 So many of you artists have a hard time finding quality marketers who aren't scamming you and can actually help your fan base grow But on the other hand so many of you music marketers out there are having trouble Finding quality clients and if you have one right in front of you how not to mess it up So there's 10 mistakes that both artists and music marketers make in the interaction Before a campaign even starts that if you actually do not make these mistakes You can find a great music marketer and identify the bad ones and on the other side You'll be able to identify Great clients and how to hold on to them and why I can even speak to this in the first place My name is brand man. Sean. I have a music marketing agency that gets hired out by indie artists and major labels We've helped over a hundred artists grow their fan base to get millions of streams and Some of these things are mistakes. I've made along the way. So let's get into it number one is Not having a Pricing model so every single music marketer should have a pricing model It doesn't mean that it needs to be on the front page Paraded like I don't know some product being sold on Amazon, but every music marketer, right? Should have a pricing model many of them don't have it up front That's completely fine But you need to know what your pricing model is if you're a music marketer It doesn't matter what the artist says that their budget is it should not change how much you charge them unless you're doing a Percentage base model, right? You have a percentage base model You have a package that people can purchase based on whatever you decide they are ahead of time And you can have a simple retainer whatever those are that should be what it is The only thing that changes how much you make is if you're doing a percentage base model cool But that needs to be your regular model don't look at a client like a lick Oh man I have a huge budget and now all of a sudden you want to charge more because doing that shows that you're thinking short-term in the first place Oh, man, this client has a whole lot of money Well, let me charge them more of their whole lot of money and now all of a sudden I'm gonna price myself out of the marketplace even if I do something good They might go ahead to another agency that is more affordable and does just as good of a job, right? Now if you're the best of the best of the best that might be something different But be sure that you're offering something that's a next level experience and gives them a reason to charge that Don't just try to make your client a lick because you're thinking short term and the most important thing in the music business Is the relationship not that single pricing? All right now on the other side artist Yo Say your budget if you don't have a budget then you don't need to be talking to anybody Right if you do have a budget Don't be afraid to show your budget to give your budget to the marketer that you're speaking to because if they have integrity They will not change Right, however much they're charging But if they don't at the end of the day you have your own mind Nobody's putting a gun to your head saying that you have to pay this fee if it's more or less than you expected Even if they decided to charge you more money It's still up to you to pay that money. So who cares right? So don't be afraid because the people who actually do this, right? They talk about money You have to get used to talking about money. That's just the conversations. That's how things go Don't start having your behavior skewed for the scammers because you won't know how to act and think When it comes down to talking to the people who really know what they're doing And I will tell you the best marketers the people who are really doing this and are on the up and up When you're coming with that sketchy weird Oh, I don't have a budget and I don't know what my budget is and you know, I can get it if just to you know Let me know where it depends on how things go They're not gonna waste their time on you because it's just not worth their time and they have plenty of good clients Like us we turn plenty of those people down because we don't have time to deal with the hurt pains You know like being the artist who's just hurt because you had a bad relationship in the past And you're scorn and now you want to bring those relationship issues to us Hey, go solve that somewhere fix that before you get to us. That's how we look at it as an agency, right? But money is a big problem on both sides. So get that right. All right now number two Artist if a marketer has no ability to tell you what they will do. It's a problem All right, they should be able to tell you a general idea of the approach that they will take It doesn't mean that it has to be all written down point by point by point A lot of people have different processes where it might be figured out a little bit more in detail After you're locked in and things are going but they still need to be able to give you a general explanation Approach that they've been able to take before or if they are early on they might not have a lot of case studies But they should give you some legitimate thought Process of how they can approach your campaign based on your particular desires now on the marketer side You need to be able to have an idea what your services are, right? Do you offer ads? Do you offer? Playlisting do you offer influencers? Do you offer content consulting? Do you offer any of these types of things Instagram PR because if you do You keep that in mind based on the advising that you give them and you should be able to tell them what you can do Maybe you want to do all of those things. Maybe you're early on and figuring yourself out. That's fine But you still need to be cool with that ahead of time on the call Decide if you're gonna do all of these different things and anything or Decide if you're only gonna offer a couple of things just offering a couple of things like hey I just want to do ads and I don't know YouTube influencers is completely fine, but you know what that means If that person that you're talking to doesn't need those things then you have to be willing to say hey It doesn't fit like come back to me when you have something that makes sense for what I offer right now Oh, you already