00:21 CJ: Welcome to, The Savvy Musician Show. This is CJ Ortiz, I’m the branding and mindset coach here at, The Savvy Musician Academy. Thanks for joining me once again on the premiere music marketing podcast. Today is something very, very special. Once again, I’m going to take you behind the scenes and get the full insight into a one on one coaching session with a very talented band from Australia, called, Welter. They have been members of our Elite program for well over a year. I did work with them over a year ago, and we are revisiting their branding and their positioning and their marketing. From this time forward, there are going to be so many golden nuggets dropped in this particular coaching session and they agreed to share it, so I’m so thankful to them for it. We’ll have more to say about how to get in contact with them. Information is also included in the show notes, but let’s go in right now to this one on one coaching session with Welter.

As we dive back in, it was over a year ago, Dave, that you and I first talked about Welter. I remember first of all, using you guys as an example throughout the year in my further one-on-one branding sessions, as well as the group coaching calls, because of the unique situation that you guys were in. I remember the first thing that struck me when I first reviewed the content was how professional the sound was. The way I described it to people is, “If you were to flip on the radio and you heard this song, you wouldn’t think twice that this was from a major label and a major contemporary artist, you just didn’t know the name.” I could play the songs you guys had shown me then, and somebody would say, “Oh, I know the band,” and they’ve never heard you before. They’d be like, “I know the band,” it’s just so professional, so well done. The hooks are great. The lyrics are great. The storytelling is great. And I was listening to the other songs that you guys just recently sent to me. I said, “Here’s more of the same, I’m doubly convicted.” I hear music all the time. What I do is listen to tons and tons of genres, and you guys are by far the most professional unit out there. So it’s just a delight for me, from that aspect, to speak into this from a branding and a marketing standpoint, helping you guys to position, as we say, this new era of the music industry. So it’s great to revisit with this a year later. And, so now it’s just not me and Dave, we’ve got Elliott, the primary song writer here, and vocalist. So, Elliot, great to have you as well, man.

03:08 Elliot: My pleasure. Here we are.

03:09 Dave: I think we’re lucky. Not lucky, we’re just blessed that we’re surrounded by, I think we used this tag line when we were doing the crowdfunding the other week that, to produce exceptional music, you need to have exceptional people around you. I think that that’s what we have, we’ve had a long time producer, Tony Wall, that’s pretty well been with us since the start and we’re talking 25 years relationship. I like to actually say that we kind of know what we’re doing now.

03:48 CJ: Just about got it figured out.

03:50 Dave: Yeah. And Tony’s worked with some exceptional people, he’s worked with a lot of top Australian artists, right through to KISS, Ed Sheeran, he works for Russell Crowe’s production company, so it exposes him to a lot of artists around the world that he actually gets to work with too. So he knows his stuff. He’s done his time.

04:21 CJ: Well, it’s interesting with you guys, because I know you’ve both been around a while. You’re not new to this. You’ve been friends, you said, about a quarter-century you’ve been friends together. How long have you been playing together?

04:33 Dave: That’s the same time, pretty well. Pretty well, isn’t it, El?

04:36 Elliot: Yeah. It’s pretty close. Yeah. So it’s 1994, I met. So, and then I was playing a band and Dave filled in for a few gigs and then we went, “Ooh, gee, that’s pretty good. That’s better than the old jazz drummer we had, who, his version of time was a fluid arrangement.”

04:59 CJ: Some fourth dimension time.

05:01 Elliot: Yeah, that’s right.

05:03 CJ: I just did, and I’m not sure when it’s actually dropping, but I just did a podcast episode on fulfilling your creative mission. I’d mentioned in it, the obligation that artists have to their calling, if you will, despite the difficulties of the music industry, despite streaming services or the new age of the internet, COVID-19, not being able to get out there and play live as much. Despite all of that, so you have more than enough reason to quit, more than enough reasons to say it’s not meant to be, right. But I always push them, to say, “Do you have a love for what it is you’re doing creatively? Do you have the ability to do it? And is that proven? And are there any possible paths for you to fulfill it?”

Because you can have the first two, and be trapped on a remote desert island and there’s no path to fulfill it. So there’s no fulfilling it, right. But we’re not in that case. So if we can check off those three boxes, then even though we may not have figured out the exact way to break through, we still have a sacred obligation to fulfill this duty to ourselves, because what’s happening in the both of you, and of course your band mates as well, is a creative drive that’s been there since you came out of your mother’s womb, that is no different, no less powerful or more powerful than what was in Shakespeare or Spielberg. Right?

06:38 Elliot: I agree. Yeah, I agree. And it’s interesting, when we stepped away from, there was a tipping point in when I had, my first child was born. So a time way back when called, “BC,” before children, when I sacked the band, I sacked the manager, I sacked everybody, and I said, “I can’t do this anymore because my partner is going to be having a child and I’ve ran away and joined the circus.”

And we felt that the whole band go that way, and I lost a baby in my creativity. And it’s really interesting, after I let it go, you realize how cut adrift I was by doing that. And looked at the economic obligations at the time, demanded that for me, because we couldn’t keep touring and playing every single center into the band. But at the same time as an artist and as a writer, I was really, really lost. And I’ve really connected with that.

I have a chat to a good mate of mine, a piano player, and he says, and I said, “It’s the only way I have as a person of getting the paint out or getting the chisel and the cold hammer and etching your name into the wall of time. The only way I have of doing that is by writing some songs and making some music, and the only way that I can actually smash my name into the wall of time, and Dave and I and Welter’s name into the wall of time is by keep creating music.”

It’s funny. Some people call it a gift, or it’s a blessing or a path, but sometimes it’s also of a curse, too. And if the only gift you have, the only way you can actually make your name out there is to write some songs. You want get one or two chances to do that and some people would never get the chance to, so possibly it is a gift, but it’s also a curse too, the curse of being artistic.

08:44 CJ: Yeah. So anything that we do, right, in time and history is subject to variables. So it’s always relative. It’s relative to its time. And we’d love to be able to, we throw around words like independence and things like that, but nothing is ever really independent. Not at all. We are trapped by so many circumstances that control, and we know of great musicians in bands throughout the years, who’ve died in plane crashes, or drugs, or whatever. So, in one sense, there’s seemingly a providential hand, unseen hand guiding things. And then there’s another sense in which it is all up to you.

09:29 Elliot: Yeah. That’s exactly right.

09:31 CJ: So we do this dance. The way I prefer to treat it is to just say, “I’m not in search of a destiny. I’ve chosen the destination.” And so everything is about continually moving down the road and adjusting as we go. So that brings us to today and just this coaching session about Welter, and branding and positioning, which is what I prefer to use, I prefer the word, “Positioning,” than I do, “Branding,” because branding conveys the idea of something seen, like a soup can label or a cereal box label in the store. We see the brand-

10:07 Dave: Something on the outside.

10:09 CJ: Yeah. Something on the outside, but not, rather, branding is a position that you, as an artist, as a band, own in the mind of the marketplace. So that’s what we want to do is, and that’s why it’s a way in. So I think last time when we talked, it was about, Welter, as taking from the song, The Good Life, and talking about the good life. The point was not to isolate it to the single idea but to find a way in. You just need a little wedge, it’s like the salesman who sticks his foot in the door, just something to exploit. It’s not that you have to bang that drum forever. No, because what we want is to get away from sales copy and a social media post, and a logo, into listening to music. Right?

So that’s the part, for example, someone like me never touches. It’s like, “No, our job here,” it’s like Leah likes to say is, “We’re selling a click.” That’s all we’re selling, because we’re figuring if they do that, then these people will be hit by the very same thing I was hit with every time I’ve listened to Welter, which is “Golly, man.” It’s just good music. And I can’t think of somebody who would not like it. I’m a metal guy, I know you guys have listened to all sorts of music over the years, but I’m a metal guy, genre-wise, but I know serious people who love music, know good music, no matter what it is.

So where does this leave you guys today, having spent the last year, obviously you did so behind the scenes, on your websites and your social media, you’re obviously doing that today. You’ve been writing, where are you guys at now? What are the challenges that you’re having?

12:04 Elliot: You want to take this, Dave? 

12:04 Dave: El?

12:05 Elliot: Yeah, I’ll take this. For us, the choice of using the good life as the positioning was good for us a year ago. Obviously with our connection with the wine industry and the connection with us working live and playing live with my clients, doing wine tastings, it was a seamless cohesion of two ideas, of music and wine together, in this idea of the good life. Having moved, because all gigs have dried up and they will be for a year or two.

So having moved away from that, and also there’s a perception that comes with working in the wine industry, which is, if the whole band was working in the bourbon industry, or the whiskey industry, it was the whiskey and folk music, or something like that, or gin and folk music. It would have a certain attitude, but wine comes with a different attitude, which is interesting, and that we’ve been picking up on in the last year. And that attitude is one of, yes, of the good life, but also it’s one of exclusion and not inclusion, because the people that really know wines, and look, I worked in the wine game as a sales person on and off for years. But for the people that really know wine, they are really quite snobby and exclusive, and it’s a way of dividing people.

As an artist, it really bugs me, because of that perception about wine. Because, like people who know anything about anything, they use it as a weapon to divide and conquer. And it really fucks with my mind, because as an artist, it is about inclusion for me. And so whatever the positioning has to be an inclusive position. So wrapping it together in the good life and it creates an exclusivity in a group of, so if you’re not into our music, if you’re not into the good life, then you’re against us in some way. And whatever’s happening in around the world, there’s a rise of polarization, and it really affects me that I’m contributing to it in a very small way with this, “We’re making music for the good life, as opposed to the bad life, as opposed to.” That’s where I’m getting right now, and it’s that elitism, that quasi-elitism that really kicks me. When, The Good Life, was first came up with, and the idea was there, I actually wrote the song in a really bleak, the song is extremely bleak and dark. I wrote it about with so much sarcasm, “Welcome to the good life. Yeah, yeah, we’ve got the good life.” It’s a really dark, nasty song about friends dying of cancer, about people living really, really poor, about being isolated in this brand new world.

So to then flip that on its head and going, we’ve got this song called, The Good Life.” I go, “Yeah, okay, well, let’s see how that fits.” And now sitting with, The Good Life, and, no, it’s a little bit, people won’t get my sarcasm, and Australia is a very, very sarcastic country, and so that’s where we always lean into sarcasm so well. The English and the Australians are famous for it, but it doesn’t sit as a positioning for me anymore, I don’t feel comfortable. I’ll throw to Dave. What do you think with that, Dave?

