 What's up? What's up? What's up? I'm Sean and I'm Kory and we're back with episode number 30 of No Labels Necessary. You can catch us every Tuesday, every Thursday on YouTube, Apple Music, Spotify, wherever you stream your podcast, talking about music and content culture. And of course, we're back and starting with advice as always. Some of y'all might notice that the room looks a little different and don't have a black background. We're in process of making podcast progress. We did one thing and one step at a time. One step at a time, baby, one step at a time and it always, as always, rather, let's get into the first thing that we like to touch on with just some advice. I think so many of you artists can take on this advice. The attention is in the details, but the most important part of this is the person who sang and the story behind it. Artists, listen up, check out this video from Anderson Pack. Anderson, Anderson Pack, I kept the dot there because I remember, I'm interested in saying, you know, you got all the talent in the world, but you don't have really much work ethic. And I think if you just lock yourself in a room and work on just you for a certain amount of time, you could probably come out of it with something, you know. And at the time I was playing drums for this person. I was trying to make beats for this person. I was rapping. I was doing so much stuff because I could. I was capable of it, but I ain't ever just, okay, let's just make an album just for me. And let's let's figure out what the sound I want and what is my voice, you know, trying to find it. And after I came out of that process, like I kept the dot there. Don't remind me that you got to pay attention to detail. Got to pay attention. Gots to Gots to and that quote right there is is dope because you obviously see what Anderson Pack has become. Right? I was like, this is a younger Anderson Pack, right? Is this recent Anderson? This is recent. He looked different. He looked younger. Like, look, like he's aged backwards. You know what I'm saying? That's called life is good. Money is right. Apparently, man. Man, this is like the 1920s. Well, okay, this is relatively real. So, you know, it's not younger Anderson Pack because the part of his story is he got fired from a weed farm and he was homeless for a while. I don't know that. He worked on a weed farm and his wife and his kid were on the streets for a little bit. So, I don't think they interviewed that guy. Yeah, he looked healthy with a home. Yeah, he was being wealthy. You see? So look, there's a couple of things that he said. The attention to detail appeared in his name. I think that's dope. Have a nice reminder and everything, but number one, there's a lot of artists that I talked to that struggle with the idea of being good at multiple things. Yeah. Great even, right? And it's one thing to say you're good at multiple things and you aren't really in your delusional. We can always talk about that much, but let's talk about the ones that truly are like pretty dope at multiple things. Right? Yeah, yeah. One, how do you focus? All right. Things are coming so easy to you. Where is the work ethic? Because you don't have to work to wild people. Yeah. Like the genius student, you know what I'm saying? Like that whole thing. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So I think when you look at Anderson, that's a great example because he actually did like move around so much. I remember when he popped back up. I was like, man, it was foreign that he rapped more than he sang for a period of time than I was hearing him sing more for a period of time. Just the way I was personally introduced to him, right? And everything I heard was dope and high quality, even if some songs might not have been my favorite type of song, right? I could recognize that's high quality. I've never seen him do something that I didn't think was quality. So he has that ability to obviously be great in multiple areas. But the biggest part outside of, oh, you know, whether it's a hard work, beast talent, doesn't work hard, right? Outside of that aspect of it. The fact that Anderson, in fact, talked about finding his sound. That's another big thing that I see a lot of talented musicians face because I can go mimic this person, mimic that person, write a song for this person and that person and that person. And I'm spending so much time doing that and offering my services and my creativity elsewhere. I never spend time finding my own personal sound. Yeah. Yeah, I would think it would be a little bit easier for songwriters though because they get to kind of like, see where to stay away from, right? Like people are asking you for certain sounds over and I could be wrong. I would love to hear like a songwriter's perspective on this. But I would think like, hey, everybody's hitting me up saying I want the weekend sound. That means I know all my shit needs to be over here. You know what I'm saying? My shit needs to kind of sound level. Like I would kind of, you know, I could see that perspective from like a market aspect of it. But I think the problem that a lot of them face is not knowing what marketplace void to feel. Cause actually that's a part of the problem. Yeah. You're thinking about the market void from a business perspective, but never still finding yourself. Yeah. Right? That's the point. Yeah. I'm always being a chameleon putting myself in all these different identities. It's like being an actor. Yeah. Right? It's like, so now I have, and I want to write from a reality perspective. I have to think and project myself in that space and then write from it. I get out of touch with writing from who I am and expressing it in a way that touches people in a way that feels different. Cause I'm always hijacking other people. Right? Yeah. So I was like, who am I? And we know a lot of songwriters who have written a lot of songs for people, but don't have that career or find trouble getting over that hump. And you know they're dope. So you're like, man, how come, you know, they create that joint for them. It doesn't hit the song. You know, the pin game. The pin game is the exact, exactly the pins. I feel like they can't connect in the same way. And I'm not even talking about, oh, because you gave your best song away to somebody else. No, even when you sang that song, it just, it didn't scratch the same. Yeah. You know what I mean? So that finding yourself is probably an issue that a lot of artists face because, you know, I feel like being creative is one of those spaces that when you're creative, especially musically, you tend to be creative at multiple things, good at multiple things, because it falls under the box of creativity. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's like being athletic, right? I'm athletic. I go play a sport that I never really heard of and I'll be getting that shit in like two days. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can go run, play soccer now. I never play soccer and I'll be doing all kind of crazy shit because I just see it. I'm always like making fun of soccer people in my head, but it looks like I know what I'm doing because I've just been making fun. Oh man. You know what I'm saying? I get what you're saying, but I don't know what you're saying. You know what I'm saying? I don't even know what you're saying. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. All right. We all probably have arenas like that though, right? And creativity is like that type of arena is like what is really the difference between, you know, one song versus another song? If you really are a writer, right? If you really are a singer, how many singers do we know? I mean, yeah, I can sing country style. I can sing like R&B style. Like both voice wise, you might not feel it as strong, right? Because it's not as I think for me from different ones, but like I can do it. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So I think the understated part when it comes to being artists is spending that time to find out who the fuck you are. Yeah. But even to your first point, like what does the artist that is good at a lot of things that, you know, hypothetically speaking, let's just say I'm just all around creative. Like I want to do music. Maybe music is like here for me, but I'm really great at engineering and I'm really great at graphic design. Decent. Decent's a good at music, yeah. But I'm really great at these other things. How do I know that me is not within that graphic design lane? You know what I'm saying? Like, but I'm over here chasing music artist lane or even vice versa. How do I know not even put my energy into this thing just because I'm good at it? Even though, you know, because me might be over here and an artist. That's the catch, right? Because you got people who not only are they good at multiple things, they actually like those multiple things or even love it. And how do you know? I don't think you actually do. I think you just have to pick. That's how I think. Like a straight logic. And then the rest of it, let God unravel it as I go. Oh, some random opportunity that I wasn't intentionally looking for at the moment. I was engineering and all of a sudden they were like, hey, you need to be singing or I was singing. And then I helped somebody on the boards and they're like, okay, man, you're engineering and can you help me out with it? Like Anderson. Well, Anderson hopping around helping a lot of people, right? He's executive produced projects and you can hear. I forgot it was somebody's project that I'm thinking of that was so cohesive and sound so good. I feel like it was a female artist that Anderson did. But using that, right skill set, not even singing on the project at all or rapping on the project at all. And then obviously he did this stuff with Bruno Mars. Obviously he's done the stuff by himself. I think within the professional realm of it, people like when they know, they know, like they recognize, oh yeah, you got that skill set and then they'll call on it. But from the space that you want to capitalize on primarily, I think you just got to pick. Yeah, I agree. I think picking and sticking with one long enough to be able to like accurately assess opportunity costs. Opportunity costs? Yes. You