 What's up everybody once again is brand man Sean and I'm back with another link up today I am linking up with Rocco where Don is another digital marketer and the guys done a lot man so we're going to get his perspective you're going to hear about a lot of the things he's done the people he's worked with some of the things he can talk about some he can't but even we're going to even touch on why he can't talk about certain things because it's going to give you guys a lot of perspective of how this game really does work and you know they won't keep it current talk about some of the things going on with marketing today so Rocco what's up man appreciate you getting on what's going on bro it's been a long time coming man yeah for sure man definitely you know been seeing you for a good minute you know we didn't hit each other up for the first time a good minute ago but you know some things you know they come together at a long speed everybody's working I'm glad to be able to really you know get deeper into the combos and like I still don't fully know you you know how'd you get your game started I know you mentioned that you you start off in traditional marketing so like did you were you in even in the music industry at all yeah yeah um I went to school for marketing and then my last year I had an internship with Selena Johnson's manager singer from Chicago okay so I have marketing internship with with her so you know I was helping her on her chapter chapter five underrated album I was the marketing intern for that family so that's what I when I say traditional marketing at that time it was 2011 so the whole digital marketing thing wasn't really like it wasn't really popped off yet at that time okay so to really paint a picture especially for people who don't have no idea like what what did traditional marketing look like what did your day to day look like at that time at that time it was pretty much just putting together helping to put it put together the rollout but it's more so grassroots it's more so like contacting media outlets like you know for tv or radio for magazines um and you know helping to put together tours and pop-ups and and events and interviews things like that you know I mean yeah yeah definitely um you know more institutional institution corporations like that yeah like like with the traditional gatekeeper yes yeah very very b2b in politics versus trait to consumer basically got you so from from there what what was it about that internship that made you keep going and say you wanted to do it in music I mean keep it a buck like I always wanted to work in music that wasn't even a question that was something I knew I wanted to do since I was a little kid when I saw puffs behind the music oh man and I found out you can work in music without being a musician I knew that that's that's where my career path was gonna go like it's never been a question dang so it's like oh it's a rap now it was crazy it's like I had like a street team internship with in a scope like like my freshman year at college and then I just fell off with the whole music thing all together work and what was it at that time like and I'm sure my age I'm 32 um at the time it was like shot boys party like a rock star yeah it was like uh so crispy kia shot it was like very microwavable disposable rap music out at the time and I just wasn't feeling it you know what I mean and then like I got into like I got more involved with college we were partying and living the college life and I just kind of just left it alone and then that internship just you know when we let it go it comes back to it just showed right back up so I just followed with that what's up so from the salina johnson internship where if we go down your path where do we get to a point where you're like okay I feel like I'm actually making an impact on our artist uh marketing campaign you might not necessarily be the sole impact but where you're like okay this campaign is really going and I see what this game really looks like um it was a it was when I went up with this artist producer named bellis um some people may or may not be familiar with him he actually just Grammy nominated again he produced no guidance Chris Brown and Drake right but back then I was one of the people who discovered him um he's from upstate new york he's lives like about an hour north of me oh and uh we basically ground up bro we came up together like I'm talking about like sharing sandwiches no money but trying to break into the music business and because he like wrote and produced everything on his own there were certain things we didn't need to pay for you know what I mean we didn't need to pay for you we didn't need to do all these things so a lot of it fell on me trying to like put place together to get things going for him right and what was more important than that there was a lot of trial and error a lot of things went wrong you know what I mean learned as well as we went um because that was around that same time when the blogs were really starting to pop up like the blogs were becoming relevant and breaking an artist right so I just I did I was like these traditional ways that I just learned I'm like this is not really right now it's it's dying and it's already hard to break in with an artist who's brand new forget how talented he's just he's new yeah so I was let me start working in media to facilitate helping him because if I could make those relationships on the blog and yeah I could that that was my logic behind the infiltrate exactly right but like I'm already like uh like that was that's one of my talents like I'm just a great writer so when I went into the media and it just took off what's from me going from blogging for funk flex and uh bj enough to go into the source to being editor at the source and all this time I'm like my network and the people