do YouTube ads and you're doing them very very well. Well, I guess you could just Run them yourself, but I can do the YouTube influencers because you don't need the ads right now That type of stuff actually helps you in the long term. I get it in the short term. It's like yo I need that money, but long term when you're able to start telling clients what's best for them You will actually build a quality relationship and have somebody who comes back to you because what's happened for us plenty of times is Hey You don't need us for Facebook ads and Instagram ads But we can do the tick-tock and influencers for you because I could tell you guys are already kind of killing it and y'all seem comfortable with it And either they'll say it right then or they'll come back the next time around for a campaign and be like, you know what? Yeah, we're cool doing them, but we just actually don't want to do them right now So we're like you guys that do them. Maybe they do them again in the future Sometimes it's like a back-and-forth but like for whatever reason this campaign they don't want to run them So we have a relationship and we're doing some services for them But on the other end there's some services that we do Sometimes for them and some of them on a back-and-forth basis sometimes we do them for them Sometimes we don't because they handle it themselves Completely fine. The relationship is everything you have to think long term because Once you start right and get six months collected a year collected of Clients that already trust you and come back to you and continue to advise with you your business is rolling All right now again Artists just as much as you need to be able to judge a music marketer for their ability to tell you what they will do You need to know what the hell you want to do yourself, right? What do you desire? Why are you on this call? I get that there might be the mentality of hey You know, I actually don't know what I want to do. I just want to know what you think and trying to get some type of advising It's a good idea in theory, right? It sounds good in your head But when you get on the call what's happening with the other professional is I Don't know if this client is gonna be worth it because a lot of clients who say this that don't have a plan They actually end up being headaches because since they don't have any legitimate direction No matter what happens in the campaign It's literally a luck of the draw whether or not they're happy or not because they had no specific goal in mind So you need to have some specificity so y'all can work together on getting to that point Otherwise again, they can have a successful campaign truly from a marketer standpoint, but for you you're like Oh, man, I don't really feel like anything happened because you weren't clear on what you desire. All right now number three No communication beforehand So this is largely on the music marketer side artist if a music marketer doesn't want to talk to you at all Before a campaign before you lock in I call red flag on the play in most cases most cases. All right, there's very very very very very few Music marketers who are legitimate who are not scamming that Will not talk to you ahead of time in some form of fashion Responding to your emails hopping on a call and the more of a legitimate music marketer They are not a music promoter the more likely it is that they're actually going to talk to you beforehand All right And actually give you some sense of advising your strategic thought process and how they might approach the campaign to see if you Want to hop on board? All right. So there's no communication ahead of time Even if it is a legitimate promoter just know that you likely probably aren't dealing with a experienced music marketer or someone who's going to take a mark a custom teamwork approach towards your campaign and That's up to you to decide and of course that means on the other end if you're a music marketer you need to be willing to speak to your clients and Here's a quick really quick tidbit for you music marketers Where you guys are selling your short by not talking to people ahead of time, right? A lot of people who just don't want to talk to anybody at all actually remember The exponential growth of your business of your career comes from talking to people building relationships So having all this idea of I don't ever want to talk to anybody. Maybe it's the wrong job for you You shouldn't be a music marketer because what's gonna happen is you have relationships on relationships on relationships Year over year over year and your relationships start to bring you business. They start to bring you cloud They start to be cool with you and bring you out to things. That's what you want as a music marketer So talk to your clients talk to people and be cool Even if it's not the best leave for you You need to let your clients know that they're more than just some money to you and that brings me to number four Overpromising is a massive issue when it comes to many music marketers out there Now what do I mean by that? Don't tell somebody you're gonna give them the moon and they end up with a moon pie Like give them exactly what you say you're gonna give them and give them an idea at least How feasible it is to get to that goal Don't sell me this massive dream and then don't fulfill my dream because I'm paying you to fulfill that dream That's what you're selling them on right So that means you have to manage expectations That's the biggest thing the biggest thing you can do as a music marketer because what it does is One help the artist understand What's particularly possible based on what you guys are going to do for that particular budget in that particular time period Based on where that artist is in their career at the starting point of the campaign All of those things matter artist Please stop having Grander expectations and grandiose thoughts than you should be having at the moment You should be looking for a music marketer who says that actually doesn't make sense based on where you are Based on all those factors that I just said not somebody who's gonna go ahead and say Hey, oh, sure. I could give you that because a lot of you guys I've talked to many of y'all before You know years ago right early on and and I'll be telling