know, because I don't know who was it, but I remember a hand of, you know, one of these in that group of motherfuckers says something along the lines of like, you know, that could be a good opportunity, like a good opportunity to stop you from a great opportunity. So it's not a bad thing. It's not negative if you go through this thing. So there's possibly a thing that's a step or two above this that you now don't have the time for. You know, and I feel like the only way to truly know that, even if I didn't know, because like you said, you'll never really know what's even just feel good about it. I think it's to have done each of those things that you do love or like, there could be you enough that you can start to like look out to the future and see what might come if I stick this. Test it out a little bit, see what it looks like for you. Yeah, it's not possible for you. So like you're the artist, engineer, cover art guy and like you take, I don't know, a month to seriously promote your cover art business. And you know, in that month, you end up getting like eight clients or some shit. And then you learn that four of them are annoying because they want unlimited edits all the time. And you're like, no, I really like this edit. I like doing the first one draft because it's straight out my brain. But I don't really like this edit shit, right? Then you know, now you know, like, hey, if I continue down this path, it is going to be more of this, right? Because this is really all it is. Like you assume, if I grow and scale this thing, whatever comes with it, I can assume that's going to multiply anywhere from two to, you know, infinite times over, you understand, depending on how successful you are. That part's fair. That part's fair. The reason I default to just pick, because a lot of times when I talk to people in this space, they overthink. And there's nothing that's truly stopping them from starting, but they can't even start, you know? And I have this concept where I believe that nobody is necessarily starting in their place of purpose, right? Or the place of extreme passion. Some there might be a small portion that are extremely lucky to like hit that groove right off the back. You know, five years old, you know, you want to be a basketball player. I got a homegirl for five years, girl. Oh, she wanted to know she knew she wanted to be a doctor, not a doctor. A dentist. Like, and she's a dentist now. Like that. Okay. Right. But that's rare. Yeah. Most people are in a space where they need to build a skill set. Right. Yeah. Like because your passion isn't necessarily here yet. But if you don't develop the skill set to do things on a high level when your passion comes, you're not going to be able to take full advantage of it. Yeah. Right. When that purpose, that opportunity comes, you're not going to be able to take advantage of it. So just because I get used to achieving things at a high level, I built, I don't know. This festival where we built the YouTube, we built a marketing company. We've done these things and have these skill sets. And all of a sudden, you know, you talk about the, the hair-related business. I don't want to put your shit out there. You know what I'm saying? But like you might find that opportunity and now you got all of these skills that allow you to cap on that space and that could be your thing thing. Yeah. Right. So a lot of times people spend so much time not doing anything, they don't develop a skill set and then all this time passes. If that thing finally comes, they can't even take advantage of it. Yeah. See, I feel like you just opened a different deeper conversation, which is not being prepared for the thing that you want to be our thing. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Cause I do think that's, that's, that's very real. I feel like, especially in music, bro, if you sell yourself hard enough and you try hard enough, you eventually will be put in a situation that you always don't just have a boy like, oh, shit. I really want to, like I've had campaigns before in the past. I was like, I really, I really gotta do all this shit I talked about on the call. You know what I'm saying? But then the person that typically I will argue really wants it or cares about it, they figure it out, right? Maybe figure out a hand probably gonna fuck this up. I'm gonna figure out how not to fuck it up so much. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm, I'm shooting for 80% completion rate. So they ain't like too upset, right? But then the ones that don't really care about it, they usually drop the ball and let the whole, the whole shit burn. You know what I'm saying? Cause it's like, cause in that moment, they realize I didn't really want to do this shit. You know what I'm saying? I was not prepared for the thing I thought I wanted to do. And then, now going through the motions has taught me that I don't want to do that. Like I've been in that situation before, like need deep in a job or position that I just knew I wanted. And then you start and you're like, nah, this is terrible. You know what I'm saying? I don't want to be doing this all day. So I think those are like two, like two different styles of the same coin. Kind of like not knowing and then also knowing, but not being prepared for, you know what I'm saying? Because you haven't gone through enough experiences and things that maybe aren't what you're passionate about. Cause I do believe that like jobs that you aren't passionate about, they, like you said, teach you skills that will help you once you figure out what that is and they keep you motivated to figure that shot. Bro, like, you know what I'm saying? About my last like day job, you know what I'm saying? Like working at the clothing store to stand. You know how many times I was like, I can't wait to get out this shit and start this marketing shift where I can't wait to have campaigns. I can't wait to do these videos. And it's like, that was all I thought about every day. We're like, I can't wait to get out this shit. And I feel like that's what that's what that's what the other shit is for. You know what I'm saying? Like it's a brand new life skills and to remind you that you need to get out this shit and go do the thing that you want to do. That's a fact. Hey bro, you didn't know that standing up all day at the clothing store will prepare you to stand up at concerts. That's a good point. Or even trying to sell used t-shirts to people surprisingly does transfer over to China gets more clear like a 20 K. Yeah, that's right. So why need this? Yeah, man. It was good on you, man. The X Y's here look great. Come on, man. Hey, hey. It's a little used, but it's gonna work. Obviously, we're working hard. It's working. But we need to start recruiting out there. Out there, you know. And especially if y'all work there, but I got crazy turnover. If I speed out six old employees a month, okay, I can easily be parking a lot. You like you just got fired. You need a job. You looking for some opportunity? Wake up. Wake up now. Well, look at other news. Beyonce is going on tour and we got some things to talk about the things to talk about. I'm sure many people out there's lives have been impacted. I've been asked for concert tickets more than I've ever been in my life. My people obviously don't understand where I am in music industry. I'm doing a hike, but you know, I ain't doing that. I'm not, I'm not connected there, but like, and which is interesting though, right? To get into this, this next teams ago. It's crazy how strong Beyonce fans are. Probably should mention this later where we're going to talk about it because people aren't even asking me outside of my girl. People aren't even asking me for tickets. Actually, they're asking me for the ability to buy tickets as expensive as they are. Like these are like, I just want the opportunity to buy it. That's crazy. That's a different level of fandom, right? I feel like I'm in that same boat right now with different hearts. So I give it a premium just to get a chance. Please put me in the top 100 of the cube. Hey, 100% don't kick me out. Don't kick me out. The funnier part everybody move on. The funnier part is it is hilarious being in music and being around people who aren't in music. When you have to first like break the rose in the glass a lot. Because people that aren't in it don't get it. It's all the music industry. So you all know Beyonce in future. And like the first thing I'm like, no, I don't know. And it's like, I thought they look at you differently. Like they don't believe you anymore. Like, are you really in music there? You don't know future. You don't know Beyonce. You can't get Beyonce tickets. So that's just fun. Oh, that's how you'll know it. That's going to take me to far different direction with that. Yes. There's a there are plenty of stories of the music friend and the non music friends and definitely one of those industries where people just assume everything. Matter of fact, it's the equivalent of my mom thinking I can do random tech stuff because I was like a computer programmer. She was like, oh, Sean, like I got this virus on my computer. I'm like, man, I write code. I don't know. I have no idea what the hell you talking about right now. Well, oh, yes, I'm happening at the school. Can you come fix it or whatever? Like, no, this is completely different. So now I get where you coming from, but Beyonce wanted that tax money. That's the one we got to talk about. Beyonce wants that tax money and she is genius. Would you give me I say all your tax money because that is the theory. And so many fans have they say they say that Beyonce strategically drops her tickets around tax season. So she can get that extra bread that's coming to you. All right. She's saying, hey, if you're getting a refund, you might not be making the best decisions anyway. So you might as well lose it on me. And I respect that. I respect. What do you like before you get the hell. Thank you about these things. Think about the tickets and look, it's been consistent. Got these dates written down. Let me see if I can find a real quick real quick Beyonce. She did April 20th, 2007 for the Beyonce experience April 25th, 2008 for the I am World Tour and Miss Carter show World Tour was February 11th, 2013. The formation World Tour was February 16th, 2016 and the Renaissance World Tour was February 7th, 2023. February 7th. Yeah. 2023. Yes. So she slowly worked her way too close to the time. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Well, these are starting April, April back to February. Yes. April back to February. So, you know, when April 15th is like the deadline for taxes. Yeah. So she was right at the end of it. Yeah. Right. And you probably put the word out that it's going to happen and have to buy date. So some people had probably had time to get their refunds because everybody doesn't do their taxes in January. You know, because that range, but it probably worked her way up further because it's like, yeah, let me capture more of these people. Yeah, exactly. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. 100% and other part of the theory, which is very much so worth talking about. All right. We're going somewhere with these people. April. Just includes tax season, but you bring that bad boy up to February 7th like this year. And matter of fact, 2016, let me see. No, 2013, February 11th, 2016, February 16th, this year, February 7th. See, we're going with this. Yeah. Hot damn Valentine's Day. That month of Valentine's Day. Give me that present. This is my present boo. You got to give me this shit, bro. Like for fucking, like for this, we don't have to go out to eat. We don't have to get no flowers. Like we, I know some women who are making those type of deals life decisions. It's like, okay. I get it. I know the expense, especially these right here. Come on. Right. They're making those type of decisions and then for going the short term for the long term thinking, you got to respect that respect. You got to respect that. I have been approached with similar, similar type of analysis, you know, and it's just amazing because like when you break that down though being serious, the consideration of what your fans are going through at the time is something that more artists should do like they're so worried about my launch, my rollout in and of itself. I wanted to drop on this date and now I got to work backwards from my rollout and try to sell you this or I'm going on tour now. I'm trying to sell you this because this is what I'm trying to make while I'm on tour, but you can structure these things around what's going to make sense for your fans. Like you want to think about tomorrow world. I remember I feel like they were dropping pretty early in this season to like they would go live and you can get pre-sales early sales around this time. Right. And then I thought Coachella was doing that for a while too. Maybe the scene when they dropped this year, but I actually remember when I was more in the festival space, big festivals dropping around this time because they were like fucking with my shit. You know what I was running, but I wasn't thinking of doing it during this time. Actually, as a matter of fact, one thing that I was thinking about was so in Atlanta, you know, September is crazy when it comes to events, especially around music, music, midtown, music fest, A3C was around all this music stuff, right? And then all the side parties related to it, BT or all these different things. It was start late August going to October. So I was like, yeah, I got that. Right. First year I did in August and it did well, but that was just like random. It was the first one I wasn't thinking about anything. Then I started to become more strategic. I landed in, I wanted, I thought about January. I'm like, you go too fresh. It's probably too cold. So I ended up like, I think it was like March or something like that, whatever early. So it was like before our season started to get back on people want to be outside, but nobody's doing anything yet. Yeah. Right. So we don't have all these events. We don't have all this competition. And I had the advantage at that time. Well, I saw it because it was an indoor festival. Right. And promoted that way. That was part of how I came up with the concept or whatever outside of me been having like a big ass facility. And I was like, this ain't a party. I wanted just a little party. Yeah. And I was like, you know, I can't fill nobody up with this party. I got to call the festival. So more people want to come. But like, so it being indoors, allow me that little space, right? And I was all of that was big based on thinking though around what are people doing at this time? What are people doing at this time? It's a smaller event. I'm running the shit all out of my pockets. How can we fill in so that same concept thinking about what my fans or the people I want to go are going through at that time in their life, especially at that time, I think about school, all that stuff. Right. So I wasn't big on the summer because a lot of our people were we were targeting colleges were like pretty young people and people were going back home. Right. So we were losing a lot of that stuff. So we weren't doing summer. All that stuff is something that any artist can keep in mind whether I mean, I haven't done it for a merchant. I'm sure there's a way that applies to your merchant strategy, right? And the crazy part about it, like some people might say, well, when's a good time? You don't know. Yeah, it's your fan base. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like there's something different for every single fan base. Like if you're older, there might be things. Oh, this position is as a night out with your husband or your wife or whatever and applied a little differently because this, you know, couples might just be looking for a lit night out kind of like that's how that GZ event. That's partially how I work. I do. You remember I was trying to get in that one. You know what I mean? My whole thing was over. This is date night. I'm winning always. You know what I am? When I'm working on everything going just from that one thing, right? And that's how you can get charge more and fancier, you know, set up plays. We had just seen GZ in October. Right? Yeah. One music test, right? Well, it's gonna be a difference. You ever be in a suit? I was gonna be in a suit. Shawty's gonna be in a dress. You know what I mean? Don't be other people in suits and dresses. I mean, you need to put your makeup on girl. Go ahead and do that. Go ahead and take the pictures. Get the face, face, feet. It's a good night. So all that, there's a certain demographic, right? Yeah. That can win off of that type of thing specifically. And, you know, depending, there's all these other demographics. I, you know, we could probably just make one as a case study or whatever and choose a different artist. But there's so many little details to consider about what your people like to do and what their interests are that I feel like most artists don't consider. And, but I've known a few people that actually do a really good job of that, whether it's the artist or even the party scene from, you know, that I used to be in those people. I always remember those people. I wasn't thinking about it this way to the Beyonce shit, but you remember those people because they think just a little bit different. It's like them small details that other people aren't considering. Yeah, that's like the party promoter that they're like, am I okay? You know, I can't party for it, you know what I'm saying? Like cultural, cultural context and cultural relevancy, right? Yeah. They know, hey, people are feeling this way around this event. These are the emotions and things I'm going to lean on to get you to come. That's a fact. Come get us Cosmigos. But yeah, man, I think that goes back to the point we always make a vibe while artists should be actively talking to their fans, right? Because this is a thing that I think is a lot easier to see when you're small. You know what I'm saying? Like you can kind of like read the room pretty quickly or like you more than likely know of these things going on. But like the bigger you get is like you really do have to kind of lean on your fan base to give you the information either because you know, you start being a lot more removed from things like that or you just don't know. You know what I'm saying? Like new shit comes up that creates different moments of cultural relevancy all the time. We don't always all know about it. You know, but it's like if you're talking to your audience and your audience can say like, hey, man, nah, don't do that show in July because Trippie Red just announced his tour yesterday. And if I got a pick between you and Trippie Red, I'm going Trippie Red. You know what I'm saying? It's like, oh, you're not there yet. Yeah, exactly. Like thank you for that fan. I didn't know Trippie Red had a tour coming up pretty, you know what I'm saying? So it's like that I think this would always boils down to like fans will let you know if they see other culturally relevant things. You should be paying attention to what not. You as yourself, you as the artists or team, yeah, should be actively trying to figure out as much of it as you can. Like holidays to me are a given. You know what I'm saying? Like you can literally sit down, look at a calendar, look at all the major holidays coming under them. Like, all right, which one of these could I realistically take advantage of with my fan base? All right, my fan base. Don't fuck with. I don't know. Thanksgiving. You know what I'm saying? So I'm not doing nothing with that. I'm going to throw a lot of throws. I'll do it with it. But I know my fans are all, you know what I'm saying? And love and or hate the other. So I'm going to take advantage of Valentine's Day in a really unique way, right? So I think holidays are like a really easy start. Then from there it kind of becomes like, you know, things that culturally pertain to the group you're a part of, you know, things like you have to be in their groups even though, you know what I'm saying? Like holidays, events, moments, kind of like you mentioned with like like the party scene here and you know what I'm saying in the summer. Like if you were the type of person like partying amongst like the college girl, like you know that, you know what I'm saying? If you're not that type of person, you should probably feel the same. You