15:41 Dave: Yeah, we’re both in agreement on this and it’s only been just in the last four months that we’ve, just with this shift and with everything that’s going on with the pandemic, and the world and things aren’t great at the moment for a lot of people. And I’m just starting to feel that, it’s such a good tagline. It is a great tagline, “Music for the good life,” but I do feel that it could be sending the wrong message.

This is our position, and this is our perception. We actually were special guests on another musician friend of mine, who’s got quite a good following too, and we were special guest on his live stream gig the other week. And he was helping us out with the crowdfunding and said, ” Look, come and play. And I’ll push the crowdfunding campaign and then we’ll have a bit of a chat.” So we did that, and it was interesting that when we were on his show and he said, “Look, I want to ask you guys about, “Music for the good life.” I love that.” So he’s perception different to Elliot and my perception.

But the fact is that, as you’ve also said, CJ, in previous podcasts, that it’s about honesty, and we need to be honest about who we are and how we feel about our branding, what we post on Facebook, everything that we write, everything that we do, and everything that’s seen as us needs to be honest, it needs to be who we are. Regardless whether, “The good life,” is actually a really good tagline and part of what makes the brand up, if we don’t feel comfortable with it, then I don’t think we’re being honest to ourselves. And therefore that’s going to reflect through, I think, is the way I feel.

17:36 CJ: Okay, well, I think part of the problem is a little bit of a misunderstanding, which is not uncommon. Because we talked a long time ago, and even just over an hour or so. So there’s not, I wasn’t in charge of the campaigns, I wasn’t writing any of the copy, I wasn’t pushing the brand. So I did not mean elitism or to focus only on the wine aspect.

18:02 Dave: No, no, I understand that.

18:05 CJ: Yeah. That was a shoo-in, in terms of getting some attention out there. But, “The good life,” was one of those things where you could at least because you wouldn’t know who to target. The music was so, I don’t mean commercial in a bad way, it’s so wide appealing. So who you target-

18:25 Dave: Yeah, it’s a way of getting around having, not that whole micro-niche.

18:27 CJ: Yeah, there’s no way to penetrate this market. So let’s target people who love cooking channels and love wine and love all these things, because the thing about that is they’re not in elite communities. They’re just people who just happen to like food, and they go out a lot, and they like to drink wine, because in the midst of a crazy world, they want to be able to tap a glass and say, “We’re still living a semblance. Life is still good. There’s a reason to be happy. There’s a reason to enjoy this journey. This is a good life.” Not as elitist in a mansion, but as just all of us, just we’re calling life good. That’s the good life.

If anything, we’re redefining the good life, we’re saying, “No, this is just like anything. Everybody loves wine. Everybody loves,” we were talking to last night at one of my coaching groups about IPA beers, the guys were talking about cigars and all of that. And I know these are not rich people, but these guys were going off, on one guy was going off on these cigars from Nicaragua. So he’s put research into finding this cigar from Nicaragua, recommending it to each other, guys are recommending bourbons and things like that. And I know these are men of meager means, but what does that tell you, is that’s how they’re living the good life. In other words, it doesn’t take much.

I’ll drink a beer or two every day. And so my lady will say to me, “Why is that necessary? There’s only one reason to drink. Why do you feel like that?” She goes, “I’m not just going to drink one.” I said, “Well, I will.” Because to me it’s that little symbol of just, “I’m free.” You know what I mean? I’m not constrained religiously. I’m not constrained politically. I’m not constrained socially or anything like that. It’s my little way of just saying, because when I was a kid, that’s what it meant, drinking beer and being of age to go into the pub or that sort of thing.

20:34 Elliot: It’s being responsible for yourself.

20:36 CJ: Yeah, being responsible for yourself. So it’s like saying, “Yeah, man, we’re living the good life. We’re just a bunch of guys around a backyard barbecue. We’re not rich, and some of us are out of a job, and some of us have marital problems, but you know what, we’re here, gentlemen, cheers, we’re living the good life.”

So it was never intended and I would never intend something that was supposed to be elitist. It was supposed to be a spin on the idea of enjoying.

21:03 Dave: Yeah. And we didn’t take it as that either, CJ, at all, too, and I think, to get transparent as far as my situation and myself working in the wine industry, me falling into the wine industry is not by choice. It was by necessity. But at the end of the day, I have noticed that there has been, just with some comments that have come through and some negative comments that have come through, not that we’ve had a lot on, we haven’t had many negative comments-

21:45 Elliot: Trolls. We haven’t had many trolls.

21:46 Dave: On our fan page and trolls, but the ones that we have, I think the fact is that I think that they see us as different. One that came through was like, people seem to think that we are living this grandiose life because we all work in the wine industry. And it’s not that we’re trying to portray anything. All we do is just say, “Look, we work in the wine industry.” But it seems to be there’s this other perception out there that it’s all grandiose for us and, who are these guys pushing their music? And they all work in the wine industry.

But at the end of the day, we work in a call center. We could be selling a Telco product, right. But we’re not, we’re just selling wine over the phone. So it’s not a glamorous job. It’s not where I want to be, and I’m quite happy to say that I just turned 56 a week ago, and this is not where I want to be in my life is, I had to sit back and go part of my drive, as Leah got us to do a long time ago, was your heaven and your hell, well, this is my hell. Sitting for five to eight hours a day behind a computer, on a phone, trying to talk people into buying wine. That’s not where I wanted to end up at 56 years old. And now with COVID and everything like that, there is no job for a 56-year-old anywhere else. And playing music is really the only thing I know how to do really well. Especially with Elliot.

So I think we need to try and work out a different way of portraying who we are as musicians, and as people through our music, and something that came up out of the crowdfunding campaign, which has been such a good exercise compared to the crowd plan, the campaign we did three and a half years ago before we really knew what we were doing. And going through SMA and Tom, and then joining the Elite course, it was just great. It’s just opened up our eyes. And the one thing we discovered, when we made the video, that first thing that came up was, after 25 years, Dave and El have still got something to talk about, our musical conversation is still there. And that’s really sat quite well with me and Elliott, is that it’s about our musical conversation, because that’s starting to get to the core of us.

And I think it’s more that thing that we want to actually start to get out to people, because it’s about that connectivity and connecting to people. And also our music also is about moments in life, and a lot of people, the super fans that we do have are committed, and they’ve bought everything we’ve released. One of the biggest things for them is, somebody posted a comment a while back, a couple of weeks ago, about, Million Star Motel, the song. And she says, “Every time I hear that song, I’m straight back on the front veranda, on a summer’s night in Texas, drinking a beer with my late father. Every time I hear that song.” And I go, “There you go, there’s a moment in life.” And that’s what our music does to people. And it’s that whole thing about, as soon as you write a song and put it out there, it’s not yours anymore, it’s for the listener and they can take on their own interpretation too. So, and I think that’s now starting to get to us and our honesty. Wouldn’t you think, El?

26:00 Elliot: Yeah, I get what you’re saying, CJ, that the good life is that idea of the simplicity of life, and an overarching simplicity is what we’re aiming towards. However, with what we’re doing with our music and what we’re doing with our lives, attempting to connect the wine, is in the last three or four, since COVID, it takes the focus and the spotlight away from the hero being the music, and it always felt, and I know a lot more about wine than Dave, but it always felt a bit weird that I was pivoting and writing posts and posting more about wine. Where I can talk till I’m blue in the face about the structure of the song that I wrote, the initial ideas behind the song and who I was referencing, and what are the underlying themes of any particular song and I’m much easier with myself and more honest if I’m actually posting about that.

So it always felt there was a definite conflict between, “Okay, there’s this overarching positioning called, The Good Life, and it’s encompassing this, and this, and this, and this. And one of those, this’s, is the music, but it’s not the hero anymore, or it didn’t feel like the hero, but it always should be the major focus for us.

27:27 CJ: No, I would agree wholeheartedly. Yeah. These are, again, I think the biggest challenge with anything like this, especially something that’s as complex and evolving and morphing as branding is, is that unless you’ve got somebody that’s what they do, directing things, like a label would have, it’s going to be very hard because you guys are just going to follow what we talked about and originally, and then it’s going to eventually be interpreted your way and so may get really, really heavy emphasis on the wine. Whereas I might’ve said, “Well, let’s reel that back in. It’s a little bit too much when,” I might’ve said, “Let’s make the music the hero, these things are just little ways to open doors.” It’s when I talked about the wine and food industry, I meant that more, for example, for the ad manager, than I did the verbiage.

28:25 Dave: The verbiage. Yeah.

28:27 Elliot: And writing shit about wine appreciations and that sort of stuff, because it always feels weird when I’m, as the writer, I need to support the things that I’m writing about mostly, as my major focus.

28:44 CJ: But having said all that, I’m more trying to give some explanation as to what we originally had talked about, what the actual meaning was, the challenge of, obviously, maintaining that brand over time, but I’m not advocating it, because if it’s not something you feel, it’s not something that you feel like is honest and authentic to you then it’s important that we clear that clutter because that’s not what we want. What we want is for you guys to feel absolutely resolved.

29:14 Elliot: Yeah, right.

29:15 CJ: Yeah. So-

29:16 Elliot: And behind and locked in. In lockstep with an umbrella that we know is going to keep us dry.

29:21 CJ: Right. There’s nothing you can be more resolved about than yourselves.

29:24 Elliot: Yeah, that’s right.

29:26 Dave: Yes.

29:26 CJ: You know what I mean?

29:26 Elliot: Yeah.

29:26 CJ: That’s the one thing you can get behind, you can talk about, you can sell, that you’ll never lose a wink of sleep at night. You won’t say, “I wonder if I’m doing this…” There’s no second guessing. And so when I explain to people resolved, resolved is like your dog going after the squirrel. The resolved is like the lion seizing the antelope. There’s no questioning in the mind of the animal or the dog. It is resolved. To witness, for example, the lion attack the antelope up close, we’re taken aback as humans by the ferocity, the violence of the moment, and that’s resolved. That’s the complete elimination of self-doubt. “I am a lion and this is what I do.” You are musicians, and this is what you do. The thing that struck me, which is interesting in relation to what you guys are saying is when I was watching the videos that you sent, Dave, the second one, which I don’t remember the title. Well, it was the Learn to Swim one.

30:23 Dave: Learn to Swim, yeah.

30:24 CJ: Yeah. Just a little brief cameo there by Elliot talking about the origins of the song and what was emphasized in his family about swimming and that sort of thing. I remember thinking, and then I’d gone to your Facebook page right after that, and I said, “I need to see a lot more of that, a lot more of that banter.” Only because, and I think it ties into what you guys are saying, in a recent one of these that I did with J.R. Richards, one of the Elite students and-

30:55 Dave: Yeah. Well, that was really good, that one. I think listening to that podcast, for me, I think that has to be one of the most powerful podcasts for me, only for the sheer fact that is that I so relate.