the truth and they'll be like Well, I'm just gonna go to somebody else Cool, you can do that and then I'll see you get those bad results Because you went to a scammer and then you come back That becomes a problem. So it doesn't mean I'm not saying hey come to me I'm saying whoever you're talking to as a music marketer You want them to actually manage expectations and not just sell you a dream Especially if it doesn't make sense for whatever factors you have at hand. All right Now again music marketers Don't just throw out some dream because you're actually gonna ruin our relationship anyway that way if you if you can see the common thread Right keeps going back to relationships People want somebody to tell them the real we've had people we had somebody who We managed your expectations right for a $5,000 campaign And they actually had some pretty damn good results for a $5,000 Campaign right and they were happy with it per se, but they still had these grandiose expectations and we were like hey, yo Not possible where you are right now, but we can get there over time right this person Goes out and get scammed paying somebody else for a campaign let alone Not only do they pay somebody else they pay somebody else $20,000 and they actually reached out to my partner jacquory Basically saying hey, yo, uh, can you help me out? This person is uh, I think this person scamming me and sure enough jacquory was able to help them Like help them understand that yes They were getting scammed and then they verified it through all these other sources as well right so Managing their expectations and being cool with that as an artist or as a music manager or record label You have to understand And pace yourself throughout this game because a lot of times you have these grandiose visions based on all this stuff You've heard or you see other artists doing And it's incorrect and it's going to ruin you. Please. Please be open to hear when somebody Manages your expectations and tells you what you should expect for whatever you're paying or wherever you are. All right Number five is Yo, if you are a business person, you're a professional Music marketers don't disappear on somebody when it comes to communication. How can they trust you? How can you expect them to actually want to pay you and trust you with their money? It makes zero sense And even if you feel like they are not a good potential client for you Then go ahead and let them know that ahead of time Just say that and then move on if they want to keep responding and saying all this stuff Then you at least are good to not respond then because you let them know Hey, it's best that we don't move on but if you just disappear You're creating bad karma for yourself because you're doing this person wrong when they when you are trying to build a brand And have equity because some of these people who are bad clients now Trust me. They can become great future clients. I've seen people have not only not enough money Right and get a lot of money and be able to pay us for services But I've seen people have bad music legitimately bad music and then A year two from now have amazing music and I'm like a fan of everything I'm hearing and many of them like have like Really done some legitimate things in the industry And now because we handle it right then there's no bad blood in the future, right? So You never know you never know who somebody's going to be But come who they actually are who they're connected to just treat people right and be clear Don't be you don't look this ain't the dating market, bro You can't just be ghosting people that whole ghosting people because you don't want to confront You're scared of how somebody else is going to like respond You can't do that in the professional world. It just is what it is You you actually can but it's not in your best interest in the long term. Let's just put it that way All right artist I'm just gonna call crazy and say why are you disappearing for people who are Doing work for you. All right. Now most of this video. I'm talking about legitimately before your campaign starts But we've literally had people give us like $5,000 $10,000 and we can't get in contact with them like three months later or Two weeks later. Yo, we can't start your campaign, bro. You didn't give us the music video link You never sent us the song like I don't understand. I know life gets busy y'all are on some things, but Don't disappear like don't don't disappear when somebody's doing service for you be willing and ready to communicate. All right now number six Not doing basic research. This is a huge mistake. I've made this sometimes myself Not doing basic research ahead of time On the potential client where there's listening to a couple of songs and checking out the basic socials All right, and if you do not have the chance for whatever reason to do it Be honest about it on the front end. It's gonna rub some artists the wrong way for sure But it is what it is. You're honest and look I'm very very busy. So There's been times where yeah, I just don't have it It's like I didn't even know you were on my calendar because you just Scheduled it so quickly whatever that might look like but be willing to go ahead and say it and say hey I've only got a chance to look at x y and z thing didn't get a chance to check out that song Yet because of whatever but I'll listen to it as soon as we hop off the phone Or you mind if I play a quick a quick 30 seconds to check it out right now, right? If that's the thing If that's the expectation based off the type of service you offer You need to be able to give that research a little bit of time and also Address if it doesn't occur and somebody who isn't willing to do that basic level research At least understand your socials and know your genre artist Like their professional habits probably aren't that great. So That'll tell you something. I'm not saying that was to end all be all They because the best the rest of the conversation might go very well They might be sharp They might have just missed for that day But it is something to pay attention to if they aren't checking you out and understand who you are at all Unless you didn't give them the right information. You gave them some bad links or something like that Some of y'all don't even put in your