I'm meeting I'm helping pull Bellis up and at the same time other people are seeing what I'm doing with Bellis and then they're reaching out to me like yo can you do the same thing for me and that's how like my personal business started to grow dope dope so you never wanted to be like a manager or anything in particular um yeah when I came into growing up and when I came in yeah that that's something that I always thought about but managing I realized it's just not and I'm sorry if I'm saying things that are kind of too real and too harsh no that's that's that's how we need it it's not true but like I feel like management in this game is like um it's one of the worst jobs you can have in the music business a lot of people who are thirsty to be management it's just kind of like you you might be playing yourself why why is that explain because a manager essentially has no security you can be fired you can be let go at any point so if you come in the game with an artist that you're managing and you're putting together your resources your time your energy to help them get to point B like the way this game works a lot of the people who are at the top of management the reason why they're there is because once the new artists the new fresh new artist shows up on the block mr big-time manager that everybody knows is going to show up in his Porsche and like put his arm around your artist and be like thanks for coming out I'll take it from here and you're gone right yeah and it's a hard job because it's just kind of like it's kind of really just like adult babysitting for real you know what I mean and it's a thankless job for sure thankless job it's a tough job and there's no security so why so that's not a rock that one is that's not even something that happened to me that's something that I've seen happen to so many people and I'm just like I would never do that yeah nah I mean I think that's a pretty fair analysis in a lot of ways in so many situations it's definitely not I mean then you always have to not only are you babysitting in many instances not all artists but a large majority I'm in a lot of cases you uh you're also basically putting your life on this person you know man so it was like you got to only encourage them but you they are lazy or they are whatever whatever the issues are that means there's money that's not going in you so it just creates a whole weird dynamic of course there's some great manager artists situations out there but I definitely I definitely agree it's definitely a tough job and it's not for everybody including me I'm with you I with you so when you knew you weren't going to be a manager where you um I mean because you and that's why I asked because you were working with Bella so I'm like oh okay maybe you might say I'm gonna become a manager especially be it was you know is he your artist artist like was he trying to be friend artist or was he just trying to be back he was a songwriter he was he was um signed to a production company that I was working with right and so it wasn't a manager situation it was just he was signed to a production company and um the goal at that time was to build him up to get to a label situation you know what I mean and then actually um we ended up meeting up with vinyls vinyls is one of the OVO OVO's top producers a lot of records that you've seen Vellis have production on co-production is with vinyls of course we met vinyls we met a lot of people along the way and this is from like going to events going down to SOBs to Santos to Irving Plaza to all these places just going to events is networking meeting people like yo and um and I'm kind of veering off right now but I'm just remembering this thing this gem that I just learned in that journey is when you're trying to come up as an artist stop trying to appeal to the people that are already on like if you're an artist or like yo you see this artist that came to perform here you're trying to get backstage to link with him and his management don't do that like network and work with the people that are on your level because y'all are the next generation y'all are going to come up together work laterally like you guys can help each other so that a lot of that was going on there's a lot of there's artists that you know Vellis did production for and in exchange for like verses and connections and there was a lot of bartering going on in those days you know but I kind of veered off a question so I forgot you said um was he was he signed right well yeah I was asking what what was the aspiration essentially was he looking to be about a writer producer type or was he also somebody who wanted to be an artist you know and be that guy artist an artist um definitely looking to be an artist but you know when you're coming up you have to use everything at your disposal to try to get on so if you're a producer songwriter and that's what's going to get you in the door that's what's going to get you in the door you know I mean and once you're in the door it's up to you to maneuver from there well hundred percent so for you then I mean you came you came in traditional marketing you started doing this this stuff as far as writing go to those relationships were you were you pretty much content with that bag and you just stayed running running that thing or did you or did you ever say you wanted to do or did you just or did you just kind of do that in the meantime why you were trying to figure something else because you slow key kind of fell into that you were trying to help Vellis and now this thing is popping off like what was your mindset at that time and I'm just trying to get an idea of how you navigate through the game because I think that you know here how other people are navigated it can help us move forward you know what I mean at that time if I was comfortable with that bag there was