 What up, what up, what up, I'm Burnman Sean and I'm Corey and we are back with episode number 40 of No Labels Necessary. You can catch us every Tuesday, every Thursday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music. Y'all know this plan and of course, what are we chopping up about music, money, content creating, economy as a whole and you know, just having a little fun all together. So speaking of fun, if you want to use that word, let's go to the sage of advice when it comes to the importance of having a team as an artist. If you miss this point, man, you're missing out on life. Let's listen to this quote around other than, Chikori's got a little boost in my heart. It's a group effort, man. It's a team, man. If you don't have a team, your hustle is isolated, it's only what you can bring to the table. Most deals that come about, other people can go get those deals. You don't have to be the only one to go get those deals, man. You gotta have a team with people who can put on a suit and go talk to people. You know, everybody can't put on a suit and go talk to people and make them believe. You gotta have those guys to protect you from all this madness in the street. That's just reality. If you think you can do it by yourself, you just came, bro, you'll fall. Wise words. Wise words, man. They might not always be wise, but those are clearly wise. What I like about this so much is the way that he talked about it. Right? We can talk about one topic a million times over, but it is introduced in different perspectives with a different point made. I still find a lot of value in it and I don't hear people say it from that angle a lot where, of course, we know you want more people on your team because you can only do it so much work in terms of the time that you have. All right, cool. We get that. But just the ability to say, no, some people just can't do some things and others can't. I might not be able to put on a suit and convince these folks, right? Because I might not speak the language of the board room or I might not have a look, you know, call it discrimination or whatever you will, but I might not have a look that's as convincing. They might think, hey, man, this rapper guy, I don't really know what you talk about. He's stupid and I don't really trust him, but then you can have somebody be a representative that talks in that language, looks the part and they're able to convince. Everybody believes that guy and that's also the value in a lot of times of a manager, right? Because people see conversations with managers different. It's hard to completely explain, but you know, artists get a stem of being maybe over since or they just know that you are the one who's being impacted because you are the product in many ways, right? So let's just say it's before a show and there's some bad news to deliver better delivered to the manager than the artist because the artist still has to go before him right after that, right? So I give it to the manager. The manager handles everything and now the artist isn't distracted from doing whatever they need to do, right? So there's a lot of angles and reasons why it's best to have team members, but that idea literally, hey, some people can do this and some people can't do that. I can't do everything is not from a legitimate capacity standpoint, but from a straight up, hey man, different strokes from different folks, some people got talents and some people just have a different energy that speaks to other people in a different way and make certain things happen. That's a true part of it as well. Yeah. Yeah. And that to me was my favorite part was that he didn't touch on it from the typical music industry positions, right? Like you need a manager, you need this because I think think on one side of an artist, I used to hear that, right? You need the business side of it. And then two, there's always going to be an artist out there who is an anomaly where it's like, hey, I didn't need a manager to make it or I didn't need to let I didn't need these different business entities. But we, he just could, like you said, basically saying is like, hey, that golden team member for you may not be a specific position that you used to hang about. It may just be someone who can who fits the mold of your business that you can't do for every, even if you are doing it, right? And I've seen that coming going many ways, you know, from the artists that we're doing their own cover arts and, you know, they were cool when they were doing it, but they got a graphic designer and they're better. Right? It's like, you know, you could do it, but this person could do it better than you and if it speaks their language and do things that you couldn't. So yeah, I think that's important. And then, you know, it's one of those things where I think that it's hard to explain to artists and to they get into the fold and start realizing like, what exact team members do you need? You know, like even tired to security, you need someone to protect you from, well, I'm, we're just going to say you talk about security, right? Tired to security, right? You need to use someone that even something as simple as just having someone to protect you from the lifestyle that you're building for yourself. He is a team member that most artists probably won't even think about until they get to the point to where their success has created a problem for them, right? And then you realize like, you know, the first time you have 30 kids bum rush you out after the show, that's when you're like, oh, shit, maybe I'll do me a skirt. You know what I'm saying? I'm