31:10 CJ: Yes, yeah.

31:11 Dave: I think it’s because, I mean, I think J.R. is a slightly different style, but I think where his music’s coming from is from a similar place.

31:22 CJ: Yeah, I used the phrase, which came to mind as, Elliot, you were talking, “Musical life enhancement,” which is a different way of saying, “Music for the good life.” It’s just if saying, “The good life,” carries with it an element of baggage, well then, we can’t change minds.

31:42 Dave: No, no.

31:43 Elliot: No, no.

31:43 CJ: So don’t spend a penny or a moment trying to convince people, “No, this is what we mean by good life. To hell with it.” You know what I mean? It’s fine. So I think at this point, again, when I to listen to the new songs you sent me, again, I have to go with my first impressions, which is I’m struck by the music. Therefore, I believe that people will be struck by the music, which means what Elliot was saying, the music is the hero here, which means the music is the savior of sorts. So the music has to get us out of where we are right now.

32:21 Elliot: Yeah, that’s right.

32:22 CJ: The music is going to have to carry us to the next level because there’s nothing more potent in your promotional arsenal than the music itself. Second to that is going to be what you have to say, your relationship, the story of the band, what you believe, your values, et cetera, et cetera. So those are the two most potent weapons that you have in your arsenal, music being first. Therefore, if we’re going with the premise of, okay, let’s stop talking about the grand themes like your branding or a tagline. Let’s get away from that stuff for a second. Because we can get so fixated on that and we get away from the very real way that people will experience this music for the very first time. So if there’s anything that’s most important, I would say it’s that. It’s how will a potential person hear or experience Welter’s music for the very first time? How’s that going to happen? Well, in a COVID world without a record deal and no radio play, it’s probably going to be social media. That’s probably where they’re going to see it. Therefore, instead of leading so much with a pitch, or a theme, or a tagline, don’t lead with one thing, lead with each song.

33:54 Elliot: It’s like the song the hero every time.

33:58 CJ: Every time. So alls we’re focusing on is writing copy that gets people to press play. That’s all we want to do. What can we say in the shortest, sweetest, most powerful, provocative way that forces them to click play? Because that play button, right, that appears over the thumbnail of a video that shows up on our screen or our newsfeed is one of the most powerful action converting tools on the internet.

34:27 Dave: Yeah, it goes back to selling the click.

34:29 CJ: Selling the click, right. Next to the X thing that appears in the corner of the video that makes you close it. They’re two very, very powerful action encouraging things. So what does it take-

34:44 Dave: That’s one thing I took away from the J.R. podcast because you were talking about, I don’t know, one of the songs that J.R. had written or you used an example of, “If you’ve written a song about loss and that song is the song that is on the ad, well then, make the tagline say, ‘Have you lost somebody recently? This song’s for you.'”

35:11 CJ: Right. “This song’s for you,” right. And that’s all-

35:13 Dave: And I mean, yeah, you play it.

35:15 CJ: Yeah. We don’t need to get into, “And so and so produced the album.” Because each song is your baby. You want to talk about where the baby was born, what time he was born, and how much he weighed, and whether he peed on the doctor, and who the doctor was. You want to go into all the details. You’re going back to when you and your wife met. Nobody cares, right? Everybody listens to the same radio station, WIFM, “What’s in it for me?” They want-

35:43 Elliot: No, “What the fuck’s in it for me?” You missed the F.

35:48 CJ: Exactly, yeah. So if we can appeal to whatever their self-interest is in this regard, nobody puts up a defense for self-interest. I haven’t had the person turn down a compliment or turn down free money, right? They just don’t put defenses up for that. So, that’s where we want to attack if we can use that sort of language here. Because this is not a bad thing, this is music that literally can… I think as we said in the J.R. discussion, we’re not claiming the song cures cancer. It’s not going to fix the political climate. No. And people understand that. It’s a mini escape. And so, in fact, I was writing one of our copywriting workshops a couple of weeks ago. I was talking about, “Don’t write the usual stuff. Let this song take you on a journey,” that kind of thing.

I said, “Write something more like, ‘Let’s lift you out of your newsfeed for just a second, for just a few minutes, and change the course of your day. Check this out.'” It’s an honest claim and that’s not BS. You can deliver on that promise. Because, again, as I listen to Welter music, the songs that I’ve heard, I don’t cut them short. I listen to the whole thing, right? Because I can see the craftsmanship. So I want to know what the middle is going to be, I want to know what they’re doing in the bridge, I want to hear the end of it. Now, that’s a little bit more on the mechanical side, but I think people are that very same way. A lot of people, and they hear just that right song and they pull into the parking lot at the store, they’ll sit-

37:42 Elliot: They’ll turn the engine off and they’ll just sit there and go, “This is going somewhere. This song’s going somewhere.”

37:47 CJ: Exactly. So they want to finish it. And it was just for a moment. They know that they have to get out of the car, go and do the grocery shopping and back to life, so to speak. But they had that little escape and they don’t ask music to do more than that because they know they can always return to it, which is why some people will loop it sometimes.

38:10 Elliot: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, go on.

38:11 CJ: They’ll play a song over and over again because it takes them somewhere. They’re not ready just yet to get back to the day. They just want that moment. And so that is a dynamic that’s at play whether they’re listening to Welter or not, right?

38:23 Elliot: Love that. Love that.

38:24 CJ: So if that’s what they’re doing then, okay, well then, we can do that because we’ve got the perfect music for it and we’ve got the perfect message for it. Even though, so some of the stuff might be sarcastic, it could be melancholy. Well, think again, going back to poor J.R., we’ll keep referencing him here, is he said, “A lot of my songs are melancholy, but I’m an optimistic guy.” And I said, “Well, yeah-“

38:48 Dave: I thought that was great.

38:50 CJ: … “you should hashtag that, melancholy optimism.”

38:54 Dave: Yeah. It’s like the positive negative.

38:56 CJ: Yes, a positive. Because what it does is it just says, finally, someone’s honest.

39:01 Dave: Yeah.

39:02 CJ: Do you know what I mean? They’re honest about it. They’re not making a claim that’s too hard to believe and they’re not being boring. Again, if we understand, again, getting away from the grandiose branding and taglines and the logos and all that stuff, that’s stuff that’s important to us, but going into, how are you going to meet that first new fan or follower, listener? It is going to be on some sort of newsfeed, whether somebody else shares it or you targeted them and you’re just appearing.

Dave, I think as you probably are familiar with, because you’ve listened to a lot of the stuff I’ve said, that post, your promotional post, is appearing just before a post from their mother and just after a post from a good friend. So we don’t want it to appear like a billboard or a car sales ad. We want it to come across as something from a friend, from someone who cares, from someone who has something other to say than politics or whatever the latest trending story is. They’re here to brighten the day, this again, musical life enhancement.

It’s, let’s take people up out of the newsfeed for just a little bit. And they’re saying, “You know what? Thank you, Welter. I’ll have more of that. I’ll give it a like. I’ll give it a share. I’ll leave a comment, et cetera.” By doing that, then the longer term process over the year, it’ll be a blend of more of that approach along with the data that Facebook is going to keep track of for every video you’ve done, and how long people have watched, and retargeting those, trying to get that cold audience warmer, and warmer, and warmer, to where they start to convert. They get that, which is a good thing to do, creating them a healthy sense of obligation, creating them a good debt, a debt they want to pay, which means buying the shirt, going to the event, attending the livestream, getting on an email list, buying the CD, sharing it, those sorts of things.

That comes because you continually deliver on that promise to add value to their life, which takes us then to that second aspect, which is in your tool chest, the what you have to say outside of the music, as artists, as friends. That’s why I enjoyed what came in front of the Learn to Swim song was just that little story behind it. Because, you’re both excellent communicators and who doesn’t love an Australian accent over here in the West? So it’s welcomed, it’s embraced, it stands out, it’s significant, it’s out of the norm. For example, I’m not surprised that you had such great feedback in Texas. That’s my home. Because, Texas and Australia have a lot in common. Texas has a lot more in common with Australia than it does New York.

42:47 Dave: Yeah.

42:28 Elliot: Yeah, I get that.

42:30 Dave: Yes. Yeah.

42:30 CJ: New York is another country.

42:32 Dave: No, I do get that.

42:32 CJ: Australia is just Texans with another accent, right?

42:38 Dave: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

42:40 Elliot: Wide open spaces, man.

42:41 CJ: Wide open spaces, wild animals, that pioneer cowboy sort of attitude. We’ve all seen the Crocodile Dundees. We know you guys wear cowboy hats and-

42:50 Elliot: Yeah, all the time, yeah.

42:51 CJ: … do all that stuff, right?

42:53 Dave: Yeah, yeah, we’re all carrying a big knife too.

42:55 CJ: All carrying a big knife. Exactly. So, that’s where that second element comes in. So with you guys, I would be less of putting an emphasis on, “Let me find culture things to post.” No. I think what you want to post is Welter.

43:19 Dave: Yeah. Which is what I do, because I do most of the posting and I think this is something that it’s going to start to change because Elliot and I have been talking more about other things that we’re going to post. Because it’s something that has always resonated with me and this is something that I know that you say a lot with the podcasts and with the Inner Circle and the Hot Seats and things like that too, is that you’ve got to be honest.

The key is to build a relationship and I’ve heard you said it plenty of times before when people are asking, “Oh, what tool do I need? And blah, blah.” And it’s just like, no, the reason why they’re not buying is because they’re not buying. You haven’t built that relationship. The only way somebody’s going to buy from you is gaining that relationship and out of that relationship comes trust. Then people will buy. And it’s building that relationship.

So something I’ve done is just that everything that I post on our fan page and in our Facebook group is me. I’m not trying to go out there and find the thing that somebody may like. I’m posting quotes that actually resonate with me. But what I don’t do is that I don’t just find a quote, post it and say, “I really like this.” I actually write about the quote. I generally will always post, what is it about that quote that affects me? Why does it affect me? And be honest about it.

Then there’s things like, for me, is that, look, I grew up as on the beach, I grew up in the bush, and nature is a big part of my life because I now live in Steel City and I don’t get out there enough. So I do a lot of that sort of stuff too. I think now it’s trying to find that, as we say, there’s always that 70%, and those percentages, as far as music and other stuff that you post. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last 12 months since we really did the whole last branding session. Now, we started with pretty well nobody on our email list and we’ve ended up with about 1600 people-

45:51 CJ: Of course.