know what I'm saying? It's exactly the same as in the other week. But like you and that person throwing those type of parties, we need to know that shit. Hey, school is out May 15th. All these niggas at home by May 18th. I can't throw another party between May and whatever, right? So I agree with you 100%. And like I said, I think that back and forth between the artists and fan is completely on the value of because of that because like they will literally tell you, hey, this is the right time to try to get me to spend money. And to your point, ours to be like, oh, no, I didn't wonder that my rollouts in this month. And it's like, well, I ain't got no money there or this thing that is bigger than you and to me is happening and I'm going to choose. Hey, I got a family vacation coming up during this time. Like I said, X such and such got a constant coming up. Hey, bro, I graduate a promise around the time. I once I heard our talk about on his live, right? He was like, you need to spend all this money in April and one of his fans like his prom time, bro, we got to get suited up. And it's like, oh, I never thought that's a damn it is promise will be a terrible time to try to sell to your 17 year old fans who just stacked up $500 for a tuxedo. You know what I'm saying? So it's like all that mom money is going towards that exactly for all the mom money burnt out. You know what I'm saying? At least to graduation. I got another. I got one more time of more money with graduation. Maybe if you hit them in graduation, you know what I'm saying? You can come up or this is kind of candy. If I was an artist with a high school fan base, what are the flowers that they make you put on? Okay. Is that what it's called? The one that make you like put on like the girl's like wrist or dress or something. You know what I'm talking about? Like, he's like, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. I was an artist, bro. Not my fan business. Nah. I don't know what it's called. Let's just say this is a flower thing. Yeah. If I was an artist, bro, I'm like demographic with manly high schools. And I would say that was my prom time, bro. Branded one of those. I might have bought that shit. You know what I'm saying? So I think like just becoming culturally aware of like what's important to your fans. You know what I'm saying? From all these different angles, what helped you figure out when does it make sense to try to make money? When does it make sense to just be a value to stay away from making money? And it will give you like unique product out there that you wouldn't be able to do throughout the year. Like I said, Valentine's Day is coming up. Every artist right now can make Valentine's Day cards and sell them and get away with it. And nobody will bet it out. Nobody will think it's weird. Yeah. Three months from now, you sell them cards. They're like, what's going on? You know what I'm saying? Like, when did you start doing this? So, yeah, I don't know, man. I feel like it's just all the rules that I paid with gold on paying attention to that sauce. 100%. 100%, bro. And I like that example of saying, yo, don't put your concert tickets on sale right now because it's trippy red. I'm going to pay for trippy because it helps you understand clearly. I don't want to buy this from you. However, right? You put me in a hard place and I'm going to go with him and using that example. There's another fan base, Beyonce's for example. They don't care when trippy drop for the most part, right? So it makes it clear how specific it is, right? So, I hate laughing at this, but I know you've had this type of question before. There's been artists. Independent artists that I know or in fact have asked you this because they've asked me this, just starting out, dropping a project and saying, hey, man, do you think I should drop my project this Friday because I heard Drake dropping this project? And it's like... Nobody cares, but... Let me know. Nobody cares. Nobody cares, bro. And in that way especially because, again, it's something that's not necessarily relevant to you. Just because Drake is big and you like it doesn't mean your thing is necessarily like Drake. And that's part of it, right? It's like the Beyonce trippy red example. A lot of these people who have asked that weren't even necessarily making Drake complimentary music. I'm like, I know you're hearing that big artists are playing this game with each other, but you're in a different space. That's when they're so big and even if they seem kind of different, they're so big, they're so overlap and they're trying to own a moment immediately, which is a completely different game. Yeah, and like at that level, it's like all those artists, even if they're in different genres, they're all in like the pop bucket, you know what I'm saying? So like, like I said, even if you're here and I'm here, we still are competing for another bro. Lil, who, whatever with your $200,000 monthly list of brothers, they don't matter. Don't matter, man. You know what I'm saying? Like, because to your point, I think a lot of these arguments are stemmed from the stereotype of the stupid fan. I've talked about it before, but I hate that stereotype, but fans of these dumbasses are going to listen to Wab on a date. You know what I'm saying? They only have the capacity for 30 minutes of music a day and then they on to that tiktok. I hate them. And that was really drawn. It seemed like there was some realism for that, but it wasn't, right? You know how they say it's cause, not effect? I think that's what I'm looking for or not causation. So basically, you can have a similar result and this is happening at the same time, but that doesn't mean that that's the reason it happened, right? So yes, fans at the same time of the old album system and project system were not listening to a whole lot of music, a whole lot of different things, but the reality was not necessarily fans didn't have the capacity to listen to a lot of music, not that they didn't have the capacity to listen long into different varieties. It was, they didn't have the capacity. Matter of fact, they had the cash, right? The decision making that barrier to interview listen to a lot of music was way different, right? So they had that theory and it rang true as long as the thing that actually had an impact was true, right? And that's access, right? Now, we know it's like, hey, turn the computer, you get playing music with free and then you want a better organized experience, you pay for it, a DSP, no barrier to entry. I'm going to listen to whatever I want to. All right, now we got to show getting fans that only focus on one thing, right? It was the opposite. So yeah, now the stupid fan thing is something somewhat derived from that and the problem with that is fans are smarter than other ever because not only are they consuming more music and more in tune with the release schedules, the marketing, they are even starting to understand just the general business in the back. It's to our favor, right? Because then they know that you're in a bad deal, good deal, like they're starting to care about things like that. Yeah. So fans are far from down these days. Yeah, yeah. So that's like, I always feel like that's the basis of it, but whenever I do get that question, I tell them what really pointed back to the point you made. Like, hey, like, do you feel like your fans like this type of music? They say no. And it's like, all right, why you care? They say yes. I'm like, okay, all right. So your fans do like Drake. It's like, now, do you think your fans like you? Some of it's a hard question to answer, bro. Some of them don't know, bro. Are they fans though? No, first of all, they're fans. They're fans that, I mean, I know, I know if I say what I'm going to say, you're going to say, are they fans of they don't fuck with you, blah, but they're fans that don't fuck with their favorite artists. They be in the comments, bullying these motherfuckers. They'd be harassing them at shows. I've just seen a video of like, I think Destroy Lonely, this upcoming rapper verse. I'm like, it's fucking with him in one of his shows. It's like, it's like his fourth time in like, the last month and a half or two months or somebody just harassing his fans, harassing him at shows. So I don't know, man. I think they can not like you. I think they can like your music and not like you. There could be weird relationships with fans because I know somebody who was a Beyoncé fan for the longest and I remember it in college. We were in college and I told her the new Beyoncé project was out. I don't remember what project it was, but I was like, yeah, this new Beyoncé project just dropped. I know you was super Beyoncé fans. Are you about this new album or whatever? And her whole thing was Beyoncé has enough money. I'm not going to buy it. She was so serious. Those fans are the worst. It was so weird to me. I really had nothing to say because she was like the biggest Beyoncé fan I knew in the world was crazy to the point was weird sometimes. And when I said that and then she said that, I thought she was joking and she was serious. And I was like, whoa, I don't know what to do. Some fans really feel like, hey, I've already liberated you from this hell that is regular life. I'm not supporting you. I'm not supporting you anymore. Hey, crazy, bro. I'm saying they don't really like these artists, bro. When they say something like that, they don't really like these artists because like, I don't know, bro. It's like, I can't even think of nothing else to equate it. So it's like, if you really like this person and want to do good, you want to put a ceiling on like how far you want them to go, you know, because I know like the underground rock community is pretty notorious for being like that, right? You know what I'm saying? Like, hey, we support you to write about here. And then once you cry here, you on your own. Are you fighting with the weekend? Tell us when we not back and go somewhere. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. We'll see how far you go. Yeah, sometimes we always see, but they always do that. But yeah, so that's why I asked them like, do you think your fans like you? Okay. And, you know, people still your point that they usually sound like a weird question. Like, yeah, bro, I think my fans like me. Not for real when you say that. They message me that I was hitting by a block. And I'm like, all right, great. You will be fine. There's 24 hours in a day is Drake album is 52 minutes. You know what I'm saying? I mean, they still got 23 hours and eight minutes. Times to put towards you and that really like you like you think they do, you will get listened to some time between Friday and Sunday. You just got to wait. Show time. It's like a cute. Well, I know when I listen to the music, it's like a cute. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I hear a little about the most excited about first and then second most excited. And then after around like the third or fourth listen, I'm just like, it's like a checklist. Like I'm just going to listen to people. I see this. All right. So I wasn't really that excited. But I spoke with him. He was about this person does. I didn't even know. Let me go check it out. So, you know, people going to always prioritize what's most important to them. So if you're not someone's top priority, you're not someone's top priority, but it doesn't mean that you will not get any action overall. It does not get any action part where they got me Rollers. That was like just be on the side waiting for them to finish. I've been pretty much. No, I'm not. I was going to give you another listen. I was going to get rid of you. I heard something on the very side. So I'm having having a list of his life. You know what I'm saying? You just like when you were in a certain position like that's just the reality of people aren't that they're going to be small portions of your fans that are just as excited about your release as they will be about a drink release or Travis Scott. We talked about that. I've got the lambs, not the land, but the lion swing fandom for a fan of ours is typically the same. But like I like you in my head. You are no different than other big ourselves. Like, you know, give it a take. I may know some details about you. I mean, look at you a little differently, but like the way I feel is exactly the same for both of you. You know what I'm saying? I'm going to wear another. Um, so I do think that, you know, saying like they're like, it's just the reality of it. I don't like you another way you are high priority, but I do like you. You know, I'm going to get you. You're just not going to be first or second or third. You know, what came out? It's like, um, what's the last couple of products that came out of skewies? It's like the tell us with Drake, Metro Boomin line that happened in like a couple weeks, right? All right. Tell us with album, even though it wasn't the same day. Wasn't saying that it might be a little bit of a different argument, but nothing about that Drake momentum stopped me from listening to Metro Boomin. I'm pretty sure Drake's momentum. Then stop tell us with fans from going back and live. They probably woke up that day. Looked at their Spotify releases like, oh, Drake drops some shit. I'm going to go listen to the tell us with album for the 50th time this month. So it's like, so it's like, they like you enough and you are embedded enough. Like people will make the time for you. You know what I'm saying? That's why that question to me always lets me know whether the artist is out in their career because I thought ours up fan base for a while and they know that and they get that. You know what I'm saying? Cause like you start to see ours as being the game for me and they start doing whatever they want to do releasing shit at weird times, weird days. I'm saying because like they have kind of realized that. Okay. These people really rock with me. They're going to be here no matter kind of how I shrink. It's usually the new ours that having like really built the Beja to ask that question. And then I'm like, bro, I know what I care. It's like, yeah. So it should come out next Friday. Yeah. All right, great. Yeah. Hey, well, look, you want to stay on Beyonce. Oh, yeah. Cause we got another thing to talk about with her and look, it's a true case study. This is real marketing happening right before your eyes. Yeah. People are people are getting tricked by these jeans actions. I actually had to break my trainers innocence. He didn't know how this shit really worked and I let him know how we really finesse these normal citizens out here without marketing. All right. So this text chat on the shade room. I'm not going to read through all of it, but you know, if you're looking at the screen or if you're listening, I'll just explain. So they got a little text thread between, you know, man and a woman. I assume babe with all these little cry faces or like pouty faces that person responds. Yeah, babe. I love you. Happy face. I don't know what that says. Oh, what's going on? Oh, love you too. What's going on? The person says, babe, I really want to go to the B concert. It's in July and pre-sale for tickets to 16. Oh, I got to go back to this. I haven't happened on February 16. You don't have to get me a Valentine's Day gift or be they give. I just want to see Beyonce. Please. Now, first of all, the problem is that's a lot at the time. So by the time the birthday come around, they forget about that shit. No, they forget about this. That's it. Right. Exactly. Facts. Can a video be a safely count? Yes. No, I definitely make such. I would definitely make a say to the count. Now they drop all these dates and then circle Nashville, Tennessee, where the concert is going to be because apparently that's where they are. And the buddy responds. Come on now. We agree to not spend money on entertainment until we save enough for our house. We have been saving for months. Can't do that, babe. Sorry. And then they go on and on and on. We're going back and forth from being babes. The girl's like, hey, I'm spending money anyway. Basically, right? Taking money out to savings. He's like, yo, you want, which I think she said I actually probably attributed thousands of dollars towards myself. Yeah. He was like, I actually was like $700. So let's start going that way. Now, why is this important? It's beautiful to see a couple of conversing over your concert tickets like this and wondering how I got the screen right? Let me change that up. I'm not used to this setup. It's beautiful to see these kind of conversations happening and we know for a fact these type of conversations are actually happening about Beyonce's concert. Yeah. How is this here? Why is this here though? This shit is fake. This is what we do right here. Yeah. This is what you should do. All right. Think be creative. This text thread is 100%. Right. I don't know for sure in terms of I know who did it, how they did it, when they did it, but I damn near actually know how they did it. But you know what I mean? Like this is what we do, right? This is how we market things. Why is this brilliant? Why is it beautiful? One, shawty is tripping in this thread. What does that mean? Well, since shawty's tripping people gonna talk about shawty tripping people gonna argue. Oh my God. She's being so responsible. I'm gonna get rid of him. I mean, he should get rid of her. Like she got a good man saving for a house and she won't get rid of a house for Beyonce. You know all the super logical people. They're so smart, but they're not smart enough to know that they are actually getting drawn into a fake marketing scheme. You know, like this is what we're doing. We're helping you waste your energy so we can go viral. So the way this position is going to help everything go viral because of the argument. People are going to take pick sides, right? Or just be like, yo, this is crazy. You got to share it, right? All right. We know that now. Then doing it looking like an authentic text thread. Come on. All right. That's also what we do. That's also what we've done multiple times. All right. And it should still work. Should be worth it. And it's never not going to. I think a text thread ain't never not. I just it just is what it is. It's harder to debunk a text thread. It's hard to debunk it. It's hard to debunk it, bro. It was like 100%. Like you do like that. To me, that's the sign of the name and number, which yeah, you can argue to blow it out for the internet, but it's like, no, bro, they do it in a way where like you can't trace it back to a real person. Right, right. Hey, but what makes this beautiful though? And what I respect and you know is someone who at least knows what they're doing, right? Is what does this say? Cause it's too far away. Queen of accountability at Queen of accountability. That's the Instagram page apparently that I got pulled from. Yeah. So what do we do? We move up the chain and it happens in not just music. Actually, it happens in all forms of news. You start on the small source and then so it could appear more credible. It gets pulled to bigger sources because the bigger sources have to appear more credible. Yeah. So it's better and easier for them to say I got it pulled from this smaller account. So if it is wrong, then I don't face all of the backlash and also it looks more realistic for it not to just be on my account. Yeah, exactly. I was gonna say that like it makes it look more realistic because it's like you watch it going viral. Like, hey, I saw this on the smaller page in the morning about that night. I saw it on Shade Room. You know what I'm saying? So like I can assume that all this should start moving and get in traction. This is why the Shade Room posted crazy, bro, really. How long ago did you pack it on someone's back right now? That's what's really happening. But this is the stuff that happens, bro. Yeah, and it goes back to the point you was just making about paying attention to like what cultural thing your audience is paying attention to because like I said, there's the conversation of our BNSA ticket to Expansive Happening. Great. Easy to take off there. Because to me, this is an extreme version of it. To me, this is an extreme version of that joke. Like, oh, you wouldn't give up. Yeah, there's many of y'all also put BNSA tickets, right? It seems like an extreme version of that joke, right? So this is happening. There don't some of this coming up. There aren't some of that reaching it, right? Yep. There aren't some of that coming up. This whole like 50-50 relationship, what conversation has been happening on social media for months. You know what I'm saying? But it's all right. You know what I'm saying? Shit. It's hitting both sides of that. I mean, it's world. It is. It's all world. Yeah. That is that conversation. This shit gonna be on Fresh and Fitting like a week. Honestly, bro. It's gonna be something like a week, bro. Hey, you know what? You talked about the balance times they mentioned. Yeah. That's one of the things that started going too far for me. You know what I mean? But it's also genius at the same time because even as it gets debunked, you're still getting all the information in people's heads. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So if you look at this shit, okay? So concerts in July, whatever pre-sale for tickets are February 16th. Bam. You put that in people's mind who don't necessarily already know or need their reminder. Right? What's another thing? Put the dates. Bro, they put the show dates on there. Yes. They put the show dates on there and then circle. I'm like, bro, y'all are putting it all out there, leaving nothing to. So this is, this is the, not formation. This is the flyer. Yeah, that's the app. Yes. It's the straight up ad, right? If you think about it, like how you have the flyer with all the dates and all the information, this is literally the flyer except you broke down the flyer into a text thread and deliver the information real slick. You know, I love it, man. The flyer, let's see if they did anything else in there. Let me see. Oh, one. Also, you gave people the argument to say, hey, let's not do Valentine's Day. Or yeah, let's barter our birthday. You gave them an approach to use to get what they need. We've done that before in certain instances, not for the artist stuff, but for other instances. All right. Working with some other B2B, like the music marker and stuff. Hey, bro, you need to go get some clients. You get some clients and you tell them about what you're about to get into and then you'll be able to help them out. Yeah. Then, you know what I mean? Like we've used the same argument. Damn. But that's also when I knew it was fake. Like to your point, I don't know any of too many women that would give up birthday and Valentine's Day. Yeah. Like that's a hard start. Yeah. She should have started with Valentine's Day and then they throw in birthday as a part of like he throws it in and they start to negotiate. Yeah, exactly. That would have been it. Yeah, with birthday or not? Coming out the gate. Yeah, that's tough. No, no woman giving up her birthday. Maybe, maybe. If you out there, you know, leave a comment. But let me see. I don't believe it. I ain't believe that. So as you know, when the tickets go on sale, they won't last long. See, you let people know these things ain't gonna last long. Scarcity is out there. She will be sold out in hours. I'm begging you. You're still saying no? First of all, the go, the go. What else did she say? Wait, some of the money is mine. Oh, yeah, that's when I get into that. That's when they start to make that argument. See, they gonna break up some relationships and shit like this, giving all these ideas. I'm very serious. When can I pick it up? Why is she picking up the money, actually? See, that's- So this was also when it began. I was like, if y'all a couple at this point, there's gonna be a joint account. Somebody got cash up. Hey, I may, maybe. Somebody got cash up. Dirty money, at least. It might be dirty money only. Wait, so you're breaking up with me for asking. Oh, so also they went too far from doing an immediate breakup. They shouldn't have did that. After that, I felt it was too much. Everything else, you know, I could almost get away with and say that was an overzealous fan, except for the birthday and Valentine's Day out, the jump. And but yeah, that right there, the breakup, that fast. Come on now. Come on now. You ain't breaking up with somebody that fast that you're raising money or saving money for a house with. Unless he was already sick of her. And less, right? Which I do also understand it probably does happen. I know someone. I got some older in my life. She was like an auntie to me when I was younger. And the story was always, she broke up with her husband who I never met. I never met the husband, but I know her daughter was like, you know, kind of like a sister ish to me. And she was like an auntie to me. They broke up over some ground beef. Right? Right. And that should always sound crazy to me. And you know, at the time of the kid, it was kind of funny because you have your 7-1-2. So I'm just thinking about fighting over food. Right? It was just like over ground beef. That serious? You know, that's where it was as a kid, right? That's what I was thinking. But as you get older, you get in enough relationship. It wasn't just the motherfucking ground beef, right? It was representative of something. See, she came home. This nigga had been working. This nigga ain't really been doing shit. He's on the couch. And I come home ready to eat some ground beef. And you're gonna hate all the motherfucking ground beef. I agree with that. I get it, you know what I'm saying? That's the only scenario where that could be real. If there was a little bit of backstory, okay, I get it. I get it. That's a true story, but I didn't get it. So I got older. I was like, you know what? You know how sometimes you, for some reason, you look stuff will just connect. And you're like, I ain't nothing about this shit in 20 years. But I get it now. This nigga would have bought some chips and made some nachos. Right? Something? Right, it didn't make me nothing. Exactly. Hey, I feel like I'm going on forward. That shit, if you build it up, man, if you build it up. But that wasn't unrelenting part, but the rest of it, the rest of it's pretty jammed. So I would love to know the person or people that, you know, put this up and count it out there. Right? I love it. I love it. Just the fact to do it, even though, you know, there'll be people like us who recognize it and some other people, you know, who are socially savvy or then you just got the skeptics who happen to be wrong. I mean, who happen to be right every once in a while because they skeptical of enough. Regardless, you still get all the comments, right? You still go viral. You still make the wave. So I applaud it and I love it. Now, the interesting thing is that this is projected to be Beyonce's highest grossing tour around $300 million, right? Yeah, good money. Good money. Now, the way they're approaching it, I love, we were just talking about this earlier because she started on the European world tour. Now, after she dropped and released these dates, there's been new dates that got added. Why? Because Atlanta showed a high demand. I think it was Toronto showed a high demand. There were like four, maybe six cities that showed a really high demand. So they added a second date. This goes back to reading your fans, paying attention to your fans, right? And wanting to be in demand, but also not wanting to be asked out if not enough people show up, even at this level. Because, yes, it's Beyonce. You know she has a lot of fans, but now you're translating that lot of fans to stadiums. It looks different, right? We went from a small room to a big room that 100 people don't feel the space. It's a little cold. I can feel the AC in this room, right? So, yes, she's doing that at that level, but that's actually something that translates all the way down. We talk a lot about things that bigger artists are doing that you probably shouldn't be paying attention to. That's something that literally, you know, artists that I know with 500 fans, 2,000 fans are doing where hey, I'm going to this city and you just let them know I'm going to this city. I'm about to do a tour or a show in New York and maybe, I don't know, Philadelphia. Now those people in that space know that you're on the Northeast and you just let them tell you if it's worth going to another city. Now, oh man, how come you don't come to New Jersey outside of the crime? Well, let me know. Do you want me to go to New Jersey? Like, if y'all have enough of them and then maybe I'll drop a little application or whatever, right? Because it depends on who you are in your systems or maybe I'm connected enough with a promoter to kind of test it out full in that way and to see how many tickets pay out. That's a very possible thing and advertising your concert or your tour is actually one of the best ways to continue to fill those dates and do that test. Like, hey, I'm going to this, I'm going to that because people will start to say, why are you not coming to me? And they'll start to reveal themselves the ones who care enough and then it's up to you to say, hey, bruh, look, you need to tell your friends to also let me know because I can't just go for you. Or if you were a real fan, you'll go recruit and turn other people into fans because honestly, bruh, right now is only you. Yeah, it's you. You're the only one it tells you that want me to come through so I can't really justify it. So you're going to have to fly out to New York or whatever. So it's a real method that applies to everybody and it's just nice and dope to see it done even the highest level. Yeah, yeah. Because to me it's much better than the whole not doing that and then trying to trick people with the sold out sign. Hey, look, bruh, they walk into me like I thought she was so I said a seat right there, a seat right there, a seat right there, bruh, bruh. And remember, they start getting anybody. I think this is a better way to handle it than they personally discover it because if you think about, you know, maybe five years ago now there were a lot of stars that were having concerts take place and they weren't filling up. Yeah. I remember maybe Beyonce was involved. I know Jay-Z was involved in at least one of those things. So then you have to drop ticket prices and figure out a way of finesse your dropping of ticket prices without creating a perception that you couldn't sell out, right? And that becomes a whole game to chase. So especially when you're at a level like Beyonce, you