no bag at that time like for for like the first few years literally like no money like zero dollars and like I mean like working nonstop but making no money right and I didn't have it's like I didn't have a day job at the time because in my mind this is how naive I was I felt like I met an artist so talented that oh we're gonna make it soon I don't need to go get a job I had got laid off I was working um at this firm um in one of the top firms actually like as an office assistant in Westchester and I got laid off and I'm like I'm not even looking for a new job we're gonna be on by the end of the year straight and then that didn't happen and what a lot of people don't know is a lot of these bloggers and writers and people that work in media they don't make much money if they make any money at all right not and that was a reality that I had to learn immediately so when people were coming to me like um can you do for me what you do what I see you doing for Belis I kind of had to do that just to make money you know what I mean got you got you okay so when you what is uh what let's start right there like the writers and all them people you said a lot of them don't make money why is that like what's the situation I really look like for for most writers um most writers like they might make like and let me not front on um hot 97 because I did get paid there okay not right away and it wasn't much it was very little it was very little but it was something because some places don't give you nothing right got you um it's pretty like like it's shocking how how many writers don't make any money at all it's it's shocking like if people knew like a lot of people like let's say you and I heard on Scotty Bean from hot 97 Sators she was just like yo um people looking at Target on Walmart be coming up to her like oh you work out hot 97 and she's like yo you don't even know like you making money to me like that's the reality yeah yeah so what's the what's the hustle that people look to navigate right if I'm gonna be a writer what is what am I looking towards to make real money am I because if I'm coming in the game that way am I gonna look to finesse it into my own publication like what am I finesse it to bro like that's why a lot of these writers are angry that's why straight up like there is no there is no um grand plan because it's like you work here you work here you're not making much money either place you're working right and like for me for me I was just like in hell nah no way like I have some so that's when the idea of the rap fest came about and the rap fest I literally like sat in like my bedroom at the time I was living in my mom's grave rent free of course because that was a saving grace yeah me and I was sitting in my bedroom and like I remember being on a WordPress just just putting everything together built the website built the staff um and that the goal in that was to um have my own publication and I remember thinking to myself like yo I'm gonna launch this it's gonna be lit and I'm gonna pay everybody and I'm all the best writers come work for me because I'm gonna pay everybody but that's that's another story because it's just kind of like the the partner that I had at the time um one of them I was partners with him on rap fest and with the Bella situation and then we all ended up um parting ways with him you know what I mean yeah and that was that was um I it was rough for me to do because it's like you build something from scratch and you want to become this thing that everybody in the industry knows about and but you have to walk away from it because the shit ain't right you know what I mean so it's like that's why I said in my life like I started over from scratch more than once you know what I mean so yeah so so like when it comes to like people writing I always used to like try to like get people talk to writers and be like yo let's we can do this we can do that let's come together and do our own like thing and like really like we all have it but let's let's form our own thing and this is that but I realized quickly that a lot of people they just want to write but they're not business minded right and they don't want to they're not eager to own anything they just want to just get a check no matter how little it is so I was just like okay I'm good and you know that's that got you okay cool well man yeah yeah I'm not gonna go all deep into that direction because just that whole writing thing is is is something in and of itself but shifting back you said what it's a dying art form too people don't read me that look that too people you can you write whatever it's better just create videos like that's why youtube is so popping that's why like that's why we're here on youtube you know what I mean that's that's why it is so when you switched over well I mean your next move into marketing right like tell me like after like after Bella's like you worked with so many artists and situations you had certain things pop off bring up tell me about one of the situations and what you learned like one of your successes you know I mean and then we might get into like a little more failure type situation but kind of what did you learn from it and some of the nuances giving people an idea of the back end and whatever it looks like from a marketing standpoint if you can go that deep you know I know you know we can only talk about so much in some of these situations I guess I guess the biggest success I guess you can say for me is as well as because I was working with him from the very beginning from like 2012 all the way up to like 2017 right and we're still cool we're still very cool yeah and the the thing with that is um I was working with him from when traditional marketing was still prevalent all the way digital marketing is like the number one that's why and um like watching how media