45:51 Dave: … on our email list. I think I went back through that email list and I think out of that 1600, I suppose, maybe six to 7% of people who’ve actually gotten on board. I’m going, “All right, why?” But most of those 1600 people have come on and taken the free stuff. They’ve grabbed the free album, but could we get them to jump on board the crowdfunding campaign? Or could we get them to actually buy an album? No. But 6% have. Now, I know, like from Elliot’s perspective in direct sales, and El’s been in it for a long time, six, 7% is actually really good figures because most companies work on around three to 4%. If you’re getting that, you’re doing really well. For me, I don’t think-

46:51 CJ: You need a bigger list.

46:53 Dave: Yeah, well that’s it, you need a bigger list.

46:54 Elliot: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s exactly right, yeah.

47:00 Dave: I don’t think from my perspective, I know we’re selling music here and I think that we should be aiming at a bigger percentage. I’d like to see over 10%.

47:06 Elliot: Yeah. One thing CJ just pulled up is that maybe we’re not actually building up the debt that they’re feeling, that we’ve changed… Because, I love that lifting you out of your newsfeed and asking you to change. Because once we do that to one person and do it again to them, there is a debt. If we just give them an album, they go, “Oh yeah, that was pretty good. Yeah. Thanks very much. I’ll go over here now.” There’s no debt involved. We haven’t actually asked them that, “This might actually change you.”

47:41 CJ: Yes. Right.

47:42 Elliot: Yeah. So there’s no twist in the contract. There’s no actual sort of barb in the freebie that, “Just by taking this album, yeah, you’ve got more music in your life.” I’ve got lots of music in my life already. But if you actually put the barb in and say, “Look, this might actually change the way you see Australia, or this might actually change the way you see, this might take you out of your newsfeed.”

48:08 CJ: Right.

48:09 Elliot: Yeah.

48:11 CJ: Yeah, I think part of the challenge here is asking, how honest and authentic do you really want to be? Because, for example, let’s say your actual audience was to hear this discussion, right? I think people would walk away going, “Wow, I’ve been following them for a year and I didn’t know half of that about these guys. I love this banter about how they make the sauce, that they’re literally thinking their musical enterprise this deeply.” And for example, you said earlier and you were being honest, Dave, you said, “Basically, I’m 56 and this is not what I want to do with my life.” Well, I would love to see you post a video with that title.

49:02 Dave: Yeah.

49:03 CJ: Do you know what I mean?

49:04 Dave: Yeah.

49:05 CJ: I would love to see a video on Australian sarcasm. I would love to see a video on what you just said. “I grew up in the bush and the beach. Now I live in Steel City.” Because, you know how much I do this sort of stuff. So when I listen to someone talk, I think of probably 100 different kinds of social media posts out of just their conversation. But they never say those things. You know what I mean? So we never get that. It’s like, yeah, part of the appeal of situational comedies, right? Sitcoms, part of the appeal is, and not because everything’s pristine and motivational, but it’s appealing because it’s dysfunctional sometimes. It’s appealing because it is situational comedy. It’s, let’s create a quagmire in 30 minutes and watch our favorite characters try to work and navigate their way through this.

50:06 Elliot: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

50:07 CJ: So if authenticity is important here, then the beauty, and the spots, and the heartache, and the victories, and the stories, and the technical detail of nailing a particular drum part, whatever it may be, anything and all things Welter.

50:36 Dave: Yeah. Well, look, it’s something I try to do. I mean, I even, with our Facebook group, I do Friday night weekend share.

50:45 CJ: Okay.

50:46 Dave: Most of the time it’s a video and I’ll always do a Friday night or at the weekend share. That’s just part of getting people on board to share what they’re up to on the weekend and it’s all good. I did one the other night where I fell over. I mean, this job that I do has developed a level of anxiety that I’ve never experienced in my life because of the whole pressure of, you’ve got to keep performing, you’ve got KPIs that you’ve got to meet all the time. That doesn’t sit well inside me and it’s developed a certain amount of anxiety in my life.

I’m open about that because, again, we’ve got so many songs that are about mental health and stuff like that and we live with it day in, day out. So I don’t have a problem actually being open and saying, “Well, I fell down and it’s okay I fell down.” I post that to the group because there are people in the group that also have their own issues. I got a lot of comment back on that. I managed to get out of Sydney for a week a couple of weeks ago and went up and saw my brother. He lives up on the Mid- Coast of New South Wales. It’s some of the pristine coastline of Australia. And for me, it was like, on my way back, I took my time and I stopped into some of my old surfing haunts and it was photos. I pretty well posted my whole trip to Facebook. That’s the sort of thing that I do.

I suppose one question I wanted to ask was, because we talk about if people aren’t buying, they’re not buying and you’re not building the relationship. And if you’ll be completely honest when you’re posting… And we do post our videos and things like that. I think we could probably a bit more. And as we’ve discovered today, I think there’s a few more things that we can do musically. I suppose, when do you actually cross that line and go, “You know what, maybe these people aren’t our people. Maybe these people are the people that grab the free stuff and run. So maybe they’re not our people”? So is there a point where you go, “Maybe we need to tweak our targeting. Maybe the people that are coming in and grabbing the free stuff are the people that grab the free stuff and run out the store”?

53:21 CJ: Honest answer is no because I would find the same metrics across the board, not just for other artists doing this, but for coaches, for other small business type things that are marketing online, you’re going to see the same numbers. You’re going to see the same sort of responses. I’ve had this conversation with Leah. You’re just going to get the very same thing. It’s hard to find, “Hey, who’s the emotional impromptu spender?” Because Facebook, I don’t know, we don’t know how to find those exact people. Which means that the onus is on us to…

It’s not so much that and I’ll often say the relationship is important to it. The relationship is only important in the sense that you’re creating desire, because that’s why people buy. People buy because of desire. That sounds axiomatic, but I’ve always prided myself on having a keen perception of the obvious. But it’s more than that. It is that in any relationship, the best way to have someone do something is when the driving force is them, right? Like your kid, you can’t force your kid to do certain things. You want them to take the onus, take responsibility, the failure to launch, or drive the car, or get the job. You want them to do it. Nobody wants to be-

54:47 Dave: Or get up at 6:30 this morning when my son’s got to get up and go to sport and I’m sitting here going, “Well, I wonder whether he’s going to do it or I’m going to have to go and kick him in his arse.”

54:55 CJ: Yeah, exactly. You don’t want to force people. Well, on my motivational, so people will write in to me, “Hey, I got a brother,” or a friend or something, “who’s addicted to alcohol,” or addicted to this. “Could you talk to them?” And I say, “No, I can’t.” Because Alcoholics Anonymous will tell you, if they’re not ready, if this is not something they want to do, it’s a trivial pursuit. You’re never going to get them to do it. It has to be their desire. And you know, for example, Dave, in the course, and once you get into Elite, especially with the gory details of e-commerce and all these things, we’re getting down to the color of buttons, right, that you’re using and where the placement of the text is. I mean, little things to try and get that extra edge of every possible conversion.

However, have we not all been in situations where we wanted something and the website of the person or company that was selling it was a piece of crap? And we had to go through the cycle of putting in our card information because the shopping cart got all messed up two or three times. And we had to chase them down for the confirmation email, but we did it. Why? Because, we wanted it. Whereas, what happens with students in the Elite course is they start thinking, “Well, no, if I get everything just perfect, that’s all it takes.” No, you have to go above and beyond.

Someone asked me last night in another coaching call, because they were getting taken off of a salary plus commission situation into being strictly commission. So, that put the fear of God in him. And so he had asked, he says, “Is there anything you’d recommend I read, CJ?” I said, “Yeah. Read Grant Cardone’s 10X Rule.” Because, what you’re going to find out in these situations is, what do we do? 10X everything, 10 times. Hit them again, and again, and again, and again. There’s nobody more brutal about this. The most brutal person that I know about that is Leah. Leah will ride her list hard, especially on Black Fridays and all the holiday and the pre-album, I mean pre-launch stuff. All that, she hits them hard. A lot of us, we’re halfway. We’re not quite really-

57:33 Dave: Yeah, we hit them hard through the crowdfunding campaign.

57:36 CJ: Yeah.

57:36 Dave: I don’t know if you saw the video I posted in the group, because I kind of thought it was a good thing to do. Because I know there’s a few students out there that are about to do crowdfunding campaigns. I think there’s a couple of them that have gone like…

57:52 CJ: Yeah, yeah.

57:52 Dave: Look, we did have a successful, 147%.

57:55 CJ: Great.

57:55 Dave: Look, and I did, doing this course, and I rode that list hard, man. I was like, it was every day and-

58:06 CJ: Right. You just need a bigger list though, right?

58:11 Dave: Yeah. And I do look at that. I’ve got 67%, 1,600 people if that was 160,000 people.

58:20 CJ: If that was 6,000 people?

58:23 Dave: Yeah, exactly.

58:24 CJ: Yeah. But that’s sort of … because that’s what I want to … the emphasis I want to make when it comes to getting away from the more abstract things and getting down to the gory details of where the conversions happen, where people meet Welter for the very first time. So how can we win each one of those battles? So the first battle to win is the battle of the newcomer, the new audience here.

58:44 Dave: Mm-hmm.

58:44 CJ: Meeting them. So what can we do? We’re not going to write a novel on a post and telling them who the producer was on the song and all of these things. We’re just going to appeal to a felt need that’s represented in that song to get them to press play.

58:58 Dave: Yeah.

58:59 CJ: It’s like, okay, what after that? Well, we’ll get to that. Let’s win that battle. The next battle is going to become, okay, what can we do for those who do follow? To become more engaged and fall more in love with Welter and help to build that sense of obligation. To get them to that next level, whatever that may be. It could be a purchase, it could be email lists, could be anything. And that is where this other content comes in. Like when you went to go visit your brother, and so that Friday night thing you’re doing. And some of these other things to talk about. To just be honest.

Not to say that everything needs to be a complaining session about life or how difficult life is, but you mix it up. You say, hey, I’m 56 and this is not where I want to be, and you share. You just say, guys, I struggle with what I have to do. I’m doing what I have to do daily for my family and for Welter, but this is not all I want to do. And maybe you’re in that situation. Maybe you’re in a situation that’s just not comfortable, it’s just not where you want to be. But you say, I find myself torn between two wills. I wish I could escape it, but I know I can’t because I bear the burden of responsibility.

So what drives me? What drives me is, what I feel is my sacred duty to my musical calling. It’s what I know. Like you said, it’s what I do best. And I know that it touches another’s life. I know that I’m not really touching someone’s life on the other end of a sales call, but I know that I’m touching your life with the music that me and Elliot write. And if that’s the relationship that you’re building and that’s the way that you’re sharing your heart, they’re going to fall in love with you. Much the same as meeting that woman and getting to know her over time. That these sorts of things get created or just even any sort of friendship gets created that way.