a little more focused down here too quick. You know, like, there was no real resistance between them and back here. Well, was that maybe I should think about getting secure that now I see that that's that guy or girl is important for my operation. So, you know, some of that is just growing pains. I think like, I would tell artists like a lot of times building your team is just you experiencing your growing pains and then thinking really critically about who to find to solve this problem. Damn, I keep having this issue. I try to fix it five different ways. Two of them were terrible. Three I just didn't enjoy doing. I need a person for this. You know what I'm saying? Like, this is I need to find somebody to settle this role for me. Right, right. And the caption on this one was without a team your hustle is isolated, which is something that feel like a lot of indie artists don't realize they create. And there's levels to it. There's the indie artist trying to DIY do everything literally themselves. They have some that have some friends. They get a few more people on our team, but there's still the ego that's keeping them from being in legitimate partnerships or letting go of some things. They have to do everything themselves and figure out everything. Not because necessarily the best long run for any legitimate reason, but sometimes they're just that ego I have to do with myself. And that's one thing that the indie side is is breeding in a negative way. It's just something to be aware of, because part of that blood, that energy is what allows you to accomplish things as an indie, right? But then this becomes a level of it where you have to realize there's ego, right? Because I don't even want to maximize in this area. I want to, I don't know, let's just say LaRussell did like a pay to, what is it? Pay what you want, restaurant experience, right? Imagine LaRussell was like, well, shoot, I'm going to have to create a restaurant, build a legitimate restaurant, you know what I mean? And run a restaurant just so I can do this experience versus the restaurant that already exists. And then I partner with them to create an experience, right? It's a different type of thing, because it doesn't make any sense, but maybe going around up and owning everything makes more sense. If you truly say, hey, I'm trying to build an investment and have my own restaurant brand, and you're building something long term, that's different. So you have to pick and choose when you do, like lean in and take control of more, or be partnered by just trying to run up the money. A lot of times, it doesn't make sense to own everything and do everything for Growsy, right? Because I'm just trying to maximize, get as much money, visibility, maybe flip the visibility and all that, but I don't need to own this thing because I'm only doing it for this isolated experience. So that's something that comes to mind when you think about teams and how you go about partnership. Well, let me take a quick second to say if you're an artist trying to blow your music up, or if you're a manager, a music professional in general, trying to help an artist blow their music up, I have something that's a game changer for you, and it's completely free. As you may know, we've helped multiple artists go from zero to hundreds of thousands of streams. We've helped multiple artists go from hundreds of thousands to millions of streams, chart on Billboard, GoViral, all of that stuff. And we've now made the way we've branded multiple artists and helped them go viral, completely free step by step in Brandman Network. All you have to do is check out brandmannetwork.com. You apply. It's completely free, but the thing is, we're not going to let everybody in forever. So the faster you apply, the better your chance of getting accepted. Brandmannetwork.com. Check it out. Back to the video. But speaking of teams, Rick Ross has standards. If you want to be on his team, never sure. There's a certain way you got to move. And I love this clip. And I want to go ahead and break it down. Well, listen to him break it down. We can talk about it. Let's go. Look everybody in the eyes. Do you really want this? Because I hope you understand once I become a part of this, every day we get on all platforms and rep our brands. Not once a week. That's a class of the new every day. You ain't thinking about one in every day. It's just like laying your outfit out. What we get money with, who we get money with, we're going to make them feel us every day. If you're a business partner of mine, when you sit down before you go to bed, I want your chick that's in the bed with you to say, y'all, you sing with Rosé today. You know what I'm saying? That's how I hustle. That's how I really get down. You know what I'm saying? And I feel like if you're a real partner, that's what you should be bringing to the table. And if you're not, it's somebody like me that's on the team. And I'm more valuable than you are. And I'm more valuable than you are. Man, you're right. Every team needs that person, bro. Every team needs that power A player, you know what I'm saying? And I got a little, I do not think that every person is that, you know, so I would make that slight argument. But the sentiment is the same, right? Like, are we not waking up every day, attempting to get others to believe in our brand, or at least make them think we believe in that as much as we think we want them to believe that. You know what I'm saying? I agree with that, that part of it. I think that brings a question, which you just said. So it's a two sides to this. So you hear