 Artists, there's something that you need to know, like really, really, really need to know, and it's going to change how you see this industry, this new industry, especially going forward because it's going to get worse. So it's important to have this context. And I'm going to go through it. So at least watch the first three minutes of this video, at least the first three minutes, but I'm going to go through it in even more detail to really give you the full perspective. All right. Now, I want to quickly tell you where this post is coming from. Now, as many of y'all know, I've been a part of a whole bunch of campaigns, very successful campaigns. My company alone has helped artists go from zero to hundreds of millions independently, major label campaigns, all this great stuff, right? And I say this for a reason not to brag or anything, but that context is important. Because under a post that I had on Instagram, an artist said something that made me realize y'all don't know this. Most of y'all don't understand this. So here's the new industry that you're in. Here's the reality that you're in. Artists are some of the biggest gatekeepers that exist in the game today. Artists. I mean, you, all right? And you might be more of one than you think. I'm going to tell you why. So this comment on one of my posts, I'm not going to go through all the details because it's a little less relevant, but just generally speaking, it was a repost and a little bit of my commentary on how many artists don't necessarily market their music, right? Just one of the typical things. It was a discussion. And one of the artists just had this feedback where I realized she thought explicitly that only major label artists have big budgets. And this is the reality that y'all need to be aware of. As a company who's truly been independent, right? The way I've built my career, it's been off of working with indie artists and doing a really, really good job. And then major labels hire us, not the other way around. Oh, we have these big names. And then all of a sudden, because we got big names, indie artists work with us. Why am I saying this? Because I'm very aware of this truth. Indie artists actually have the biggest budgets in most of the campaigns that I've worked. I know that sounds weird, right? And I think it's important I say this again. Indie artists have some of the biggest budgets out of most of the campaigns that I've worked. Seriously, right? That doesn't mean that they have the biggest budgets in the world, right? You'll see like, oh, this artist has $10,000, $20,000. And then the major label artists might only have $4,000. But I think there's a lot to be broken down about that and why that is. But that's not the point of this video. The point of this video is indie artists, no, not indie artists, artists, you, right? You might be a violator here, but artists actually are some of the biggest gatekeepers in the game that I've come across today. Seriously. And knowing this, like really processing this, it should change how you navigate all of this. I'm going to break down some reasons why and then I'm going to give you some even more insights that I get from just the seat that I have in the industry. But I'll start with this, because there's a few reasons, right? That artists are like this, that I've noticed. So, hey, Sean, y'all have been a part of taking artists from square one to square 20. Whoa, how come you can't talk about it? I've seen that artist post with you. All right? Well, that artist doesn't want people to see how they blew up. Many artists want the appearance that this was them. This was magic. People just love who they are, and it's all from that. I don't care if it's an indie artist. I don't care if it's a label artist. Most artists want the magic show. And to be fair, this is the entertainment industry, right? You want people to feel like it's magic, because if they see all the nuts and bolts, it doesn't feel quite as magical. It takes away some of the power when someone realized that was actually manipulated a little bit, right? That poster was on purpose. It wasn't an organic moment, right? That response to you or that person dancing to your music wasn't organic. That ruins things for many people. So if I hop on this channel, for instance, and then I walk through exactly how somebody has broken their career step by step, and I'm working with them directly, and I'm telling you, this is exactly what we did. Now, fans get to see that, not just artists, right? And they don't even want necessarily other artists to see it, not outside of hating and stealing. That does exist, trust me. I'll get into some of that. But there's just a reality of it. It just breaks the perception. And that perception isn't just a valuable thing in terms of the interaction and relationship with the fans. It's also an interaction and relationship with you, other artists that makes that valuable. That perception still needs to translate to you as well. They don't want some level of power and aura also comes into play when you're doing business with other people in the business. I'll say it like that, but artists don't want all their stuff out there, period. There's some clients that we have that you don't even know we've worked with and we'll never talk about that we worked with on the front end unless they explicitly say, hey, we can talk about this or we should talk about this. There'll be NDAs or sometimes a lot of it isn't even an NDA situation to be honest. I don't even make it seem like we're someone who was always signing those. A lot of it is just like good business. Hey, you're