1:00:51 Dave: Yeah.

1:00:53 CJ: These are each of the different battles we have to win. The newcomer and then getting the existing follower more and more engaged. And using video because video keeps them on the platform longer, video gets them, they get more information rather than having to read something. They’re getting to know the real you. And then that information, once again, is being tracked. So we can then use this data over the last 30 days, 90 days, six months, 365 days of everybody that interacted, watched, shared, whatever. And then we can target them with other things, and everybody’s going to be at different levels.

1:01:32 Dave: Yeah, right.

1:01:32 CJ: You’ll be targeting people who’ve just been following you for a month, and they’ll take action now. And you get somebody who’s been following you for six months and they still won’t take action, but they’ll take action six months from then, you don’t care.

1:01:45 Dave: Yeah.

1:01:46 CJ: Your job is to be faithful. That’s one of the hardest things for people to do, be faithful. Showing up. There’s something very daily about daily living. Just that showing up every day and doing more and more and more and more, because it gives them something more, the taste of Welter. And it gives the Facebook algorithm and the Facebook ad manager more ways to study. Because the only entity that’s more interested in your audience than you are, is Facebook. Facebook does not produce content. Like the government doesn’t manufacture anything, but they make sure to make a hell of a lot of money. They make nothing. They tax. They tax our inflated currency, that’s how they make money. Facebook produces nothing. And if Zuckerberg was to put himself out there and actually produce a video, he’d get more crap than he would praise.

1:02:43 Dave: Yeah.

1:02:44 CJ: Right? Facebook produces nothing, which means Facebook is like a record label in that they’re solely … or a streaming service like Spotify. They’re solely reliant upon the productivity of others. Therefore, Facebook is … they’re thinking, Welter, if you guys want to form a relationship here, a contract, a covenant, a relationship, we’ll bond with you. If you as Welter make your prime priority and function keeping people on our platform.

1:03:20 Dave: Yeah.

1:03:21 CJ: If you’ll do that for us, if you’ll keep your fans, the people you target on our platform for as long as possible, we’ll favor your stuff in the newsfeed as over against someone else.

1:03:32 Dave: Yeah.

1:03:33 CJ: Because they’re a hit and miss, they show up once a week, once a month, we don’t know what they’re going to do. You guys, you keep experimenting. And the algorithm can see what you’re doing, it knows what you’re doing. So you’re giving the algorithms something to … In fact, what’s great about the ad manager, and we use this lingo, Dave as you know is, it’ll say that once you start running a new ad, that the Facebook ad manager is learning. It goes through the learning phase. And the algorithm eats it up without emotion.

1:04:07 Dave: Yeah.

1:04:08 CJ: And so, I think that’s part of what we have to do. We have to be like the algorithm. We have to eat up this process and do it without emotion. We have to be very mechanical about it because it does come down to the mechanics. All the while marrying it to the very pure, authentic, honest, genuine, Welter, personalities, stories, music, and all of that together. It’s a challenging thing to do. It’s a delicate balance, it takes practice, it takes works, which is all the more reason for you to show up daily.

But I would make each song, as we said earlier, the hero, and let that be the tip of the spear, bringing everybody in. And then once they get in, you can show them a little bit more of the other. Just a word of … and again, I can’t say that Leah would say the same thing as I would, but I understand the importance of groups. I do. The challenge I have with that is that, especially for the creatives, and I’m not saying that’s the case with you guys, but I’ve seen it happen with a lot. Is for the creative soul, we’re strapped with a lot of fears. And fear of success, which is tied to the fear of judgment and criticism and these other sorts of things.

So the more you can give us, that’s busy work. That’s why they love coursework, because they can keep working on all the course stuff and never do any promoting online, or something like the group. Like we just had this with another group member, excuse me, another student with their group. And it’s like, I can see how they’re very focused on the culture, trying really hard to get participation in the group, but none of it is really leading anywhere. So I just tell him, I said, “Listen, I appreciate that effort. I’d prefer you direct it more to the business page.”

1:06:04 Dave: Yeah.

1:06:05 CJ: Because that’s where the action happens. People get in the group and they kind of feel at home. And I don’t want-

1:06:11 Dave: It’s interesting you’ve said that.

1:06:12 CJ: I don’t want you to feel too much at home. I want you to remember we’re a freaking band selling music.

1:06:17 Elliot: Yeah.

1:06:18 Dave: I agree with you there. And it’s interesting because it all goes back to, back early in the course as well too. And any student that listens to this is, guys, it’s testing and it’s retesting.

1:06:36 CJ: Mm-hmm.

1:06:36 Dave: And it might take a year, it might take two years. And here we are just over 12 months down the trackback on another call with you CJ, because it’s about going back. It’s about okay, looking at where we started, where we are now, what’s happening? What do we need to tweak? What’s not working? And it’s constantly, it doesn’t stop. You constantly need to keep rechecking, checking the stats and working. Now it’s, I suppose almost 12 months now since we started the Facebook group. And you’re right, I find now that I don’t know how much energy I want to put into the group because of the fan page. And as you say, the fan page is the engine room. The fan page is where that funnel …

1:07:32 CJ: Exactly.

1:07:33 Dave: … that we use ads manager.

1:07:35 CJ: Yes.

1:07:35 Dave: That’s where the funnel sits. The funnel doesn’t sit in the Facebook group.

1:07:39 CJ: No.

1:07:39 Dave: The funnel sits on our fan page and that’s where we’re bringing all the potential people.

1:07:44 CJ: Yeah. And that’s where the metrics are being kept.

1:07:49 Dave: Exactly. And the people that are going to click on the download your free album, they’re going to click that in that side of things. It’s only down the track whether that person wants to actually be a part of a closed Facebook group, which is just an extension of Welter. And I’ve been thinking a bit more about that myself-

1:08:14 CJ: Yeah. I started a group, I had one for my mental motivation page and I got like 1500 people in there fast.

1:08:23 Dave: Yeah.

1:08:24 CJ: And I messed with it for a while, and I said, “Man, this is a waste.” So I shut it down. It’s still there, but I took it offline. Because the reach was just as bad there as it was on the Facebook … but I can’t boost a post or run an ad to a group.

1:08:41 Dave: Yeah.

1:08:41 CJ: So I can’t reach them. I am completely at their mercy because there’s no way to promote. The other thing is that, again, there’s not any metrics being taken. So if I get-

1:08:52 Dave: No, no.

1:08:53 CJ: So I-

1:08:54 Dave: And I found with video … Facebook changes all the time, and I know the whole point was because back then Facebook, the algorithms wasn’t favoring fan pages as much. And they wanted to get back to content and engagement and groups was good for engagement, because I know Facebook has gone through, they were getting taken through the wringer.

1:09:22 CJ: Right.

1:09:23 Dave: With certain things that was happening and posts shouldn’t be on Facebook and he was getting dragged through the wringer. So it was Facebook about getting back to going. Well, groups is what the platform was meant to be. It’s about engagement and people engaging with one another in a really good way. So that was a way of doing that. What I have found just recently over the last few months is, Facebook is really favoring video content. And we’ve noticed as El knows too, that when we’ve done our live stream gigs. I mean, we did live stream gig a little while back, and our reach, the reach was crazy. It was like 20 or 30,000 people. We had thousands of people view and we’ve never had that before on any posts. And that made me start to think about, okay, we need to do more of this.

1:10:21 CJ: Yes.

1:10:23 Dave: And I think that’s where we’re heading now. I think I’m starting to move a little bit away from the group. And I’m not promoting that everybody should close the grid and that it might work for some people too.

1:10:37 CJ: Yeah. Some things that are really-

1:10:38 Dave: So as you say, don’t ever look at somebody else’s-

1:10:40 CJ: Yeah, exactly. Don’t. One size does not fit all. And obviously time is very limited and we want to make sure we maximize the efforts of what we post. But I think, again, the challenge is always to back up. So when Facebook started emphasizing groups, the issue was keeping people on the platform. And groups which are based on affinity are … So people, if there’s a group on this diet or a group on these exercise, people and relationships and what have you, those people will go in there and they’ll chat all day long.

1:11:16 Dave: Yeah.

1:11:16 CJ: Keeps people on the platform. Now, Facebook ultimately doesn’t care. They couldn’t give a damn that all of these people are on, spending time on the platform in a group, because that’s not where Facebook makes its money. Because Facebook can not tell its advertisers that they’ll show ads in a group. You can only show ads on newsfeeds and that sort of stuff. So if people are in groups, they’re not seeing ads.

1:11:52 Dave: Yeah.

1:11:53 CJ: So again, it’s back up. And I say again, what does the algorithm want? The algorithm wants people on the platform. Groups is one way to do that, but if you can do it as a page, the algorithms is like, I don’t give a damn.

1:12:04 Dave: Yeah.

1:12:05 CJ: I’m going to put your stuff in the feed because you keep people on the page. So if a live stream from Welter is keeping that many people on the page on a Friday night or something like that, cool. Facebook doesn’t care. I don’t care if it’s a group, it’s, are you keeping people on the platform? In fact, if anything, keeping them on the feed, even better. So again, it’s just, once you understand that that’s the dynamics at play and that the secret to social media is when … when the coin will drop for people with social media is like I said before, is when social media disappears and you realize you’re just talking to people.

1:12:41 Dave: Yeah.

1:12:42 CJ: If you don’t have to be somebody else or be a techno-wizard or whatever. There’s not some, Facebook hasn’t changed the face of … no, it’s, people still buy crap for the same dumb reasons they did before.

1:12:56 Dave: Yeah.

1:12:57 CJ: It’s, nothing has changed, it’s just a different medium. It’s social media, and media means broadcasting. You had mainstream media. Remember as kids, there were a few channels. We had BBC, or over here ABC, CBC, that was it. Now you’ve got this smorgasbord of whatever. So it’s not the mainstream media, it’s not alternative media, which is alternative broadcasting, mainstream broadcasting, where the television, newspaper, radio. Social media, which simply means broadcasting information from person to person.

1:13:33 Dave: Yeah.

1:13:34 CJ: So more people are now, with heads tipped at 45-degree angles, staring at a little screen.

1:13:41 Dave: Yeah.

1:13:42 CJ: But look at the good news, because I’ve seen people sitting in their living rooms, looking at their phone while the big TV was on.

1:13:51 Elliot: My kids do it all the time.