a lot of business people say, hey, you can't expect other people to have the same level of intensity as the business person, right? I carry you'll be like, all my employees shouldn't be necessarily as about it as I am, because I own the business. And it's part of my job as a business owner to make sure that things move forward. They're not as invested, completely understandable. But there's also a player argument that you talk about, where eight players attract eight players, they demand to have eight players. And I think especially early on, as much as possible, you want to get as many eight players as possible, or make sure that there's a clear standard that you're pushing people towards. So you've got to demand people on your team to be at a certain level before I'm on a certain way. Because I don't, but this is a big thing he actually said. I think what he says is 100% true, because you know what he did? He said, if you're a partner, a business partner, like if you were a team member, instead of an owner, I probably shouldn't expect the same type of energy as if you were an owner. However, if you are a co-owner in this, then I should be getting team member energy because you have expectations of owner payout. Yeah. All right. That just doesn't make any sense. So I get what he says and I like the way he positioned it, because it's not just like, it's not just about, hey, it's just a good opportunity for me. And I think you probably get more and more selected with this when you get more and more money, and you have more choices, and you're not just trying to make sure to shake, because the way he approached it was like, yo, are you really about this? Because when I get involved, I'm really about this. You sure you're going to turn off or not? You sure you're going to turn up? I know how I rock. How you rock, bro? Because there's a lot of situations where it's like, hey, man, we can just stay cool and not get into business together, because we're not talking about like, oh, no, shady shit being done. We're just talking about like, if you ain't putting that same type of energy, I'm going to look at you different. So I'm going to need you to put that energy in there. And I think early on, people should look for that as much as possible. However, we do know realistically, as an artist, you might just be trying to get whatever you can get. A manager, you might might be trying to get whatever you can get for the time being, but you should always be trying to look for who has that energy, who takes shit seriously, who performs on a certain level, because that's just how they rock. All right. And how can I elevate them, even if it's not a partner, it's just a team member that's working for me. How can I elevate them because they have a high standard for themselves? And that gives me assurance that I can trust in them. And now I need to just put some more people who got high standards, build a team around that. And we know that we can take things to another level. So it's a balance that is harder to achieve sometimes in the beginning. But to me, you should always be looking for that, because the people who have that energy, they exist. And there's plenty of who aren't owners. All right. They might not want to be the entrepreneur or whatever, or they're just in a phase in their life where they rather work for somebody, whatever. They're there. You just have to find them. And they can be expensive, though, as a thing. Because a lot of times that they got that type of energy, they've probably done set a price at the end of Market Glacier. Yeah, for a good reason. For a good reason. Based off of their achievement. Not the people, oh, I just want to get paid more because I want to get paid more. I feel like I'm doing more. Because doing more isn't the same thing as achieving more. And when you get into the sphere as someone who can achieve more, I can make sure this shit goes viral. I can make sure this shit gets done with a level of trust and consistency. I can bring in a team up under me and make these things go to another level. Now, your price goes way up. I remember here, Alex Ramosy talk about the difference between $150,000 a year employee and a $250,000 employee is such a massive gap. It's ridiculous. And it's so funny because I wrote another person say that as well. When I had hired my first $250,000 employee, he's like, man, I could kind of like forget about things. So I just let them rock. And then I think at least Alex might have talked about the $1,000,000 employee that they've had to play or whatever. But it's just a difference. It's like it's one thing to be like, I got to train you all day and do everything. It's another thing to be like, oh, I train you, but then you get it quickly. And then you start to, you know, knock it out with need management. It's another thing. I give you a little chain of insight. You get it. And then all of a sudden you start to improve yourself and the process. It's another thing to be like, you come in with a hell of experience and can kill it on rip, bring me new information. And you start to continue to grow. Right. It's the whole, it's all another thing that you can do all that shit and grow my business, not just yourself without me and train everybody else. Like those are levels, levels, levels, levels. And it takes skill sets and more, you know, an experience to get to that point. But like these team members, man, you, I think at the end of the day, just to keep it simple, is what's the standard that somebody has for themselves? All right. What's the urgency that someone has to achieve? Not