know, there's only, you can only lose by trying to create another show that doesn't sell out in that way. She already had the money. It's not like she's what I need to just go for every little dime in that regard. My perception is actually more important. So I need to make sure that it's going to be sold out before I do it. I ended up trying to backtrack. I think Nicki Minaj was involved in one of these like type instances about five, six years ago. But if I have to, you know, backtracking her finesse in some way and create that argument, it's just not going to be a good look. It's not worth it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And to go back, I know we had a past episode we talked about letting fans be a part of like plenty of shit being a part of your life. And to me, this problem is the same. But here's another whole risk way where I can't make you feel a part of the operation without really letting you like ruin anything. You know what I'm saying? Like you said, there's enough of y'all to speak up. I go. There's enough of y'all that don't speak up. I don't go. You know what I'm saying? But at least I heard you when I took what you said and took consideration. So that to me is always like cool to see how bigger artists like work that into their whole process because I know it's hard. It's hard and hard to do that. You know what I'm saying? The bigger and bigger you get, but it is always cool to see like how they kind of put that together. Thanks. Yeah. She got second day in Atlanta. She got two days in Atlanta. Two days in Atlanta now. Yeah. Yeah. There's a chance. There's a chance. One ticket is going to be on February 16. What's the day? My phone is going to drop the bag, y'all. I don't want to see if I got something. Connection to our places. See y'all how they go. I ain't tell nobody if I do. No, right. I ain't tell nobody. Never do that. You know, I mean, somebody might see the pictures though that you were in there. Yeah, a week later. Yeah. One is too late. Oh, he's saying, you know, okay, you okay? I ain't tell nobody. You talking about just ahead of time. So people don't get up on you. Okay, I got you. I would just go to Beyonce concert by myself. 100%. It's an experience. It's a box to check. So I'm saying, man. It's the first one in five years. I mean, I might not get another one for another. It's a 2028. All right. You know what I'm saying? Hey, kids, I was at just Beyonce concert. What was mommy doing? So I met your mother. Hey, hopefully don't do that. If not, then I'm going to tell them to mind their business and go to bed. Hey. Know what? It's perfect time anyway. Into marketing mistakes. Everybody has made marketing mistakes, but I think you're going to be very, very, very, very interested to hear some of the other marketing mistakes or at the very least, if you haven't made crazy marketing mistakes when it comes to music, you're probably lying. All right. Or you maybe just don't take any kind of risk at all. You ain't doing that. Yeah. He ain't really did nothing. But there's a lot you can learn from the market mistakes that others have taken. So I appreciate the members of Brand Man Network for sharing some of the market mistakes. And I appreciate Damian White for coming up with this question in the first place. Now, if you don't know what Brand Man Network is, Brand Man Network is a free space. So brandmannetwork.com, go ahead there. And that's where we drop all of our strategies that we use in our agency for free. Check it out, brandmannetwork.com. Now, have you made any marketing mistakes, paid any shady promoters, got bots when you thought you were getting fans or anything in between? Let's share some of the mistakes we've made so we can all learn from them. Again, great topic Damian White and Damian said, I'll start. I had no idea how radio worked back in 2015. So I sold a bunch of my stuff to get money for a terrible radio slot. I didn't even have a music video. Song wasn't registered with ASCAP BMI and I was not on social media. The quote unquote promoter never gave me a heads up that it was a bad idea until after my campaign was over, I gained nothing and lost a lot due to not doing my research first. Well, you did gain the perspective to do your research first. I knew you were about to say that. The lesson as a whole, hey man, it is what it is, right? You're right, lesson as a lesson. The lesson learned. It might have been expensive, but you got it. As long as you got it, and it seems like you got it. Now, this is a big thing that you mentioned. The promoter didn't let them know it was a bad idea until after the campaign was over. Now, a lot of people do default to, hey, look. It's your money? It's your money. I'm just providing a service. I don't know anything about your team, your lifestyle, the rest of your desires. Now I have nothing to do with me. So that's why it is up to you to know more. All right, do your research. I'm doing this type of campaign. What else needs to be in place to make this type of campaign valuable? And many artists, right? And people in general think that the campaign itself, right, is the value. It should be the thing creating the value. And that's where they get messed up. Oh, I'm going to do this on radio. And the radio campaign specifically is going to do everything else when usually every type of campaign has some type of foundation that needs to be set for it to be valuable. So to not only take that lesson that you just took in terms of whatever is needed for the radio campaign, that foundation idea, you all go different for each type of campaign, applies every type of campaign. Now, continue on. Dianne McWilliam said, I got kicked off of that piff for you. Yo, that just sounds crazy, bro. I got kicked off of that piff for using a third party marketer that was using a bot. Then had some YouTube views taken from you for the same reason early in the game. Valuable lessons learned. Dianne Williams. Thank you. You are a soldier. That is hilarious, man. You're going to be a piff of those. I don't like that. Yeah, I ain't never been protected in real. I need to correct my opinion of them. You know what I mean? Y'all are more astute than I thought. Keith Kenner Francis says, my main market and mistake have been inconsistency. I've done numerous campaigns in which I've spent thousands, the atoned in, Google ads, Facebook ads, playlist push, et cetera. Definitely keep a running budget for campaign ads that are successful in converting. You might have to break this down. It means by this. By doing so, time and resources are not wasted by having the momentum slowed, forcing you to start from ground zero every time before making any headway. Lastly, try not to get shadow banned blacklisted from social media platforms, although it's very hard to prevent that once you are and are given no reason as to why this sounds like this happened to them. I've had to create multiple Facebook and Instagram pages which have little to no engagement and also got banned from running ads on there. Bro, what's you doing, dawg? So now we have to... So now I have to pay a premium via a third party like toned in and should I ever want to grow again using ads? So I got to use ads just to grow. That's like the only way I can grow. Can't use no organic content. But you've seen us use third party people. We're like, so many of you can run ads through there. Right, right. I'm just like, boy, not only does he have to run ads, he has to do it through third party people. Now I stick to going live on Reddit. I didn't know you can go live on Reddit. Dang, that's crazy. Although I had a similar issue, dawg, bro, and had to create a new account and grow again to use our pan network. I don't know what that is. And I also maximized my Google ads. Hope this helps. Bro, kid, it sound like what you should be doing is using our only fans. But that's the only type of thing I could think that's got you banned over and over again out of all these platforms, bro. This is crazy. Well, I think there's something that we can go back to. I made one nugget out there where he said, definitely keep a running budget for ad campaigns that are successful in converting. Cory, I feel like you're good to expound on that, bro. Yes. So what I always tell clients is that setting up your ad system is like building a snowball. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, if you roll it long enough, eventually the snowball will be big enough to hit. To hit, you know what I'm saying? But in the beginning, it's not, right? You have to kind of keep doing it. The work to build it up. So what I mean by that is that ads get better the longer you let them run, the more data you let them collect. And what a lot of artists make a mistake of is the guy who said they cut them off too quickly. Right? Hey, I've lost a ton of the guy that mentioned this when people were like, man, I ran my ads. It didn't work. How long did you run them? I ran them for two weeks. Three months. You know what I'm saying? It goes like, you didn't even let the ad run long enough to build enough data to self-optimize itself. And you didn't give yourself enough time to see the results that were produced by the ad. Right? We're very notorious for telling people that, you know, choose to listen to us. That there are going to be things that you will do with your advertisements today that you won't even see the result of like three to four months from now. After you just had a conversation with a manager, her artist did a campaign with us. And in the moment, I remember on the call shoot, me and Jocelyn, it was cool. I don't really feel like I saw that much. I don't think it's that great. Here we are exactly three months later. And apparently she's been singing our prayers, man. Yo, that's got to be great. Everything they said was going to happen, and things are amazing and blah, blah, three months later because I'm like, hey, there are things that are going to happen that just will not happen now. You know what I'm saying? Like, you got to let it go. So what ends up happening is let's go back to the guy girl that does the two-week ad. Right? When you're half of two weeks, then you cut it off. Like I said, one, you effectively kill off the self-optimization, right? You can no longer