information, which I try not to even have calls With y'all at all. All right number seven Doing the wrong work Selling the wrong work. Now. This is the music marketer side and artist You got to pay attention to this listen to what i'm saying because it's also going to give you A little information of you know peering through the hole the other side of the curve music marketer Do not or record label owner music manager Do not propose or go off on a campaign That doesn't make sense for that artist in their song Don't do it. It doesn't make sense. You're going to waste money Especially for the record label manager right y'all are like closer invest it into this whole project Don't do it. Don't offer a service like hey, i'm going to do some influencer Campaigns for you and you have a really bad song artist. All right, and i'm not going to tell you that But just because i want to get this sell i'm going to do an influencer campaign You could get away with that for some types of campaigns actually, but when you do an influencer campaign Influencers are so discriminative these days. They're so protective of their brands They're not going to actually do it and i've done this earlier on So you think oh well this song isn't great right, but i can at least get it placed for this guy and um You know do the service because at the end of the day the market's marketer's job is to Give it the placement put it in position not necessarily to blow it up right their core job is to do that service Right no different than a distributor Is job is to get it on spotify not necessarily get it blown up on spotify right now Of course, it's slightly nuanced in the expectations, but back to the influencer campaign so We have an influencer campaign this early tiktok days when we were just blowing so many things up I thought you know this artist we could probably find an angle and and tweak some things and And figure out a way for people to accept it and blow it and blow it up One person uh nah, i'm not feeling that song two person Nah, i'm not feeling that song three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve fifty people sixty people Turning this thing down. I'm not rocking with the song Which is a great thing right because they're basically a and r's and if you can make it through that loop It says a lot about your music, but Many people are not going to Actually take that bet and mess up their whole brand equity because people are looking at the things that they do They do post and promos for as a representation of their own brand and type of music they listen to So if your song is really bad or art music marketer, let's start and keep it there If the song is really bad, you'll mess around and your life will be so grueling. It will be so painful It's not gonna be worth it. Like we end up working that campaign for like three to four months like Just trying so hard trying to get these People to accept it and getting rid of that budget. It's so painful And it's like i'm still working and having to deal with this client When I should have been done based on how my most of my clients run and we can be growing and growing and moving and moving Or and they already have their results and they're happy. All right artist side if your music is bad It's bad it might not be in position for certain types of campaigns now Something like an advertising campaign could be good for you at any time because you can at least find out If my music's good start to get some type of feedback response. All right Um, so there's no harm in running ads and learning and maybe you have a more niche audience That's really hard to find your type of music, but You have to understand that every Type of marketing campaign doesn't suit every type of song. All right, so keep that in mind Which brings me to number eight not listening to your instincts is a major Cause for failure on both sides in the music marketer and artists relationship When I say not listening to your instincts artists when you feel like this guy isn't making sense when this Girl isn't making sense and she might be scamming you. She might be finessing you She's giving you an opportunity that sounds too good to be true and you're like man, if other people knew about that This person would probably have all the business in the world. Well, it's probably too good to be true Or there's their energy. They don't seem like they actually care. All right, maybe they're not doing something or offering something that It's completely out of the ordinary or um unbelievable. It's just Their attitude isn't right. So they could have a campaign where it goes well and everything goes cool for you because You know the attitude wasn't great, but Their service was illegitimate. The other hand is Marketing campaigns oftentimes have some bumps in the road. It's very more often than not Marketing campaigns have some level of bump in the road and at that point you're going to encounter that person's attitude You're going to encounter how much that person doesn't care and you might end up with a situation like hey my Ad has been paused for a whole week and I can't even even get a response from this person and it's messing up my Entire rollout, right? So you want somebody with a good attitude somebody who's professional and willing to answer your questions Even if you get annoyed, right? Now another side is your marketer. Yo, some of these clients aren't worth it, man Just like I talked about the artist with the really really really really bad music like objectively bad music so bad because You can't even hear it because it's horribly mixed and all that type of stuff Yeah, you got to turn that down, right? Um, you or they seem like they're annoying You got to turn that down. It's not going to be worth it for you. It's going to feel like it's worth it Boy, it's going to be so painful that you're working that artist You're gonna be like I can't wait for this campaign to be done. I can't wait Please let this budget dry up. You don't want to put yourself through that, right? Um I've turned down a hundred thousand dollar budgets Before I ever even worked a five thousand dollar budget because the client potential client It just wasn't right. It was too many red flags Like the money was was a real thing. It was there But there were a lot