even a specific task. But like, you know, I want to do something greater because that's personally I am. I'm always on some, I just want to do something like, yes, I want to make a lot of money and I want to do something this dope. All right. Like, and that's always going to drive me regardless. It's like, I just don't like the idea of going through our whole life and all we do on small shit. Like this is not something that attracts me. So you're always, and I find over time, I find more and more people where, hey, they want to do some dope shit. You know, you attract that energy that you put out. Right. They don't want to just do small shit. And yes, they, some people actually don't care about the money at all. They just want to do something really big. I'm not that person. I do care about the money as well. And it's like, that's a whole another ballot. We got the people who just want to make money. Yeah. If you just want to do some cool shit, then you got the people who want to do both. All right. I'm definitely on the most side of that. But the point is, at least if you, no matter what you want, if you have a standard for yourself and like, yo, bro, let's do whatever we doing. We decided to do, we do this shit on the best level, the highest level, everything else start figuring yourself out because most teams aren't like that. I saw Aaron, the Music Entrepreneur Club podcast, something to say, you know, I think I saw her say something like that. It's not a lot of people in the music industry that work hard. I remember when I came in the music industry, I was like, these niggas don't work. That's what I felt. And I still like, kind of find a balance. Like now I feel like I don't work hard enough based on how I usually will work. But then you get in the music and then you see the pace is so different and it's hard to lie. You're like, damn, 10 steps ahead and I'm waiting for people to move so I can move because the clients, I ain't even ready. It's all these other elements. But it's a true thing. So if you ain't working hard, yo, especially if you got a team with you working hard, it's going to differentiate you from everybody else. Like small things, just like when we had the agency, us just not being scammers differentiated. Just treat your people right, right? Right? And actually doing the work, right? That simple thing. A lot of people speak that like grind culture and shit like that and music, but most niggas really aren't working that hard, but and obviously everybody, but for the most part, who listened to us being in the music space, y'all take that and understand that's like a real thing. It's going to take you a lot further because you're not going to see it at first, but it's going to separate you from the pack. Yeah. Like you said, it'll attract the right people. You don't need a lot of those people for things to move by. I wanted to get the ball moving in the right direction. You know, I think to touch on something you said earlier, too, just for, I guess, you know, those who are looking for more employees and then partners per se, like, I mean, I think those are the type of employees you want to write. The ones where, Hey, like, yeah, this isn't your business. And you're right. Like, I've given you the leeway to move like an employee, but you move like this is your shit. You know what I'm saying? Like you take care of it. You act on certain things. You learn to grow because like you feel just as much ownership and this is as I might, you know what I'm saying? I wouldn't be in my thing. Like those people are invaluable, too. You know what I'm saying? Because you don't meet a lot of employees who think that way. Like most employees are just like, Okay, I'm showing up to make up down the clock at 10 and tell my day over with a seven, seven or one. I'm off this bit. 659, 59, my hand over the log up button versus every action employee that might hit you at night. Like, yo, you know, no, it's out to seven, but wooty, wooty, bam, bam, bam, bam, you're looking at your shit. Like, oh, damn, like, it's still working on this shit. No, that's fine. You know what I'm saying? Because they didn't have to. So those people are also valuable. And I think sometimes we'll, you know, as business owners, you'll run across those people. And because some of your other team members might be that way, you forget like how rare those people are. And so you are presenting someone that's not like that. And then you remember again, oh shit, like you hired number five, the other four were like this, and you were like this, everybody's not like, everybody's not literally everyone's not built like you, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's my thing, man. It's, I feel like a lot of people don't have a reference point because they're not around other people that are like giving that energy. So it's hard for them to really like feel and understand the difference. And I remember we talked about, we were talking to a homeboy in LA last time, I think it was the last time, both me and you were there. And he was like, he left his job to go work with Diddy and him, because he just wanted to feel like what it was like to run with the dogs, basically. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like see proofs of the stuff that he can make it work because he knows that anything, whatever you say about Diddy, did he hustle, he go hard to be in that environment, be in that vicinity and not get burned by the sun says something about you know, whatever, whatever, or whatever you're able to maintain. I think it's hard to today, especially in a like, like our shit, we have so much remote going on, right? It's hard to like really see how much work is going on between different individuals, how much like impact, like really like bleed off on people like you would in that environment. If you're working together, like if you're around Diddy, you're a personal assistant or something like that, that clearly rubs off on you because just like anything else, the people you spend time with, the people you become right. But there's even in today, if you build your team where your producers in a different city and I know artists whose managers are in different cities, multiple like that, like I'm talking about across the actual country from each other, there's still ways that you like can stay in contact and at least get a sense, but I don't think you got 100%. I even replace that. Well, now that they can buy it, the more and more I experience remote and then we just talked about this like different back being around. So in person environments, you just can't replicate it. Yeah, that's too much freedom. Yeah, remote work. And I'd say that as a person who's been doing remote work, I love it, you know what I'm saying? But sometimes I even have to look at myself and like, man, if you're in the office, you're going to be doing like this, you know what I'm saying? Like you're going to figure that shit out. Yeah, got that shit done with it being on to the next thing. Exactly, bro. I ain't trying to get out of this, but it's funny. It's funny how the brain works, but you in office, you work faster. You get out of that bitch faster and you out of office, you work slower because you don't want to, you don't want to get finished too fast and get thrown more work. But it's crazy to think about that, bro. Like that's where remote work is done. You used to work fast, you know what I'm saying? You get this shit over it. So you hopefully had nothing to do. Now you're like, nah, these niggas might have at least another eight things in the queue. Let me drag this shit out. No, I saw a great point about a company. They were saying that they want to start iron mode, but they haven't figured out a way like really train and maintain their quality control and they trust their culture so much. They value their culture so much. And what they were saying is, yeah, there's all these people that are like, oh man, these people start working at home and they're more productive. But when you look at it, like, well, especially when pandemic happened, it's like most of those people still got trained in office, right? And then that culture was executed at home. So they're like, yeah, they're going to have remote workers. But right now they haven't seen a substitute for training for the culture that's in their office. So they're going to start bringing people over to where they are, train them in office for maybe like, I don't know, 90 days or something like that. And then they can go back and live their remote life because now they get that culture in them because that's how hard it is when you have a remote situation. You know, if you were to really see what the daily hustle is like and rise, because you see each other every once in a while, things probably aren't even as serious in that moment. You know, it's like, you're working, but it's not, it's more casual than the everyday like, what is this shit taking? What goes into it? So I thought that was a really good point because like, yeah, we haven't seen like a whole slew of companies hire people that were only remote and never have been in office and culture and then say, yeah, our stats look better. There's some companies that are in niches like internet companies like make money online and things like that. A lot of people in our space build remote teams and label, you know, any labels that like they will surprise them to see bury them like that they were in different places. I just assumed all of them were in Atlanta. I mean, so that's interesting. You definitely know it works, but I think that again, it's such a rare situation, especially when you want to hit a certain scale and it's very unique to be able to achieve and do that. And you have to have the right makeup for it. But you know, remote aside, because I know some of y'all might be like, man, well, I don't know what does that have to do with artists or specifically, but all of this shit is business on her shit. And it's stuff better for y'all to think about. And I feel like I saw somebody in the comments on my episode or two ago was like, oh, yeah, y'all is respected as more of an IA stores manager and the shit like that. Yeah, he's right. So I was like, yeah, we are through because we business we professional we were going back and we're not artists. Right. I mean, but I'm my thing is, it's here, because when you deal with the business stuff, that's how you're not to think. You're not going to think about the artist stuff like a artist. I mean, the business stuff like an artist, you might have your artist's empathy, but if you want to execute it and do it on a real level, you have to think about it from a business person's perspective. It's like being a parent, right? It's like, you're a child and you're like, I don't really rock with this that in the third, then you become a parent and then you see it completely different. You understand, oh, that's why they did that. Or you just become the boss of the manager and you start understanding certain things. Oh, this is why brum said, make sure I log in every day and clock in because now I can't track shit. You know what I mean? This is why I