changed in terms of like think about it like this so in 2012 within a few months of working with him we had his music video on on uh at the time it was mtv jams it wasn't even bt jams yeah dang it was before the rants were and it was huge for us but then we realized like you know and this is a lesson learned for a lot of these artists that want to get the video um up on tv it's like yo that video was up there for a weekend right and it got played a handful of times and then after that it was over so it's kind of like in the moment yeah but after that it's just kind of like what's next and then it became the the learning experience there was a lot of times artists come into the game thinking that they're gonna meet one person or they're gonna land on this platform and then the moment that they land on this platform it's all gonna change after that and they're lit no that's just a look that's just part of what it's it's gonna help what you're trying to do but no one thing is going to be what takes you over the top or i do you know what i mean yeah yeah it's like yeah you gotta keep that job going man you can take pictures with people and all that kind of stuff and then you leave and then you know man that was a nice part of it weekend which is still the same bed and like and like i saw how how things changed because i remember when because through my barber through my barber uh jerry oates um he's like a celebrity barber but he's a kid i grew up with right mm-hmm he used to cut a french montana's manager's hair okay so i used to bring velas to the shop and then from that was the connection with french's manager at the time and us so then french wanted to sign velas so then velas gives him a batch of beats and then one of those beats ends up in the hands of carrie west and that song is called all day right though and that was the first big placement right and then at that time at that time that's when i started like really learning um like the cut throat legalities of the music business at a high level like in terms of like you know paperwork and things like that and just seeing like and it's just kind of like being new to all of this yeah and kind of like have been so many questions but kind of not being able to ask questions because you don't want to like show your hand you know what i mean and then at the same time when all day did drop like the moment kanya performed that bro all these connections that i had made over the years some of these people already knew i was working with velas some of them were already aware of them bro i hit up everybody for a press and because all day everyone was talking about it so crazy at the time and this is like shows you um and i'm gonna this is um an example for a larger that i'm gonna make but like i because all day was so hot and velas was the co-producer of it everybody picked up my phone everybody answered my email it was like that yeah like i got them on mtv news i got them on this i got them on that i got them on this i got them and that and then that lesson the lesson i want people to get from that is when you're trying to hire someone to represent you or someone to um do pr for you or any type of marketing to help you get ahead what you have to look at is not the big name people that they worked with you have to look like because you could like like um i remember i did us like um i was the associate producer for nipsey hustle documentary right that sent that email out to every publication every publication responded right but just because i have these relationships doesn't mean that i am so small from up the block that i'm gonna reach out to them and they're gonna fuck with you right so like so so so like when i'm like when i'm like referring people to publicists like my god quinelle holder coach q i always mention his name even people like sasha pistome i mentioned her name as well these are people whenever people ask for publicists i always recommend them because i know for a fact that i've watched them taking artists that nobody knows work them and put them in the conversation that's who you need to hire like for anything pr just a marketing specialist a consultant whatever someone who you can see a case study of when they've taken an artist that nobody knows and put them up here because like when you see these people that are already already working with established artists that's not really showing me nothing nope you know what i mean like everybody that doesn't tell me that you you have the leverage to pull that those those clients their name um is is your pool yep why do you resent and the sad thing is a lot of these uh people the don't work for these big clients but then these um up and coming artists will see them be like oh yeah let me hire you and then they'll just take the money and just do nothing hey man it happens every day so sometimes i wonder why it's like man you got so many big clients why why are you why are you taking these these dudes shit man but um but yeah i mean that that's a huge point man because especially the way the industry set up when we talk about even bigger artists you can come in let's just say you go to college do an internship at atlantic or just insert whatever label work for those labels because you're at that label you're going to be doing something on said artist project right some kind of big name artist project and it might not even be big whatever you know but you did something to the point where you can kind of put them in your portfolio but it doesn't it doesn't really add up to like you said the pool to actually be able to move the needle it's a cash 22 also because even for me like I didn't put my website up until like I think last July or last June I finally really put my website together and showed a lot of the work that I've done prior to that all my clientele all of it came