of other points many of the things that we talked about that just Didn't add up and it seemed like it wasn't going to be worth it hugely hugely The music itself. I knew I'm like not only am I going to have to spend money on this and it probably take longer than normal because You know the budget's big it's going to take even longer Because the music's bad. Oh, this might be two years of pain Dillon with this budget and this type of music trying to get rid of this budget, right? So You have to keep these things in mind like follow your instincts both sides follow your instincts And if you understand how I'm talking to each side, right? It should help you even see the other side because the professional Artist understands how the professional Marketer talks and what a good professional marketer thinks like the professional marketer understands How a good professional artist thinks and talks as well. And that's why I'm doing this for both sides now number nine Do not accept fake stream clients those clients who have fake streams Yeah, I know a lot of y'all shall have fake streams, right? We don't accept clients that have fake streams So I'll just say it that way We don't accept them because it muddies our work. It's hard to tell where our impact is But and it's harder to figure out progress. The only way we accept Artists who have fake streams is if they're willing to admit that they have fake streams And we can acknowledge that this is a situation to work through to get you to the right direction But we're not going to put ourselves in a position where we're already In the negative, right? And then allow a client to say, hey, what work have you done? We haven't seen any kind of results. It's like, yeah, because you're losing five followers every five minutes Just because you've got fake streams and now that whole campaign is over, right? Now you're losing streams by the second now you're losing IG file All this stuff is going down because you did something fake. So it's not just fake streams So fake social media follows all this stuff. It just makes it too difficult to see the truth We're completely willing to say, hey, this campaign didn't go as it normally goes We would consider this a fail and by our standards, but we're not going to do that when Things aren't clear, right? So Artists don't put yourselves in a position where you have to work through that But if you know, you've done something like that, especially if it's more recent Be willing to address it. Let the marketer know so they can help you It's like going to the doctor and not letting them know that your hip is hurting and you're just saying, ah My my knee's hurting and the doctor does all this You know work around your knee and gives you solutions for your knee and all that type of stuff, but They just completely ignore your hip when that's also a part of the problem We need every piece of information Possible that can help us make a better decision for you and go about the campaign in the best way possible. All right So fake streams fake followers all that stuff It's a bad thing on both sides But when it's understood and maybe it's a part of your strategy and if the marketer can say, okay Okay, I get it. You're doing it for that reason But both people come on come to the same conclusion and say, hey, this thing is happening It's impacted things this way or it will impact things this way You're just fine. All right. Last but not least it seems small, but it's big Being sketchy and I know this sounds kind of weird, right? But it's a legitimate thing An artist is going to a music marketer for a level of certainty Right, they want you to be able to achieve something that they cannot do They want you to be able to give them a level of support that they can't get from any other Space or place or they have resources to handle it But for whatever reason they want to find somebody else like you to handle it for them at the time That's what they're coming to you for so be certain be clear about what your Budget requirements typically are be clear about whatever your pricing is be clear about how You want to help them or can help them Because that's what you're here for communicate clearly because if you don't right Offer that level of support You come off as sketchy and why should they do business with you? All right, if you can't help Take some of this anxiety away. All right, if you're going to cause problems Why should I hire you? I had a a boss when I was in college And he'll be like, yo man, if you're gonna keep asking me all these questions And if you're gonna keep coming me for me to x y and z and I got to keep correcting your work I don't need you. You are here to make my life easier Music marketer. You are here to make your clients life easier That's what they're paying you for period All right, so don't come off as sketchy. Give them some level of clarity. All right uncertainty. It doesn't mean Guarantee results. It means I understand the process. I understand how this is going to go I understand the potential results and I also have a managed way of looking at this. So I am not Exceedingly disappointed. All right, if it doesn't have the best possible outcome. All right And music marketer Look, if the artist is sketchy they they're weird about their communication. They don't know what's going on They're probably gonna be a bad client, right? You know what I mean on that side I'm not gonna get too deep when it comes to like some of the sketchy artists, right on the phone or whatever But music marketer if you see somebody who's potentially sketchy Just don't take them. It's gonna give be more of a headache Then it's worth. All right That was the breakdown of 10 mistakes that you can make that can ruin your marketing campaign experience before it even gets started But it doesn't stop there if you want to understand how to build amusing marketing infrastructure to blow up your own career Or if you want to build one to blow up other people's career with an agency or record label Learn exactly how I did just that in this video right here Because this system that we built allowed us to not only blow up any artists We get hired by major labels and work with superstar artists and even help create their next hit in moment themselves Check out exactly how I did it