need X, Y, and Z. And now you have to feel the brunt of it. So we talk about these subjects from the perspective, not to try to fake and do some, hey, we're the artists and want to like pretend like we're the artists, give an artist's perspective. Like, no, this is just as valuable for the artist to graduate and control their indie business and structure. We're going to bring on and talk to some artists to have all that artist's shit. And like in terms of like that perspective, but like, I don't, at least that's where I feel like we sit. I don't see a lot of people that speak enough on the business side that isn't just a straight preachy. You need to own your shit. You know, like they'll say like three, four subjects. You know what I mean? Yeah. And then they're coming at you, you know, with the like old way of like yelling at you, type 5, which is cool. Like Gary V type energy, right? Yeah. Two, same thing. And that's cool too. And I can be inspired. I like, I actually like Brash delivery. Some people know, but I actually personally am cool with that. But there's this other perspective where if you don't hear the thoughts behind the thoughts, you really don't understand the shit. And that's why I think it's so fun about talking with like other executives and even artists, photographers, like just all these other people in the game and having a casual conversation that's not about business because that's when you get the conversations and the thoughts behind the thoughts, like how we even talk right here is like, we don't plan every single word because we're like having those thoughts in real time. But that creates the thought that you execute a campaign with. I took all this shit into account. And then I made my decision. It wasn't just like, oh, here's a science book. And people will be looking for like science book answers from us. Sometimes I was like, hey, do 123 step. And then we could do a video like that. But then you do that, but you don't understand when that does apply and doesn't because you actually don't understand the shit. You were just trying to copy our work, right? Or follow the recipe. And the recipe ain't good for all occasions, right? Versus, damn, Cory just said this, but he said he got it from this. So the reason he thought about it was really an analogy that he drew together. And then he came to this conclusion. So if you understand where it came from, now you might understand why it does work when it don't work or you can add it to your perspective. And that's my favorite way to think of it. I just go around collecting frameworks. You say some shit from a different perspective of how I think about it. Oh, now I got that way. And I'm still looking at it as my way and your way. And then I might get other new ways. But now I just got like five different ways of looking at the same thing. I don't replace. I feel like they're going to be trying to replace and find the one. And this shit don't really work like that. Ain't no one. And I miss it. It's not, right? So you just gain, collect perspectives. And then when you add all five or all 10 or all 20 ways to look at that same shit, that's actually going to create this like new perspective. He doesn't say that doesn't that create something special. And that's when people can start doing that special shit. You got someone I can tell you who went to, you know, he was an artist, right? Art school got accepted into art school. And he's also a producer. He's also a rapper that he interned for Louis back in the day early on and did all this shit he's seeing today. Wasn't just like, oh, I'm a music person who wanted to start doing some merch, right? And running like music people doing the merch. No, I'm a music person and I interned for Louis. And now 10 years later, you always seeing me come with different lessons and perspectives that I got from other people, right? Like it's just collecting perspectives and especially as an artist. That's really the shit that you should value because that we talk about how your POV is unique. Your POV is all the as unique as the perspectives and experiences that you've collected. Yeah, strikes, strikes. So there is some shit on here for but y'all artists that guy who said, who said that, man, you can't even wait for Louis, man. We weren't doing it. You'd be like, I wish there was somebody out there giving the business perspective from the business. God saw it. Someone saw it coming. I was like, bro, I mean, I was just gonna like it. I think I did like it actually. I did see it like that. And in my mind, I said that was probably jacquero with me because I thought jacquero you probably would do that. But for y'all listening, because I know there's a lot of valuable people and listeners who don't think that way at all and see value in the podcast, this is, look, we don't need y'all to show it. So from a standpoint of like, hey, you know, don't listen to the hater. This ain't us getting wrapped up by the hater. Because I know some of y'all will say something like that. It's, I see it as like a teachable moment when I see people that come with that type of respect us, we can argue and be like, oh, bro, you just don't get that shit. And you stupid and or ours is better. I'm not saying ours is better, whatever, whatever. I just think when you don't understand why this approach is valuable, then it's easy to like just opt out. Like there's people who were like, oh, well, the video is too long. It's like, well, yeah, we look, we've been doing, we know how to create short videos. Like we've only created short YouTube style videos before we