hiring me to do a service for you. So I'm not just about to throw all the business out there. You didn't hire me for me to be able to use your name in that particular fashion. You get what I'm saying? So understand that exists, right? And this is part of why one of the positive reasons that artists are some of the big gatekeepers in the industry. But secondly, many artists today, as a matter of fact, let me go to my handy dandy phone to make sure I was speaking with one of my songwriter friends and the songwriter friend was just talking about how the people would know that they were just a songwriter. So they would say stuff to them that they wouldn't say to the other artists and then they would kind of reveal certain, let's say competition and nastiness that exists. And I've heard artists talk about other artists in ways that they would never talk to another artist that way. However, because I guess I'm a marketer, it's a safe space and I'm not about to tell anybody's business. Yes. But like just even the idea I think of, well, if I talk to an artist, let's just say about money, then I sound like I'm not an artist. You get what I'm saying? And the other artists are like, you're not a safe space where I can have this financial commercial conversation, but you come to the marketer and then you reveal all these commercial ambitions, right? And the things that you're willing to navigate and adjust, right? Because it's a safe space. You're talking to a marketer, someone who understands a lot more in the business, they're not going to look down on you in the same way. So some of it's coming from that, but then also there's just a sheer competitive side of it where they are talking, you know, maybe down on an artist here or there, right? That exists just to let you know, right? There's reasons I'm saying that because this next thing is where it really comes into play. We are in an industry. This is this new industry where today, just as many artists are going to be selling you stuff as anybody else. Just as many artists are going to be selling you some level of service, some level of education, right? Of course, the traditional collaboration and things, but artists are starting to do marketing for other artists, do mixing for other artists. Like those are more traditional, but like there's so many other services and things that artists are offering and their position allows them to sell better to you, all right? So the artist becomes a gatekeeper in their own right of information, especially, right? And there's a reason I'm saying this. It's something that I've had to go through myself. But before I touch on that, I got to give a little bit more context on the artist side. Does the artist giving information bad? I don't think necessarily artists giving information is bad, but you also have to analyze an artist just like anybody else. So one, right? Does this artist have fans at all? Right? And if they have fans, do they have fans who are following them? Because I don't know, they give good advice, right? And they're loved by other artists, but they don't have fans that are outside the artist community because it's a little bit more difficult to train on how to build with regular people versus we built the relationship through the education side first. That's different than just from grounds up, right? The thing that I do from our clients, right? Or I've done for artists over the years, that's completely different. Okay? The second thing is if they have fans, were they responsible for gaining those fans? And then do they know more than one path? Right? And I've touched on this in the past video, but sometimes if I grow in one path, it doesn't mean I understand the other paths to other forms of artists and things like that. It doesn't mean everything that I'm saying, right? If I'm an artist, right? It doesn't mean everything that artist is saying is bad. It just might not be for you. No difference then. I might make a video talking about one particular growth path and that might not be for you. But it's something to be aware of. Why am I saying this though? A lot of artists are getting fooled by the fact that an artist is an artist. I don't know about other particular communities and races, but here's a good example. As a Black person, someone will reach out to you as being Black. And just because they're Black, kind of try to use that to take advantage of you, right? To get one over on you when they don't have the best intentions, right? It's like, just because we are the same in this category, doesn't mean that I can trust you to do right by me in business and all walks and forms of life. Right? Fair enough. The same thing I'm starting to see happen with artists based on the conversations I have on the back end. A lot of artists won't talk about them getting screwed over by other people. So I'm not calling any particular individual out. I'm only just saying these are things that you have to think about because the new industry has more and more and more of it. Again, sometimes it's just because they don't want their brand to be ruined, right? And sometimes it's really because I don't want these other people to have that information. I know artists. I can't tell you how many artists have dropped comments on my videos, right? Saying the game is meant to be sold, not told. Why are you putting all this information out there? Right? There's other artists thinking this way. Y'all might have seen those comments, right? These are other artists. So when you are aware of that, just know that should dictate how you navigate the game. Now with that being said, let me end