through word of mouth and referrals mm-hmm right and um and I realized that a lot of people who didn't know me who would maybe heard about me like I'm talking about your local rapper or your local rapper manager talking to me like well I don't know who you are so you got to prove yourself like nah right but you're basically trying to find us but then when but then I also see the the on purpose of showing your portfolio showing I did this because then it kind of like makes people respect your respect your resume you know what I mean like talk to you you hear me yeah I mean it's that like you said it's the cash 22 and you're executing the people who need to know will know and you have plenty of word of mouth business and then yeah it is that situation especially when you're dealing with I mean sometimes honestly it'd be somebody you like you don't even want to do work for you like me prove myself to you like bro I'm straight what do you mean prove myself to you after after I got my money up because I like I had been saving my money been smuggling me bro like for the past like a few several years if I see it's going to be a stressful situation nope I don't care how talented like and there's been times where I take the money and then start working and I see red flags popping up like not following directions or not being lazy or just the whole nine I send out I don't even tell them I'm refunding them I just refund that yeah I've had to do that a couple times yeah so I mean all right so this is the perfect segue though into like what do artists do wrong because I I think so many artists are afraid of getting scammed right which just so many people scamming out there they don't understand like they can't even identify when they're dealing with somebody who's actually real and actually doing this stuff and they don't know that those their baggage almost like a you know boyfriend girlfriend relationship that baggage you bring in from that stuff to the right people like it's like they're not for it bro yeah they're trying to get rid of you they're like nah I rather give you money back I don't want that headache like I'm not trying to scare me I don't want to because you know if if you are scamming people and you're trying to do it the right way you're only gonna ruin your name anyway that's a short lived game so tell me what artists yeah what artists do wrong what what can as a matter of fact we'll start here like what can get them fired by by you um the quickest thing is just kind of like not understanding boundaries like in terms of um you're blowing up my phone all day long about random stuff like expecting me to be just job everything I'm doing to tend to your your bs at all points in a day or like um someone like you said that baggage from being afraid of getting scammed so now it's just kind of like every little thing is like over analyzed and over it's almost as if they're looking to find something that's wrong right and then it's kind of like when they don't understand something they start to pick like and it's just kind of like like um I had um a client um signed up for um uh a distribution service just to kind of help them right and then like there was something that they didn't understand and then I guess they thought that I steered them in the wrong direction and they started panicking right and just like call please call now call now it's like and it's just kind of like bro just read the thing like you just read it please like I can't keep doing this at the time like you know I mean but the but the most important thing that really like makes me not deal with artists is people who just don't follow directions because as someone who does marketing and represents clients like I have my job but you have things you have to do as well to make this work right yeah so I'm very clear on what you should expect with me and what I expect of you so if you say you understand and these are things that I write out like I give to them so it's like you can't because there's a lot of people and you know there's people like you can't just talk to them on the phone like you got to like make sure you send that email or that text message so it's in black and white so you can't say that I didn't tell you yeah and it's like you let them know what what's expected of them and they just don't follow directions and because they don't follow follow up on there and things are not working as good as they could and then guess who they start to bring yeah so now because the old me because like when I needed the money I would keep working but now that I don't need the money it's just kind of like if I already see you not following directions this whole thing is not going to work so who cares like here's your money back onto the next yeah it's like you only have job orders not worth it and it's like and it's like um the artists the clients that I've worked with or collaborated with people on certain projects whether the people follow directions it works perfectly perfectly yes sir yes sir so why is it so because I and I didn't even know that when I first really got into it and I actually had to have a client that was doing doing work like really putting in in concert with what I was doing that was my when it first clicked it's like oh shit this is the difference this person is you know is doing it yeah it takes it takes a whole perspective and then you start looking like I need more people like this because then what I do is really going to accelerate it and it's all going to work versus somebody else is like you just being on a dead horse what is um like when it when it comes to I mean how artists should approach marketing right now let's say if they can't work with any kind of like marketer like anybody who's an expert per se or whatever right like if they just have to try to figure it out themselves what would