1:13:52 CJ: Right. But look at the price difference of advertising between the ad showing up on the little screen that they’re looking at. And they’re looking at that little screen while the commercial on the big screen. The big-screen commercial is a few million pounds, the little one here is …

1:14:10 Elliot: Cents.

1:14:10 CJ: Yeah, 3 cents per video view.

1:14:13 Elliot: Yeah, yeah. Nothing.

1:14:14 CJ: So it’s in our favor.

1:14:17 Elliot: Yeah. Yeah.

1:14:18 CJ: So we just got to get them interested in … what does it take to get them to watch a video? That’s our first battle.

1:14:24 Elliot: Yeah.

1:14:24 CJ: Then what does it take to get that audience engaged? Probably on the Facebook page, video type content. So if you guys do a live stream and you’re talking in something like this, I can take this video, which I often do with all of my stuff, is I download these videos and then I throw them over to my son and he’ll chop them up into clips.

1:14:42 Dave: Mm-hmm.

1:14:43 Elliot: Right.

1:14:44 CJ: You know what I mean? And so whatever little subject was, so put that substitute. We make it so it goes on Instagram, it goes on Facebook and there’s a little blurb there. So there’s a little two minutes, one minute, whatever, a little clip of just a little point that got made or a funny thing or what have you. Something emotional, provocative, whatever it may be. And so your multi … you don’t have to just keep sitting down and making content. Make long-form content, chop that crap up. Maybe some of that can be turned into a blog, maybe some of that can be turned into just a little meme. Just multipurpose and just squeeze every last drop you can out of what you already have. And really harvest the information that you guys have between the two of you.

1:15:27 Dave: Mm-hmm.

1:15:31 CJ: And your conversation, because of your history, talking whether music, life-

1:15:34 Dave: Yeah.

1:15:35 CJ: … whatever.

1:15:36 Elliot: Just on a larger point, going back to where that umbrella sits with the good life. I’m happier if we stick with it, but we just pull back from that idea of what, of being a controversial time right now. So if we can sit with that, Dave, as an idea, or where are you sitting with the initial idea about the brand, the positioning?

1:16:02 Dave: Well again, I think as CJ said, I think the tagline is something that’s probably smaller. It’s a smaller concern. And I think what you’ve said, CJ, it’s making the music the hero. It’s making the songs, the hero now more than anything.

1:16:21 CJ: Yeah. I would leave it-

1:16:22 Dave: A tagline to tagline. It’s a throwaway thing anyway, we can change that tomorrow. And we could go back and say music are bad things that matter in life.

1:16:31 CJ: Right. If anything, just leave it alone. Don’t do anything. Just leave it alone and start acting this other way.

1:16:39 Elliot: Yeah.

1:16:39 Dave: Yeah. Because again, as we said earlier, it’s our perception on why the good life is not sitting well with us. Because here we have gone on streaming as guests and you’ve got the artists that’s now turned around saying, I love this good life thing. What’s all this about? The music is the good life, I love it.

1:16:58 CJ: Yeah.

1:16:58 Dave: Okay, well, that’s his perception. Okay, so that’s our perception. So we just have to change our mindset.

1:17:04 CJ: The majority of people don’t have a problem with it. But that’s the nature of, you post something creative or you put something out there and you get 100 comments, 99 are great, and there’s one jackass.

1:17:21 Elliot: Yeah.

1:17:21 CJ: But that’s the one who makes you think, I’m not posting anymore.

1:17:26 Elliot: Yeah.

1:17:27 CJ: 99 people, you change their life. But this one idiot almost gets you to quit.

1:17:33 Dave: Yeah. It’s a good one too. He really went to town, might have got to the point where he ended it with saying that we should be killed.

1:17:48 CJ: Oh my gosh.

1:17:51 Dave: That one went to Facebook. I sort of pushed that one out and said, yeah men, this guy’s been a bit too full-on. You need to remove-

1:17:58 CJ: Yeah. Well, I mean, people get it. They get what you’re saying. And they think it’s a great line because everybody’s heard the phrase, the good life, and it’s something we all use. Nobody uses it in a bad way, man. Here’s another example.

1:18:11 Elliot: Yeah.

1:18:12 CJ: What do people say all the time, living the dream.

1:18:16 Elliot: Yeah.

1:18:17 CJ: Are they literally living the dream?

1:18:19 Elliot: No. Yeah.

1:18:23 CJ: You know what I mean?

1:18:25 Dave: I think I have heard that as a sarcasm more than the-

1:18:27 CJ: Yeah. We’re living the dream. But Just say, music for the good life. In other words, I think most people are smart enough to say, well, these guys obviously aren’t talking about … Because you’re not putting yourself out there as a bunch of aristocrats.

1:18:41 Elliot: No.

1:18:41 CJ: Just a bunch of guys playing great music. They’re saying, you know what? I get it.

1:18:45 Dave: Yeah. And we’re not standing in front of Lamborghini’s-

1:18:49 CJ: No. It’s the good life. In other words, that life is good. Let’s live a good life. Let’s celebrate the little things that make life a little bit better. We are where we are. I’ve seen people at bars with their drinks and sitting at a table, but they’ve got the master down to here. But by golly, they’re going to that pub, they’re going to that beach bar, they’re going. Why? Because in the midst of all of this, we have to live some semblance of the good life or what is this all for?

1:19:22 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. That’s true.

1:19:23 CJ: It’s like I tell people all the time, there are no motivational speakers in North Korea because it makes no sense. You know what I mean? Motivational speaking only makes sense when you can choose your career path, when you have options when you have things that you want to achieve and goals and all of that. When you have choices, choices in life.

1:19:46 Elliot: CJ, I’ll have to correct you there, there’s one motivational speaker.

1:19:52 CJ: That’s right. And everybody loves him, or else. You know what I mean? So in other words, in a life where we still celebrate the liberty that we have-

1:20:04 Elliot: I’m going to blow your mind here, CJ.

1:20:06 CJ: Yes.

1:20:08 Elliot: I don’t think you can read that. Can you read that?

1:20:11 CJ: Kim Jong-un, the character and the actor. And he’s written a book.

1:20:15 Elliot: He’s written a book and it’s a skinny, skinny book.

1:20:17 CJ: Wow, that is skinny. It’s more like a folder. You guys are advocates for what life is supposed to be about. And you got to consider yourself that. You are advocates, you’re ambassadors for living a good life.

1:20:36 Elliot: And not just that, but also living … the artist life is not necessarily one of living a good life. Dave and I are surrounded by riches and Lamborghinis, but living a fulfilled life and living an artistically developed and rich life is a good life for us.

1:20:55 CJ: Right. And again, there you go. You keep giving me all of these wonderful things to post about. This wonderful concept and you share that. Say, you know what, the good life. What is the good life? And talk about whatever, the good life for them is just any opportunity that you have to share your Welterosophy. The philosophy of Welter, the Welter worldview, the Welter outlook on life.

1:21:24 Dave: I think that’s something we could probably look a bit more on our emails too.

1:21:29 Elliot: Yeah.

1:21:30 Dave: I mean, our nurture emails, we went through a whole nurturing sequence last night and I know a lot of students get, they get really stuck on the whole email content. And it’s that happy medium, I think you actually went over on the inner circle call-

1:21:49 CJ: Yeah, well, that’s Friday. Saturday for you, yeah.

1:21:53 Dave: Yeah, yeah. And just trying to … it’s that relationship, but at the same time, they can get that you’re still trying to sell.

1:22:00 CJ: Yeah. Right.

1:22:02 Dave: But you don’t want to be sales pitchy, but you still need to sell because that’s what you’re there for in the long run. And I think with our nurture sequence, we went through our nurture sequence. And it’s kind of like, okay, well, you’ve got 14 emails and your nurture sequence people come through, they grab whatever it is that you’re offering. For us, it’s a free album download. Then there’s 13 emails that they’re going to get over the next few months because it’s an email a week type thing. And it’s like a case. Once it got to the end of that, then it’s like, okay, well now what do we send them? It’s continuing that relationship. It’s continuing that email.

1:22:44 CJ: Yeah. I’m a little different in my approach. I don’t like the nurture sort of thing. I mean, that’s okay when you’re talking to a cold audience, but even then I would probably make it very, very short. Because I’m not going to pretend that people give a damn. I’m not going to-

1:23:05 Elliot: Mark up any bodies.

1:23:07 CJ: Yeah. I’m not going to blow sunshine up my own blessed assurance. They’re there waiting for it, all 14 of those emails. I make my funnel approach very, very simple. I want to do one thing through anything that I say or post or share with my audience. I want to add as much value as I can. So I have to decide, okay, well, what adds the most value? And you think through a lot of that stuff. So that’s why with me, with email, I just figure whether they’re new, or they’re already following? Whether they opted in from a cold ad, or they’ve opted in from a retargeting ad that they already follow me? Either way, they need maybe one or two emails to introduce. Otherwise, they’re going to be a part of my weekly, I’m here to add value to your life. That’s it. Because again, nobody, whether they’re cold or warm, nobody puts up a defense for self-interest.

1:24:13 Elliot: Yeah.

1:24:15 CJ: You’ve heard me use this comparison before when it comes to copy, how to get somebody to read. I could get somebody to read an entire ream of 500 sheets of paper, that you buy at the office supply store. I could get somebody to read every single page if I filled every page with type. I use the example of saying, okay, let’s say you’re hosting a New Year’s Eve party. I’m posting a New Year’s Eve party at my house. And my house is full. And I’m running all over the place trying to get everybody … makes sure they’re fed, their drinks are filled and all of that. And then all of a sudden, 10 o’clock at night, there’s a knock on my door. I don’t hear it, because I’m running all over the place. Somebody says, CJ, you got a delivery guy at the door.

And I’m thinking, I’m going to tear this guy’s head off. How dare you show up in my house, 10 o’clock, two hours before midnight on New Year’s Eve when I’m hosting a party, what could possibly be that important? And then I run to the door and I open the door and the guy says … he hands me a stack of paper. And I’m like, what are you doing? And what the hell am I going to do with a stack of paper? And he just gives it to me. And I grab that stack of paper out of his hand, all frustrated, and I look at it and it’s got type on it. But at the very top of the first page in big, bold black letters, it says, what everyone thinks about CJ.

1:25:47 Elliot: And you stand there for two hours and read it.