started doing the podcast. Like we, we know how to do that shit and make that shit entertaining, right? But for me personally, especially like, I just don't see as much value in it anymore, outside of us going like by running just for ourselves. Because it's plenty of videos who do that. And I see how people really don't be learning like that. A lot of times, because they'll just watch a video, they'll be entertained by it because we made the shit entertaining. But then they're still falling by the wayside in terms of actually understanding how this shit all connects. Yeah, but people are interested, man. People are complaining about not having something and get it. And then it's just like the song that we heard earlier from the podcast. I guess it's like, I want that dopamine release from the same style format information I've used to getting, you know what I'm saying? See, there's a clip. I wasn't going to play this clip, but now I got to play that clip because it relates to this topic. Before I play it, here's another thing. All right. This is just for all of y'all. This isn't us feeling away, right? We're not in our feelings. But it's just another example, because we are content creators and we are creative and all right, we just do it in a different way. Well, this backdrop that we have right now, there was somebody which ain't much of a backdrop. We're in transition. But there's somebody who was like, you had to look like that. And we're like, it's shit right here, huh, man? I can remember, man. Cassey, it come back with the point. I saw somebody in the comments that was like, I missed the all black back. Oh, yeah, I missed it. There's a black room. And then I saw somebody else, a couple of comments or videos later that was like, oh my gosh, I love the new setup in a direction y'all would do it, right? And then when we were in transition, before we got to this step setup, we went from the black room to the mineral. And we just looked at it like, hey, like, bro, we just going to throw this shit together because this ain't what we went at all. K-days. Shout out to K-days. He was like, bro, I felt where y'all, where y'all going with this? I like the new setup. We like, bro, this ain't it. No, come on, man. Like, you know, it's like, when you have all the outfit you don't like and people come up with your outfit, it's like, bro, come on, there you go, this ain't the outfit. You don't swag in the hell, boy. Yeah, I feel like the guy be making fun of you. But, you know, no one K-days, it was most likely genuine, man, genuine love that we appreciate you. But it goes into that same insecurity or just being in process and building in real time and people going to have different opinions about the same shit. Even you might be the negative opinion and someone's about your own shit while somebody else is positive about it. Or this guy said, I missed the black room looking at our current setup and didn't somebody else said, I love it. Now, with this guy saying I missed the black room, what did we get when we had the black room? Crickets. Not just crickets. Selfie will be able to say, man, this is kind of boring, y'all shit on the wall. I would love to see you two in the same club. All that stuff, right? You ain't going to please everybody ever. It's just not going to happen. That is literally a part of the process. And when you get used to it, it's kind of fun to watch because it's almost mind boggling sometimes, like the way you can't win for losing. It's kind of funny. I just like to comment. That's all I said, bro. I'll be watching you when you get a response sometimes, like y'all better than me. I want you to like it so they know I saw it. And I'm moving past this one like, damn, they didn't acknowledge that. Like, damn right, I saw it. I ain't got nothing to say to you. I don't acknowledge a lot of times, but then, yeah, there's plenty of times where I will. If I feel like somebody just seeing something completely wrong, I'm going to let them know what you're saying. Because you know my pet peeve. My pet peeve is when somebody argues something that I didn't say. In real life, too. Not even just no comment shit. It's like, I didn't even say that. And then they be arguing the shit that you said. With the shit that you said. Yeah, bro. It's like you arguing against me and literally using what I just said as my argument. I saw this one comment. So I'm got love. And then you was like, man, you must have commented before watching the clip. And we touched them down. He's like, yeah, you're right. I did. I was there for that stuff. Oh, wait, I didn't see him respond back. You didn't see? That'd be my thing, man. That's the shit that we can do. He's like, yeah, you're right. I had watched it. Yeah, I was like, bro, like, oh my god. Bro, see, I'm glad you told me that. That makes my soul rest a little easier. I did not realize that he actually responded. Because a lot of times I'm like, do you honestly miss the response? I'll say something and then I forget to go back. But that's exactly the perfect example. Like, bro, literally this entire section of your argument was word for word what the hell we just said. And you argued. Like, I don't know it or whatever. And then I was like, it's not about to be an old section of us arguing about the shit I were talking about and shit that people don't say. But it's funny, man. With that being said, since it's on topic, I'm going to go ahead and play this clip. We plan to play this one for this part. But yeah, let's go ahead and do it. Actually, I think it's over here. Yeah, let's play this. Because Buddy