you tell them to do today well the first thing I would tell them is to take take a you can still keep recording your music yeah before you decide to put your music out go on the internet and learn do your due diligence learn about how things work like learn about um licenses and copyrights and things like that like like there's people who come to me to do work and they don't even have their paperwork together so it's like if this shit does take off you can't even make money off of it right yeah so there's that but then also like one of the ways when we were coming up with vellis one of the ways that I did was I would like look at like source or xxl magazine or mtv gyms or whatever and I would see someone up there and like how'd they get up here like someone who's like maybe I'm like I'm just finding out about them I'm like how they get up here then I'll go work backwards and find out okay who did they work with what did they do like the people who are where you want to be find out what they did to get there that doesn't mean you have to copy it step for step but just knowing what is available to you is going to help you right like um one of the best sayings ever in life is if you keep doing something and it's not working and you keep doing it that's the definition of their insanity right and this is kind of like there's people I'm sure you know just people you grew up with that I've been making music for 10 15 years and they're still local it's not that they make bad music it's just that they haven't changed their approach at all right so it's like nowadays there's different ways for an artist to break the best way for an artist to break right now um and I tell this to every client even if it's not a client I tell them is consistency providing content and not and when I say content I don't mean just your song if you are an artist in 2020 and you're releasing music on the internet and you don't have a music video your song doesn't exist nobody's going to be checking for it and at that point you're really just hoping to get lucky that's essentially that's what you're doing so it's like if you sit back for a whole year and you play you learn the game and you put together a strategy it might not be the best strategy but you you put together some sort of strategy and you save up you stack up your money by the time you are ready to drop your music you're going to be um in far better shape to have success than if you just record your music you can just start it out sporadically you know what I mean one year of hard research and learning six months of that could save you a lot of time wasted and a lot save you a lot of money Michelle Michelle yeah I think preparation is is definitely underrated and this whole just get out there it's cool you can build stuff you can test and experiment but making sure you put more time into your preparation making more creative creative in your video you know whatever that is just spending time on the front end can definitely save you back in headaches so all right outside of of that then if I'm all right I'm gonna prepare I'm gonna really get myself in the right mindset understand the game a lot more and definitely that reverse engineer from where artists are who they work with is a huge gem I hope that doesn't go over people's head you definitely need to do that what is um what are some of the most interesting platforms popping right now to you in terms of marketing for artists I think um it's not necessarily um the platforms it's how you use it okay so it's just kind of like people are talking about tiktok right now right and it's just kind of like going back to our point about just throwing shit out there sporadically there's people who are popping off tiktok right now roddy rich is someone whose song just blew up now um just because that happened for him doesn't mean that now you should just take whatever money you have and just start throwing it at influencers just hoping that the same shit happens for you all right that's not how that that's not how that really works like you should um whether it's instagram influencers tiktok influencers yo make sure that the people that you're reaching out to their audience makes sense for your music right make sure that make sure that at least there's a connection there yeah and then also learn the platform like if once you learn instagram you're going to be able to know okay who's who's got fake followers who's got fake likes who's who's faking it who or who has low engagement like where you shouldn't be spending your money like you know what i mean just because it's just because it's a platform doesn't mean you should be spending your money there you get what i'm saying why the result so it's also like a combination of things like i always say like people come in and they're like there's some clients that i have reoccur and it's just like you tell them but hey you want to keep spending money fine they come in and they're like yeah you know i want to um do put some uh some Spotify on my shit and then do some play listing the numbers go up and then a few months later to come back yeah i'm gonna put some Spotify on my shit but it's kind of like bro what about if you just that money that you're spending on that spotify and you're boosting your streams what about if you just save up your money and then talk to me and let's figure it out or just figure it out on your own about like okay i'm gonna put x amount on Spotify i'm gonna put x amount on with these instagram influencers these tiktok influencers i'm gonna run advertising here you know what i mean and then that's when you're really gonna see a change in your in your trajectory but as far but as far as the most the platform that's i feel like the most effective is definitely the advertising 110 percent yes it's it's so underrated and i always have to like