, and you believe that you have the ability to apply those principles, isn’t that all you need? But what happens is, is because we don’t understand the way things are achieved, we think it’s magic or a secret or a hack or a special piece of software that someone else has achieved success. So again, he asked is this legit? Sounds impossible. It’s absolutely legit and it is anything but impossible.

So many people have done it, so many people will continue to do it. So if you fail it’s because you fail in the fundamentals. Think about a winning team, does a football team go to the Superbowl because they did it through winning every game by trick plays? No, the reason why they go to the Superbowl or the reason why they have a losing season depends on their mastering of the fundamentals. The fundamentals of football are a strong passing game, a strong running game, controlling the line of scrimmage, good defense, but especially not turning the ball over, right? Fumbles and interceptions or too many fouls, right? It’s all fundamentals, it’s not trick plays. And so if you lose or you succeed, it all comes down to the same thing. Are you mastering the fundamentals or are you constantly failing in those fundamentals?

You can have all the right software and still sell little to nothing. You can have loads of Facebook followers, but still sell very little. You can have great music and yet still not make a dent. You can know the latest technological hacks and still produce no results. More than half of marketing is mastering of the fundamentals. So don’t fall into the trap of the little details, the hacks, the tricks, the methods. For example, in this mastermind, when I was talking about e-commerce, selling things like merchandise, t-shirts and whatnot, people got a little too preoccupied with what specific software there was. When I wanted them to think about, well, what was possible in relation to the products that they could create. But even more than that, what were they doing right now to create the know, like, and trust element that creates sales. So what is the essential basic? What is the essential fundamental to successful online marketing? You want to know what the secret is? Here’s the essential, basic, fundamental truth about online marketing in 2020.

Getting more and more people to know you, like you, and trust you as an artist. I’ll say that again, getting more and more people to know you, like you, and trust you as an artist. And you know what? That’s the way it is in any business. Anyone who wants to start an online business, I don’t care whether you’re an author, a blogger, a coach. It doesn’t matter what it is. You’ve got to get more and more people to know you, more and more people to like you, more and more people to trust you as an artist. You might be saying to yourself, CJ, we’ve heard you guys say this before. Yeah, but are you living it? Are you practicing it? Are you getting sales and results? If you’re not, then it’s because of two reasons. Number one, you’ve forgot the fundamental or number two, you’re not applying them consistently.

Because if you were applying them consistently, you would further refine, you would know better your audience, know better what they want, know better what they respond to and then increase your results. Because you would be testing like our friend at the outset and our student spotlight said, he’s going to test in order to get more results. He’s going to test in order to get more results. You see the simplest funnel that you can create. Now, funnel is the process taking somebody who doesn’t know you to see the first promotion that you ever offer them, bringing them along in a relationship with you until you finally create a sale. That process, that journey, that path, marketers call a funnel. So they get really complex with these things, but the simplest funnel that you can possibly do is to gain new followers on Facebook and Instagram, get them engaged with you daily, with relevant content and then marketing to them, right? That’s the simplest funnel.

Get new followers on Facebook and Instagram, let’s get them engaged with you daily and relevant content and then let’s market to them. If you can master these, then everything else that you do just scales it. So everybody gets so preoccupied with the software, they get so preoccupied with the tricks, they get so preoccupied with the actual, I need to have that click funnel software, and then it’ll work. If I just get, if I could just see Leah’s email campaign and just copy it, then I know that will work. No, it won’t work. Her email campaign is based on her knowledge of her customers. She knows what they want to hear, she knows what they respond to because she’s tested it and done it over and over again and refined her funnels and customer journey down and down until she has it completely dialed in. If you can master these fundamental things then everything else that you do just scales it.

So when we get into then what’s the best print on demand platform to use? What’s the best e-commerce, Shopify or Square or this or that? What’s the best website host to use? And what’s the best email service provider to use? Et cetera. All of those questions, all of those little details, all they do is scale, which you can do fundamentally without any of those things. So in other words, if you can continue to add new people to your social media pages, Facebook and Instagram, primarily, if you can get them engaged regularly, I would prefer weekly myself with relevant content. In other words, content that they respond to and then you market to them, you will create sales. If you can master this, everything else is just going to help you scale it. But if you can’t do it here at the organic level, then you can’t do it no matter how many tricks and tools and pieces of software that you add to it, it’s not going to work. So master the fundamentals, everything else that you do just scales the process, elevates what you do.