1:25:49 CJ: I’m like, oh, well, excuse me, ma’am, thank you. And then I’m like, holy crap. I go a couple of pages deep. I’m going to be thinking about that through the whole party. That’s going to take me until 2:00 in the morning to shut everything down, get everything cleaned up. And I’m still not going to go to bed because I’m going to start reading that damn stack of 500 sheets of paper. Self-interest. That’s all that matters, self-interest. So, do I need, in that sense, maybe a nurture sequence? Maybe, sometimes, if you want a short campaign. Yeah, I understand that. But what I do, for example, I want to keep that funnel very, very simple. And so I’m just going to say, okay, because I’m always adding value. So you either like the stuff I have to say, or you don’t. So I’m going to let that be the determining factor.

1:26:42 Dave: Yeah.

1:26:42 CJ: So you get on the list, you get an introductory email, hey, I’m CJ. This is what I do. I’m a cardinal to five galaxies and I’m brother wonderful and whatever. I’ll tell them all the history about how wonderful I am. But after that, it’s just every headline the next day is, if you’re not feeling motivated today, this is for you. And then a day later, “Hey man, the five money tips that changed my life, that got me out of debt.” Now think how I lost 10 pounds over the holidays. Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. They might not open everyone, but you’re going to have a hard time unsubscribing though. And it’s not all about me; it’s about them.

But what happens is you’re like, “I love him. I just love that he just shows up. He’s always there, and I love reading the copy because it’s not dry. There’s the humor in there, there’s the sarcasm in there, there’s some of the choice words in there, and it’s not too long.” And I break up the text, little bullet points, and I keep it fast-paced. And sometimes, there’s no BS. And there’s no, “Hey, buy this.” I just showed up and I added value today. And I may start with, “Hey, hope you’re having a good day. If not, you’re on my list, man.” You know what I mean?

Like for example, I do this podcast right here you can see called The University of Badassery Podcast. And I do it with a guy who’s ex-Delta force commando. So it should be like your SAS. Elite, elite, elite. And so when we try to get them on the mailing-

1:28:27 Dave: Give me two sec, I’ll be back. You keep talking.

1:28:28 CJ: You bet. When I try to get them on the mailing list, the popup window just simply says, “Get your ass on my list.” But for that, they’re like, “Oh, absolutely.” And I don’t promise them anything, I’m not giving them anything, they don’t get a free song. They don’t get anything. They just got, “Get your ass on my list. You want to keep up with what’s going on? get your ass on my list.” And they’re like, “I love that attitude. I love that.” So they want to be identified with that. But this is all human psychology. So for example, we talked here for just about an hour and a half, and how much have we talked about software? How much have we talked about the technology? How much have we talked about these other things? I keep saying this to our Inner Circle students, our Elite students. It is the human element, but it gets lost because we’re in this new world of social media. So we feel like we’ve got to have the right gadgets, the right techniques, the right methodology, the right technology, the right app.

1:29:28 Dave: The tools get in the road and the tools end up becoming this blinker in front of everybody.

1:29:35 CJ: What time do I post? How many times do I post?

1:29:43 Dave: I was guilty of it early on. I think with the Elite course, in some respects, I know some students actually, the Elite course made the tools even more of an importance. For me, it actually showed me the fact that it’s just like, “No, the tools are just there to help enhance what you already have.” And that is this, that’s being you, and getting that. And that just helps you get reach in a way. But you can do it all without hardly any of the tools if you’ve got the relationship-building worked out, and you’re constantly showing up and building that relationship.

1:30:26 CJ: Imagine how easy the Welter equation could be. Because we have said the music stands on its own. It’s great. I can put that in front of anybody and I know it’s going to work. That’s why the targeting doesn’t mean much to me. Who the hell is not what … what idiot’s not going to like Welter? So all I’ve got to do is get that music in front of them. So I can use that to bring people in. And then if they find not just great music, but quality, life-enhancing, value-based content on a regular basis from these very warm guys, long-standing friendship. People should be able to tell your story. “Oh, I love listening to those two. I love that he calls him El, Dave and El. I love that he calls him El. That’s such an Australian thing to do, you know what I mean?”

1:31:14 Elliot: I don’t call him Dave-O, though.

1:31:17 CJ: That’s right.

1:31:20 Dave: Would do that.

1:31:22 CJ: Where’d Dave go? Dave-O’s on smoke-O.

1:31:27 Elliot: It’s a very Australian thing, Dave-O.

1:31:30 CJ: But people should be able to tell that story, right? They should be able to know you guys. So if you’ve got the great music, and then you’ve got the great regular content in conjunction with the music for your existing followers, and email, then the backend sort of takes care of itself. It shouldn’t be that hard, which means the problem is still on this front and middle-end. So just as an experiment, here’s what I would challenge you to do: Just the email … just don’t sell anything for a month. I want you to send three emails a week for one month. So we’re taking the 10x rule. We’re going 10 times, we’re going to max it, we’re going to do more.

So we’re going to say, “Okay, I’m going to send three emails a week for a month. We’re not going to sell anything, and it’s just going to be adding value.” That’s it. Just loving on them, ministering to them, building them up, making them laugh, whatever it is. Just something short, sweet, to the point that’s just like, “Ah.” Just value, great, strong little subject lines in the email so that they’ll open it, great content, and just leave it at that. Just see what that does.

1:32:51 Elliot: That was an excellent idea because Dave and I have been talking about what are we doing after we’ve just smashed our email list for the crowdfunding campaign. And we’ve just been, “Go, go, go, go, go, go, go.” And what are we doing now to that email list? Let’s just love them back for a little while, which is really nice.

1:33:09 CJ: Yeah, love them back for a little bit. And I think what it’ll do, it’ll get you into the habit of emailing more often, and just getting that stuff out there, and just saying, “Huh, you know what? I’m getting acclimated this new-“

1:33:23 Dave: Because I think at the end of the day, it’s the one aspect … I think I’ve got the whole Facebook thing. I’m constantly scheduling posts. That’s my weekly jam is I’ll spend an hour or two, and I schedule a heap of posts for the week. And then during the week, something pops up, and I’m going to post that. It’s the email that’s been the challenge. And I think, too, the difference with social media and Facebook is that you get a response, and you could see that response. Emails are a little different because it’s not so much social. Not everybody’s going to reply to your email. Very few, actually, are going to reply. So you send it out there and kind of go, “What’s going on at the other end?”

1:34:26 CJ: Until you give them a reason. People will ask about getting engagement, so the natural thing to do is to ask questions. Dave, you’ve heard me talk about this before. So let’s say somebody gets on there and says, “Hey, what’s your favorite food? What’s your favorite cheap food?” Or, “What are you listening to today?” Or, “What are your three favorite movies?” You’re baiting them. People will answer, but it’s not honest engagement. You don’t have to ask anybody a single question. If I’m going to get somebody to leave an opinion, all I have to say is, “Favorite cheap food? Pizza beats burgers, hands down, no argument, exclamation point.” And they’ll give me their opinion. I’ll get people to say, “Damn, right, man. Pizza, preach the gospel of pizza.” Another guy will say, “Pizza ain’t it, man. Burgers beat pizza, hands down.” And then somebody going come in there and say, “No, tacos.” Look at your newsfeed. Somebody posts something, their political opinion, they’ve got a hundred comments.

So it’s not baiting, this is not technique, it’s being human. So I would also challenge them. We’ll add another item that you could potentially give out there to bring them onboard to your email list. As you post this more inspirational content types of value that you’re adding, just sharing your hearts, we’ll take some of these posts and take some of these emails, and we’re going to compile together into a little ebook. Just a little, The Good Life, and just 10 little topics or whatever, nothing lengthy. Just 10 little topics just about that Welter outlook. Just a little anecdote and then a quick, like the Daily Devotional type thing.

It could be 15-pages long, larger type. Again, nothing crazy, but just as just a simple, inspirational thing that someone can download. Again, it’s the literal verbal equivalent of what the songs do. It could be song-based. It could be anything. But anyway, you just do this, and it’s just as something extra besides the music. And they could just say, “Oh, Welter is three-dimensional. There’s other dimensions to them. The more I get to know them and hear from them, the more I see how rounded out they are.” Because our tendency is to just kind of show the one side and not so much these other aspects.

1:37:07 Elliot: It’s interesting when you’re running a shop. A shop facade is pretty skinny, the old facade of a shop. But there’s so much going on in the back end that you don’t actually see.

1:37:18 CJ: Yeah, like I would be tempted to go back to your song Learn To Swim and say, I bet there’s some cool lines in that song. Because it’s such a great little encapsulation of a philosophy: Learn To Swim. It was something that was imposed in my family. And so now you take this learn to swim concept into other things, and you can always use that as a hashtag at the end of a post, #LearnToSwim. Actually, you learn to swim. So anything that you post that has to do with someone learning something later in life or whatever, you just finish #LearnToSwim. So now you’re setting them up for it because you’re dripping the idea to eventually buy the shirt Learn To Swim. So when they wear the shirt that says Learn To Swim, and someone says, “What does that mean? Learn to swim.” Oh, I’m so glad you asked. Learn to swim, man. Come on buddy, learn to swim. Got somebody that’s not pulling their weight? Learn to swim, mate.

1:38:16 Dave: There’s a lot of lines in our songs that just make them great. It’s something we hadn’t actually looked at-

1:38:32 CJ: It’s what I told my son when he asked me, “Dad, what do you want me to do?” Because I’ve got with just my Metal Motivation page, I’ve got 11 years of 365 days a year, seven days a week posting. And I mean hardcore. I’ve got thousands of videos, memes, articles. You name it, I’ve got it. So he’s like, “Well, dad, what do you want me to do?” Harvest. There’s so much. And a lot of it is in the places we don’t think to look. So lyrics are obviously a place, your relationship is a place, your story, your history. Like I said, so many things you guys have said here today, I said, “Oh, there’s a post. Oh, there’s a thought, Oh, there’s an idea. There’s a shirt.” You know what I mean? But you just hammer-

1:39:20 Dave: I’ll be rewatching this when you post it so I can take down little notes.

1:39:25 CJ: Exactly.

1:39:26 Dave: What am I saving? Oh, that’s gold.

1:39:27 CJ: There are so many things. There’s some people that will say, “Well, can you give people too much?” I don’t think so. Not in the information age. Even if they don’t consume everything, what I want them to think is, “Damn, he’s a machine.”

1:39:46 Elliot: The reason that is because I have the ability to stop hearing things. Everybody has the ability to stop hearing things and stop reading things. And we just go, “Yeah, I was present when I was actually listening to you, but I wasn’t listening.”

1:39:59 CJ: Exactly, yeah. So it’s just understanding, “Okay, well the one thing I haven’t tried is more.” And so we’re looking for a technique, we’re looking for the most amount of pay for the least amount of work. And that’s a hireling. And when it comes to Welter, the founding members of Welter certainly shouldn’t be hirelings. They’re going to act as owners, which means, “Oh no, we’re the biggest advocates.” Okay, well what does the biggest advocate … you’ve probably got some people who are like total fans of Welter. How do you know? Because of how much they post about it.