explain to people like the importance of it and how effective it is it's it's a matter of it's there everyone could do it but it's who's doing it uh-huh that's the difference yep it's all right i remember like i was talking to a client this is like yeah yeah i'm not gonna go through y'all no more i figured out that for i figured out y'all formula i was like word good yeah i love it i love when that happens bro it's just like it's a difference between hiring people who know what they're doing and people who don't know what they're doing yeah yeah uh yeah i mean they just makes me think it's the direct to consumer it's taking away the gatekeepers yeah it's taking away all the middle man riff raff and all that stuff it's because essentially a lot of what's happening in marketing is product placement it's i put my product my song here and hopefully enough people hear it and out of the people who hear it hopefully they like it yep that that's that's the basic concept for radio or tv for blogs for playlists for so much so many different aspects in this but advertising when done correctly it goes directly to the type of people who like the type of content that you're creating like there's so many sub genres of hip hop a lot of others of music it's just kind of like j-cold fans and comethazine fans are not the same people i love yeah yeah you know me so this is kind of like who who's your audience and find them and you go right to them and they decide whether or not your shit is popping and that and that's why i like like working with gents and like working with working on artist campaigns and where we're doing some advertising we're doing some Spotify playlists where we're putting together this campaign they're following directions and then within within two three months they're out of here yeah it's definitely a huge difference and it's always funny when artists think they have something figured out and they they don't understand even if you say hey i'm doing you do a Spotify campaign or you are doing advertising it's like yes understanding that this is happening doesn't mean you know how to do it and execute it and understand the nuances and it's always like hey you know you know best of luck to you but yeah it's funny how many artists are do that you can hear i've i even had conversations with certain artists and i'm i can tell that they're trying to hear it to figure out how not to need me it's like i mean that's cool go ahead and try and then you see that numbers don't go up anymore and it is what it is so my favorite my favorite thing is when um people come to me and they're like they see my prices because that's part of the thing in life you got to realize your value and and put a price tag on that shit you can give your shit away just for and that's another story for another day because i've worked a lot of shit for free yeah i got you know what i mean and got and got nothing out of it on the above like yo when we on what's going on yep they got 100% but um but i'm like it's it's just like when you um when you're talking to these people and they're like well such and such could do it for this price for me but it's just that and then all right go ahead go to them and then when they come back after they've been scammed or it didn't work yeah and it's like yo can you work for me on a discount because you know i went with it's like that's not my problem sir yep yep you don't waste a half your budget already oh well yeah yeah yeah i mean understanding how to analyze and figure out the right people it's definitely a to be a skill in and of itself well and there's something that you can leave i'll say artists no no no i say somebody who wants to be like you there's something you can leave people who want to do what you do or like or even just be professional in the industry to succeed like what's that gem that you would leave them with that you learn um i would say definitely bring value everywhere you go and also in this cutthroat business never put yourself in a position where your future is in someone else's hands um because if you have value if things fall apart like they like that which has happened to me in the past where i've had to basically start over start from scratch or or you know lost out on certain situations i would be out of the business and i know a lot of people like that who things fell apart and then you did just they just left the business altogether but because i've expanded my skill set i've learned different things i'm constantly learning i'm constantly trying to improve on the things that i already know and trying to find the next wave or trying to find like you know what i mean always adding value like the the true measure of someone i always say is if they leave a situation and the situation falls apart that's when you know yep you get what i'm saying all day all day well hey man it just doesn't open that that that last part is something that people can definitely pay attention to watch who moves situations and there's constantly success wherever they are you'll start to find out if not necessarily all the always the people who are saying is them or it's not always the people that are taking the pictures that are like you know at every event or whatever yep these are people who are branding themselves very well yes that doesn't even can do the work for you 100 100 so um with that man again is rock over thine you can follow him on ig at roundface rocko anywhere else you want him to follow you or check you out um roundface rocko on ig twitter and my website rock over thon.com that's what's up man all that information of course to be below on the screen all that good stuff it's yet again another link up if you like this video go ahead like button if you like it you might as well share and if you're not subscribed you know what to do hit that subscribe but