So you might be thinking, okay, wait a minute, CJ, add new followers to Facebook and Instagram, really? Just that, that right there. Well, yeah. How else are you going to get to know people? YouTube? Ain’t going to happen. YouTube is a video based platform, it’s a video based search engine. Facebook and Instagram are share engines. You don’t go searching for things necessarily on Facebook or Instagram, right? You do that more so on YouTube, which is owned by Google. The biggest search engine, Facebook and Instagram are share engines. It’s where people share content. That’s where we get the term social media from. Well, look at the word media, the word media means to broadcast right? Mainstream media, alternative media, these are ways of broadcasting. So now instead of receiving the broadcasting from these mainstream outlets, you’re getting broadcasting from person to person, friends, and family and followers. That’s social media or social broadcasting and that’s why social media is the game changer as I said not too long ago. Talking about social media as being the key to changing the music industry.

15:38 CJ: Facebook and Instagram are ways to target people directly and that’s what you want to do. That’s why Facebook and Instagram are important. That’s where you want to build your brand awareness. That’s where you want to reach new people, right? Getting out there and connecting with them on Facebook and Instagram. And if you show up regularly with content that is relevant to your music and the culture or lifestyle that surrounds that music, then they’re going to follow you and they’re going to interact with you. And like I said earlier, what’s the fundamental, what’s the fundamental thing? Get more and more people to know you, like you, and trust you as an artist. It is literally that simple, so simple that marketing gurus have to help you misunderstand it, right? It’s so simple that marketing gurus have to help you to misunderstand it, to get you to think you need their special hack, their special trick, their special method, their special funnel software and then you’ll get the results you’ve always wanted.

No, get more and more people to know you, more and more people to like you, more and more people to trust you. And when you do that, you can sell them just about anything. And where are you going to meet those new people? Facebook and Instagram, you’re not going to meet them on YouTube. You’re going to meet them on Facebook and Instagram because that’s the social environment where you can do the promotion. And as you bring them on, get them engaged with relevant content means again, that which surrounds the culture and lifestyle that surrounds your kind of music. And they’re out there. You might think you’re special. You might think your music is unique and maybe it is, but guess what? There’s a lot of people into the same kind of stuff all over the world, just waiting for you to reach them. So that’s a very simple funnel that you can follow. Is it not? That’s a very simple process that you can follow. Is it not?

Just getting people to know you, just getting people to like you, just getting people to trust you, right? That is the fundamental, there’s no trick play here, there’s no secret here. It’s getting to know them. So how much do you know your clientele or potential clientele? How much time have you spent getting to know your ideal super fan? One of the keys to effective marketing is basically knowing the buying and or interest habits of your potential audience better than they do. Isn’t that the experience that we all have online every day when we go on social media and we see ads that just seem to be targeted towards us? How does someone know you like to eat that kind of food or drink that kind of energy drink or buy that kind of handbag or play that kind of instruments? How do these retailers know to target you? Because they are putting that information into Facebook and Facebook keeps a track of the fact that you like all of these things, you like this cookie manufacturer, you like this handbag manufacturer, you like this music company, you like this artist, you follow that TV show.

And because you do, Facebook keeps track of all of that information. So someone wants to target you precisely, they can do it. Well, guess what? So can you. You can do the very same thing. And by getting your music or your promotion in front of new people, who’ve never heard of you before, but they’re targeted. In other words, I’m not trying to push hairspray out to bald people, right? That doesn’t make any sense. But if you play a particular kind of music, whether it’s country or hip hop or heavy metal or pop music, if you can put in comparable artists and things into Facebook and maybe some other items that help them to identify the people you’re looking for by their interest, then yeah, your promotions can begin to appear in front of those very people. And all we get them to do is press play to watch your music video or follow your page or buy your CD or what have you.

But what you want to do is get those people to follow you, get them to like your page, follow you on Instagram, follow you on Facebook. But then once they do that, you can not show up, you got to show up and meet them there because that’s where they’re going to see you, right? That’s where they’re going to see you. So you want to have cultural content. Content that makes sense for them. So for example, I have a project that I do called, metal motivation, which is basically motivation, self-improvement content, directed towards people who love heavy metal. And that’s what it’s for. It’s motivation for people who love heavy metal. Now those people who love heavy metal, they also might consult self-improvement resources from people that aren’t heavy metal artists themselves or metal heads themselves, right? They probably do, but they enjoy the fact that it comes through me, someone like them.