continue to self-optimize because you're no longer pulling that in. But then two, what's going to happen is the next time you set the ad back up, it's going to have to start over. The data doesn't translate or spill over. I believe, I don't know the exact window, but I think if your ad has been enacted for like 30 days or longer, it essentially just starts over. You know what I'm saying? So now the next time you go to run the ad, you build up from ground zero. So what I've seen have happened with a lot of artists. And where a lot of y'all continue to mess up is you're going to set this ad up. You're running for two weeks, but I got $300. I'm going to run $300 for two weeks and she's doing great. And then you go like, oh, I'm going to kill it. In May, I got a promotion coming up. I'm getting a 5K raise. In May, I'm going to put 5K back into this ad and keep things going the way they were now. But what you're not considering is one, like I said, it has to start over. Now you have to re-go through another $300 of learning how much it is to get it there. So it has to start over. The self-optimization hasn't happened. And the ad landscape could be completely different. There could be something happening where people are running more ads, other things are happening to where you're now not getting the same impact as you got all these months ago, right? Versus if you let the ad run before it got to that point, it may have like uptick a little bit, got a little bit more expensive, but it will have like the same drastic outcome of the new ad that started because it has a lot more data to fall back on than the ad that just started. You know what I'm saying? So a lot of this is about like building momentum and then patting out future you. You know what I'm saying? We talk a lot about how a lot of the things that those had always wanted to see from their marketing campaigns or the result of momentum being built over time. But to you, it looks like it came out of nowhere. But to the team behind it, they might go, now this was three, four or five months in making, right? And the same thing applies with ads, like the results that people typically like to see from advertising might really attribute to advertisement. It's going to take you a couple months to let it build and like there's no way you can make these things happen consistently with short term advertising. Like, you know, I look at it like unless you're, if you're testing things out, trying to see what works, you know, like two weeks to a month is a good window to go. Once you've found something that works and is working for you in times of whatever you want to see, ticket sales, merge sales, streams, follows, whatever, KPI is important. If you see that, then that should need to keep running forever. In some samples, as long as you can afford to keep it going or it makes sense to stick on that particular campaign. A dollar a day. Three dollars a day. Yeah, even some other. We're having ads where, I couldn't think of the artist name, but we had a campaign out there recently with a headman like, you don't want to come back and build a campaign. It's great. What I would advise you to do is at least put five a day into it. Just keep it going. Just put some day into it. It's not going to have the same results as having them, but you, at least you won't cut the ad off and force us to have to start over when you're ready to come back. You know what I'm saying? Because that's what a lot of my clients do. Hey, can we run that ad from February and it's November? It's like, no, bro. We're basically starting over. There's no point in starting over. We could, but it's probably not going to go right back to where it left off at. We're more than likely starting over with scratch. So even if it's like you said two dollars a day, five a day, something is better than nothing because you're at least continuing the feeling and allowing it to optimize itself, which will help you whenever you are ready to eventually put some more money back into it. Hey, bro, that's a fact. That's a fact. It's pretty straightforward in terms of the idea. Yeah. Just keep running the ad that works. Yeah. But are you bored, man? You got to shoot yourself in the foot because you're bored. Hey, that's what it comes in. Bored is a great word because that's typically what it sounds like to me. Now, I'm not going to go through all of these. I think we'll touch on some of them in the next episode. Actually, I think that'll be cool. But Damian White actually responded to Kenneth's post and said, it's good that you're still finding ways to grow even though these flat forms aren't making it easy on you. Ads are a gift and a curse sometimes. I love ads, but it's not clear what success looks like from the campaign. Money flies down the drain. Now, who's fault is that? That's the artist's fault. That's the management team's fault. There's a lot of people who are running campaigns with no idea what success looks like to them. They just think, oh, hopefully I blow up or oh, hopefully I get some streams. And streams can be a direct result of ads. However, that's not the only result that you can get from ads. And most of the people that we've seen do very, very well from ads haven't been just, hey, I ran some ads. I got some streams and then everything was fine. And daddy has been things happening in addition on the side of the ad campaign and then even coming back to still working on streams. Or it's, hey, I'm trying to run a tour on this side of the country and you're building things up from there. There has to be some strategy and goal attached to it. And usually, like you said, the long-term outcome, a three-month timeline is better to look at in these two weeks. And most people are looking at two weeks. A couple days, things like that. The example I always give the people in the network is, I always tell them there are certain things that you were looking for to happen from your campaign that just naturally takes time to produce. So the example I give is, let's say you're young Sean, you know what I'm saying? You're young Sean in the restaurant. And you run this Instagram ad. This 19-year-old kid comes across the ad. Look, this is pretty cool. What is? He goes to Spotify, saves it to his library. He's listening to it. In a couple of days, it becomes his new favorite song. He's playing it 10, 20 times a day. He's putting all his friends onto it. He's playing it for his girl whenever in the car. He's in love with this song, you know what I'm saying? Just say four months go by, the girlfriend breaks up with him. Brace his little heart, you know what I'm saying? Brace is just terrible, man. And you know, he's depressed. He goes back. He finds confidence in your song. He listens to it 20 times over. And then he gets an idea for a TikTok. He goes and makes the TikTok. The TikTok goes viral and the song pops up. That's a very real thing. Like, that happens a lot. And like, there is nothing that you as an artist, you as a young Sean, could have done to speed that process up. There's absolutely nothing you could have done. You just had to let time play out and let people be impacted by your music and let them make actions because of the impact. You know what I'm saying? And so like, when we talk about the time and patience aspect, the cliches and the sounds, it's true. Like, most of the big results that you see from artists are usually the result of like, long-tail campaigns. Like, months, some even years. Like, we've known them in running campaigns around the same song for like years, you know what I'm saying? So they saw what they saw. And so it's like, that's the one thing I can get every artist to stop will be like, stop expecting, stop expecting like long-term results in the short-term window. Why? If you expect, like to me, an ad campaign, short-term results I'm looking for, maybe a little bit of follower growth, right? Maybe some stream increase. There's less short-term stuff you expect to see. Long-term growth is more brand awareness in a particular community, right? Yep. My influencer posts do better because more people recognize me, right? Brand recognition, right? Like, I can tell that my flow of streams has risen because I can tell the same people are now coming at least in my catalog. Like, those are like long-term results, you know what I'm saying? Like, you can expect to see, but I can't make those things happen in a one- to two-week timeframe unless you spend, you know, a strong asterisk, unless you are spending a lot of money. You spend a lot of money on ads. Everything we just said go out of the window. You're not spending a lot of money on ads. Right. Long-term. Yeah, you can force something. You can force something. You got a hundred bands, man. You can make a lot happen. A good example, too, is I remember an early TikTok campaign where we made this one song go semi-viral. It was like 10,000 videos created to it throughout the life of the campaign. This is early, early TikTok. We were really just starting. One of the biggest influencers on the platform, Charlie D'Amelio, discovered this artist from that song. And then when she dropped her next song, Charlie D'Amelio was one of the first people to post to that song. What's that? Blow shit up. Like, could you speed that up, though? No. No. Because you had to wait until the next song dropped. Right? But she truly discovered, truly became a fan. Now you have somebody who's basically promoting for a living because they're looking for stuff to drop, especially at that time in Charlie's career, right? Looking for the next viral video, right? Find a song from you. Do it without you having to pay a dime, right? That type of organic stuff can only happen if you give it time. Time, bro. Time. Nothing you can do to be time. Yeah. So, bless me. With that being said, I think it's good to stop right here for today. We got a whole other episode coming very soon. But we appreciate y'all for tuning in yet again. As we continue this pod journey, we'd love to know what y'all's favorite topic was up today or if there's anything that y'all would like us to go deeper in in general, not even just for this episode, but just topics in general. But other than that, as always, I'm Brandon Shaw. I'm Gory and we out. Peace.