1:40:42 Dave: Yeah, how much response we get.

1:40:47 CJ: Right. So who should be the two biggest super fans? I should be looking at them right now.

1:40:51 Elliot: Yeah, that’s me.

1:40:51 CJ: So you guys should be out there banging the drum. And this is not braggadocious, this is not boasting. And you tell people, “Listen, I am the biggest advocate for my music. I spent my life making it, and so I’m giving you 50-something years worth of life experience in music for a $20 CD. So say thank you when someone does something nice for you.” That’s what I tell people all the time. They’ll say, “Wow, that your book is $20. Really?” “Yeah. You’re getting 30 years of marketing experience for $20. So say thank you when somebody does something nice for you.” Jackass.

1:41:35 Elliot: Braggadocious. I’ve learned a new Texan word: braggadocious.

1:41:45 Dave: That’s going to go on another song.

1:41:48 CJ: I can imagine that as a Welter song, Braggadocious. Well, listen guys, is there anything else that you wanted to-

1:41:59 Elliot: I’ve got a full book, man. I’ve got a full book, which is excellent.

1:42:02 CJ: And it’s bigger than Kim Jong Il’s book.

1:42:04 Elliot: Yeah, it is.

1:42:09 Dave: I think it’s good. For me, this is kind of like another reset, you know what I mean? You go along for a while and then you need to kind of stop, you need to reflect, you need to go back and go, “Let’s just reset that again.” And then continue forward. And I think a lot of students get caught up in that, and it’s so much to take in. And as you’ve mentioned before, being artists, we’re perfectionists, and we just want everything to be just right before we let it out there. Because that’s what we do with our music. We don’t want people to see or hear our music until we feel that it’s just right now. So that the moment people go into this whole world of, “Okay, well now we’ve got to market ourselves. We’ve got to be the record company. So we’ve got to do it all. So we’ve got to do it all perfect.” It’s just like, “No, you don’t.”

But along the journey, you just need to stop and have a look around, and just reset yourself too. And take the pressure off yourself. And this is what I said in the video that I did for the group on the crowdfunding campaign. Because suddenly, we put all this pressure on ourselves. And I was starting to go, “My God, we’ve got to get this released, and then we need to get this happening.” And then I started reading the Crowdfunding Sorceress book. And it made me stop, and it maybe think about, “Hold on, we’re an independent band. Which means we call the shots, which means I don’t have a manager or record company standing over saying, ‘This is the release date, dude. And you boys better get your ass, and you boys …'”

And I was like like, “Well, hold on. We want this to be a successful campaign. So we need to just stop and take our time. So let’s move our release date because we can. Who’s telling us that it has to be released on the 1st of October? If it’s now going to be the 1st of November, it’s the 1st of November. We can do that because we’ve got the power.” And that just took a straight off us, because then we could come back, and sit back, and go, “Okay, now we can make the video we want to make.” And then it took us … how many takes did we do for that video?

1:44:40 Elliot: Six takes.

1:44:41 Dave: Six or seven takes. And that was six or seven times me editing that video.

1:44:47 Elliot: And then rewriting it-

1:44:48 Dave: It’s just we could take the time, and we rewrote the narrative. But it allowed us to actually just take the pressure off ourselves. And I think if anything I could say to any student out there: Don’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself. Give yourself goals and make yourself accountable, or you won’t achieve anything. But we don’t have to put this unnecessary pressure. Because the moment we get overwhelmed, what happens? You stop. You just can’t move forward. Like deer in the headlight moment.

1:45:30 CJ: Yeah, you neutralize yourself, and there’s no reason to be neutralized. This is your project, this is your calling in life. You are the agents in charge. And so yeah, you do, you get to set the agenda, you get to set the navigation, the course, and you get to reap the rewards. But you’ve got a whole lot of people that are happy to enjoy that journey with you, and what a great opportunity it is. And so this is the bright side that we always have to keep in mind. It’s not something you have to do, it’s something you get to do. And my challenge is, without pressure, do more. But do more because it’s worth it, do more because there’s a reason, do more because there’s a cause, do more because the music is great.

So why not 10x it? Why not multiply our efforts to excel, because it’s only going to mean more people are going to hear music that’s going to lift them out of their troubled moment for a time. And that’s worth it. You know what else does that? Aspirin. So you’re right on a par with Aspirin, man. And they make billions of dollars selling Aspirin. Aspirin is not going to fix that broken arm. You know what I mean? You don’t get aspirin for the guy with massive chronic pain. It’s minor pain relief. That’s what you guys are into. You’re in minor life-relief here.

1:46:55 Dave: The Aspirin of music.

1:46:55 CJ: That’s right. So that’s reason enough. And there are people very, very passionate about Aspirins. They’re passionate about it because it does make a difference. And it makes a difference because that’s what everybody wants to do. People have two primary motives in life: They’re trying to avoid pain and gain pleasure. That’s it. And your music does both. So that’s reason enough. And so you have to believe it.

It’s hard because we’re like, “I don’t want to sell my music.” Not necessarily you guys, but people struggle with that sales concept. Sell it. Just like do you go and complain to the local pharmacy because you had to buy Aspirin? Did you write a letter to the Bayer Aspirin company saying, “How dare you manufacture this, hire all these people, manufacture this little tablet, and I have to drive down there and get it? And you’re going to charge me money for it? How dare you. You don’t think enough of my headache, do you?”

People understand commerce. They understand that. And so what we want to create is that wonderful, sacred, happy debt where they say, “I’ll do anything.” Because when I post stuff, do you know what people say to me all the time? I’ll get my little one liners or write my posts. They’ll say one of three things. “Dude, you do any events? I would love to see you live.” “Hey man, that should be on a tee shirt. I’d buy it.” “Dude, you got a book?” They’re asking me for what? E-commerce products.

1:48:34 Elliot: Yeah, they’re motivated buyers straight away. Aren’t they?

1:48:41 CJ: Yeah, they’re motivated buyers, because you created that in them. They have that desire, so they’re telling it back to you. So if you guys posted, for example … what if all you did was post the music videos that you posted? What are people eventually going to ask? Do you have-

1:48:51 Elliot: A CD?

1:48:53 CJ: Yeah. Di you have a CD? An album? Right. Then you start sharing with them all about Learn To Swim, or The Good Life, and you’re using these hashtags. What are they going to say? “That would be great on a tee shirt.” So use people’s … it’s like in judo. I remember as a kid taking it. And one of the coolest things I learned was the teacher said, “Okay, I want you to grab me by the lapels, and I want you to push against me. And what will be my natural response? Just like anybody’s, to push back. When I start to push back, as soon as I start to push back, I’ll use all my force to do it. I want you to immediately release your stance, fall to the ground and bring me over your shoulder, because that’s the direction I’m headed.” So you deceived me by pushing on me to get me to push back, and as soon as I did, you broke and threw me over, because now was heading forward, my momentum is headed that way, and I can’t stop. So then you would be on top of me on the ground.

Use the momentum of your audience against them. Not in a bad way, but you start to create this push in them. So now, you’re just more steering traffic than you are trying to constantly reel it in. So that’s what I mean by creating desire, creating desire, creating desire. And there’s multiple ways to do that, just as there is in any relationship.

1:50:24 Elliot: Yeah, love it. Thank you, sir.

1:50:27 Dave: Awesome.

1:50:27 CJ: I had a great time with you guys, man.

1:50:30 Elliot: It’s now seven o’clock Sydney time, and I’ve got to get my daughter out of bed and get her to school.

1:50:36 Dave: Likewise, I’m about to do the same. There you go, guys, bring it back to reality.

1:50:41 CJ: Exactly. Enough marketing life enhancement, let’s get back to the hardcore realities of life.

1:50:49 Dave: Now, it’s to time make lunch and drop someone to school.

1:50:53 CJ: It’s a delight to talk to you guys. I enjoy having this front-row seat to the Welter marketing project.

1:51:00 Elliot: Hey, CJ, it’s really good to meet you, man.

1:51:03 CJ: It’s great to meet you too, bro. You guys are so talented.

1:51:07 Dave: Thank you very much. We really appreciate it. We’ll catch it on the next podcast. I can’t get up at 4:30 every morning on a Saturday to watch it live, so I tend to watch it when I get up at about 10 o’clock.

1:51:27 CJ: You’ve been with us for a long time, so you know the details. You’re like, “Nah, I’ll just message him if I have something I need to say.”

1:51:34 Dave: Yeah, that’s it exactly. I’ll send my comments in afterwards.

1:51:39 CJ: Sounds great. Look forward to it. Have a great week, gentlemen.

1:51:42 Dave: You too, mate.

1:51:43 Elliot: Cheers, mate. Be well.

1:51:46 CJ: Well, I hope you enjoyed this coaching session. I know it was a little long, but I didn’t want to take anything out of it. There were so many great things. And you could see how great guys they are, how committed they are to their project. And I know it speaks to a lot of, not just our students, but those of you who are just wondering what to do about this new era of the music industry. If you’d like to learn more about them, just go to Facebook.com/Weltermusic, check out some of their music and merch, and support these guys. As you can tell, they are the right kind of band to follow.

If you’d like to learn more about what you need to do to take your next step, go to the savvymusicianacademy.com today. We’ve got podcasts, we’ve got lots of products available, courses for you to take, things for you to sign up for. There’s a lot of good things happening. We just released TOM 3.0, that is TOM, The Online Musician, 3.0. You’ll learn more about it there, as well as Instagram for Musicians, which was also just released. And I’ll have more to say in the close about the Savvy Musician Inner Circle, which is something I host, and I would love to have you become a part of it. We can help take you to the next level. If you’re ready, then don’t delay. Go to savvymusicianacademy.com today. We’ll see you next time. The entire music industry just changed overnight. Suddenly, every band and musician has had their live gigs canceled indefinitely. No one knows when live events are coming back. And when they do, the competition will surely be fierce. Artists are realizing they have to pivot quickly If they want to earn an income with their music. Musicians are now scrambling to figure out how to sell their music online. They need answers and they need them now.

If this is you, then discover our new Savvy Musician Inner Circle membership. It’s a private subscription-based coaching group to help you launch and market your online music business fast. For one low monthly subscription, you’ll get live weekly marketing instruction, plus tips, tools, news, updates, and your questions answered. It all takes place in a private Facebook group that I, CJ Ortiz, will be hosting, and I’d love to help you build your online music business. To learn more, go right now to savvymusicianacademy.com/innercircle.