But then when I show up every day posting on my Facebook page, I can’t be posting things from Justin Bieber or Eminem or something like that, Adele. Why? Because that has nothing to do with the culture, it has nothing to do with the mutual interest or lifestyle that we share. I have to share something like maybe a little clip from Judas Priest or something from Iron Maiden or something from Metallica or a more contemporary, heavy metal band or my own content, which is motivational content that has that edge, right? An edge that relates to that audience, relates to that culture, relates to that lifestyle. This is a fundamental, you have to understand your audience. The more that you do, the easier it is for you to reach them and the cheaper it is to reach them. Again, going back to our student spotlight, if he keeps researching as he said, researching and testing, he’s going to better understand how to dial in more effectively the culture, the lifestyle, and the interest to bring his cost per conversion down even lower. And that’s what you want to do.

So you have to study your audience, you have to do whatever you have to do to learn the psychology of your potential fan, how they think, what makes them take action, what are their pains? What are the things they’re frustrated by? What are the things that bring them pleasure? What do they like to do? What are they interested in? What do they read? What do they watch? What do they like to eat? There’s any number of things. And you can begin by asking yourself that question, because obviously you would be like your fans to some degree. What are the things that you’re interested in, right? These are all the elements that you’re going to use to target your ideal audience, to target your ideal fan. But this is fundamental. So it’s fundamental to know your potential audience and again, the essential basic, let’s get more and more people to know you, right? So let them see your promotion for the very first time or someone share them, share your content with them. They get to know you.

And then as you get that content to them every day, relevant, engaging content, they learn to like you. And as they learn to like you, then they eventually learn to trust you. And at that point, they’ll pretty much buy whatever you sell. It won’t matter to them anymore. So you’ve got to show up, don’t stand in your own way, don’t be blocked or hindered by doubt, unbelief, self-defeat. Don’t think you can’t do it. I know this may not be germane to your personality profile, you might be someone who is shy or introverted. A lot of creative people are. And so they’re afraid to put themselves out there. Don’t let fear stop you. If you’re going to succeed in this new era of the music industry, you have to do it this way. You have to put yourself out there.

24:21 CJ: So many people have asked the question, can I hire somebody to do this for me? No, you can’t. You have to do it, you have to know them, you have to get to understand your followers and your potential fans. Nobody can do that for you. Nobody can be you. This is social media, you’ve got to show up. So well, I’m just not comfortable with that, well, okay, that’s fine but it’s going to be very difficult for you to have an online music business. Well, they should just buy the music. I’m sorry, it’s not the world we live in anymore. Way too much competition. Way too much. You have to make yourself stand out and to do that you have to show up. Nobody else can be you, right? No, snowflake is the same so let’s use that so that we can differentiate yourself in this crowded online space where there’s other artists competing for the attention of listeners. No, you can’t just put your music out there, you got to put yourself out there, you got to put your personality out there. A little bit of your life out there, not everything.

You don’t have to take your phone to the bathroom and broadcast from there, you don’t have to share everything, but you have to share something so that they can get to know you, they can get to like you and they can get to trust you. Don’t fail in the fundamental. Success really comes down to these. If you spent the rest of this year, mastering fundamentals, I guarantee you, you would have a longterm successful online music career. Can you dig that? Ma’am I hope you can. Now speaking of this, and I know there’s a lot more information that you do need in order to succeed in this business, even though it’s all based on the fundamentals, if you’re ready to go to the next level, then what we’ve got coming up very soon here, depending upon when you hear this podcast, is the new release of the upgraded version of the online musician. 3.0. Leah has been slaving over this for months and months and months, getting everything up to speed as you know, information and technology changes all the time.

And so she’s updated it to TOM 3.0, The Online Musician, and you’re going to want to be a part of this. We got a lot of extra added bonuses, it’s an irresistible offer I promise you. What I want you to do right now is go to explodeyourfanbase.com and check that out. Also, we are upgrading our inner circle and you’ve heard us talk about the inner circle before, it’s going to be changing in a way that you are absolutely going to love. So you want to get in now because the price will go up. Again, I don’t know when you’re hearing this particular episode of the podcast so if I were you, I would get signed up as soon as possible. Just go to savvymusician.com/innercircle. So thank you so much for joining us today on the Savvy Musician Show. So much more to come, interviews and yes, Leah will be back, you will hear from her again, this is a new season for us at the Savvy Musician Academy.

Leah has got so much on her plate right now, I’m more than happy to help carry the load for the podcasts. We will see you guys next week.