the video with this right here because at the beginning of this video, I said that this post was actually inspired by a response to one of my Instagram posts where it became clear that this person thought that only major label artists have big budgets. They have the biggest budgets, but here's a truth that I think should inspire y'all, right? Or at least help you re-navigate, re-process the game. I'll say that. And what do I mean by that? So again, as someone who's worked a lot of campaigns, had a lot of clients, indie artists have had significant budgets, right? Most of our biggest budgets are indie artists. But how is that happening and why don't you know about it? Again, some of its brand, I actually know an artist that isn't going to be talking about money and they make millions and millions and millions. They have real estate in all these places and this is off of music money. You have people who make money other ways and come in, but they're not going to come out here and talk about it because they're not going to talk about it because it's going to ruin their brand, like to their fans, to look like they have that much money, right? Because now it's a cool thing to kind of, in some categories, to look like you're struggling or look like life is rougher than it is and they're afraid it's going to anger a few artists. You got to remember, y'all have heard me talk about this, right? We're about creative currency, the creativity and currency intersection. And as many people as much as possible, we want to talk to artists about how do you make money off of your music and what do your numbers look like if you aren't afraid to talk about those numbers? So shout out to Kato. He's one of the most transparent people we've had on the channel. He's the first person to come to mind. I don't know if there's somebody else that might pop up later, but Kato, the producer, he was very transparent about a lot of numbers and things they've been working with, but a lot of artists aren't hopping on to have that conversation, so we have to talk to him about other stuff. That's the reality. We want to, that's a huge part of the mission of the podcast that we have, but you got to find people who are willing to actually have that conversation, because that's the best way when y'all can actually hear directly from the person who's doing it and hear the numbers that they're making it. So you see the game differently in which results to artists, a lot of indie artists actually being the ones who have paid us for their campaigns and have been some of the biggest budgets. So that's one thing, but then there's this other side that I don't think y'all are aware of. A lot of artists are making money outside of the game and then bringing it into the game. And what you might not know that there are engineers, people who are making 200k a year in their regular job that still have the dream of being an artist. There's insert a lot of different professionals that are making a lot of money that still want to be an artist. I've talked to only fans, strippers, all type of characters that are making way more money than most artists, but still want to be an artist. Because one, it's a dream, it's a creative dream. And two, when you do find success at it, the level of popular success and fame is different. There's some people who are hungry for that aspect of it as well. But just be aware, there's so many people who have just good jobs and they're thugging it out, saving all their money for their campaigns. So the results to, oh, here's a 5,000, here's a 20,000, here's a 30,000 dollar campaign. That's a real thing. And then there's people who don't even have a great job, but they've grinded it out. And I got some college students who save like 5,000 dollars. Just know that the information that you get sold about the game or told and or people want you to assume in terms of like, oh, it's all labels with all these advantages and all financial advantages. And then everybody else is like down here. It's not true. All right. But you're not going to really find out about it till you're really, really in it because most people don't want you to find out about it for one reason or another. I'm not going to go back through some of those reasons. There are more reasons. Than what I've mentioned in the video, but those are just some of the tops. So hopefully that helps, right? And inspires you to let you know as an indie, you can run up the numbers and get money from other places, right? And figure out how to have a budget. And then on the other end, let you know that it's not as financially competitive in a gap as much as you would think. I can go and hold another video where I talk about label budgets. But when I tell you they're so much smaller than you think in the, in the, because of the way they work, you'd be surprised. You'd be very surprised. And it's partially why it's not worth signing to a lot of label deals, which know what I'm going to, I'm going to write that down. I want to do a separate video on that. But other than that, if you like this video, please subscribe this Saturday series is something I want to continue to do. And I appreciate everybody who subscribed straight up. And last but not least, if you want to chop it up with me, have some of these real conversations, get insights on your particular situation in terms of marketing, how you navigate, you can always find me at www.gottaputthatpartin.nolabelsnecessary.com slash 30 days where we are running are not only challenge, but also giving access to the tools that we're currently using to help artists grow. That's it. Peace.