preaching and speaking up on this one. Let's see. I checked this out. Beaumani, if y'all know about Beaumani, he has some dope clips. And he's talking about basically how you can't win for losing as a content creator. But if you try to win too hard, you're basically going to lose anyway. That might have sounded confusing. But when you listen to it, you'll see what I'm saying. I'll be trying to win over haters by changing your content and the way that we describe it. They're never going to watch it. Right? You make all these shaders for all these people and they've already made a decision about you and they're never going to watch the show. And all that word goes for not, right? If there was three people sitting in this room then all we're going to do is make a show for these three people. I went to a concert, I want to say it's like 12 years ago, somewhere in there. I went to go see Yellow Man at the Lincoln Theater in Raleigh. And Raleigh did not have a great track record for like promoting club shows and stuff like that. Like this is a legendary reggae artist and it's like three people there. And so Yellow Man comes on stage and he looks out and he sees his three people and he rocked it like it was summer jam. Right? The three people who were there were going to get a full show because they paid the money to see that dude, right? And that really like inspired me and informed everything else that I wowed. They'll do it really in the end because no matter what, you got to do the show, right? And so you do the show for the people who like it and do it for the people who watch it. You do your stuff to make it as good as it possibly can be. And then everybody else gets to make their decision about it. But like I ain't begging nobody to watch no television show. Let me tell you something. I get paid whether you watch it or not. I might not get paid to do it again, but for the right now, I get paid no matter what y'all do. So all I can hope for and what the game always has got to be, if this was going to be whatever it's going to be, it's going to be because the people who like it tell the people they know and then they go from there. But I know better than to try to change. I feel like if you don't follow them, you mentioned them and you say you ain't looking at this page, you should follow them. Let's see, they posted this clip from the HBO page, so it's not really, all too much incentive there. That shit he said about like, hey, I get paid anyway. I might have to pay to do it again. That was some shit you would say. What, that fell away. This is the story. Well, I agree when I thought about the clip. I was like, you know, man, that's a boy, man. They might not hire me again, but they hired me now, damn it. Hey, man, this is people commenting. I love this quote. Love this and the quote. I feel like there was something that someone said that I wanted to bring up. Me and my sports husband love this show. I'll find it, but there's a couple of things that I want to address here. One, you brought in the artist example, which is beautiful, right? The form, you got a thousand people, even if it's only one. Makes all that sense in the world. And it works. I mean, I remember even just starting YouTube, it was only one person that was like a main consistent commenter. I'm like, as long as his dude giving energy, hey, I'mma keep posting. He disappear? I don't know why I had to stop doing these things. That was my only positive reinforcement that wasn't somebody I actually knew. So, but like that energy works and then you get stories like this, right? Because he gave that. It was just a regular show. You know, he might have talked about it and say, oh yeah, I went to Yellow Man, but like using this as an example and even holding somebody high and put him on a pedestal years later, he's bringing his story and this clip is going viral with Yellow Man's name on it. Now some people are like, who's Yellow Man? I was like, who's Yellow Man? Go check out Yellow Man, you know what I'm saying? So like that goes like both ways. And that was the comment that was in that same vein. That Dave should fail quote from that special. I don't know if you saw that one, but he was like, I'm like, I get paid for the attempt. Hey, is it? I tried and that's what I get paid for. I love that perspective. Obviously coming off a little conversation we just had. That's why I was just, you had to go ahead and play it right now. It just made sense. Just made sense. Very, very rarely do we play a clip to cap a conversation. To prove the point. Real quick, just in case you don't believe what I'm saying. Go ball money. Here's the third party. Now switching it up, Brett Fias. Y'all haven't been watching Brent Fias for years. Then he's somebody to really go back, do a deep dive in the way this man is built up. Why you just got to do it? Because he's built Indy. I mean, he's performing better than a lot of R&B artists. Nothing, what is he around? Like 10 or 17 million streams. Some crud. Like something he is up there. And we're talking about, you know, pretty legit in Indy as Indy can legitimately be. You know, honey, let's say that, right? So that being said, in this clip right here, Brent Fias' manager reveals how he built his fan base with independent touring and ads. Last year, 22-year-old R&B singer Brent Fias called a break. What were they offering? Well, I know the highest offer we got was kind of like a quarter of a million dollars in advance. And it was like a $300,000 court budget for album one. I always said it was never about the money. It was always about the turn. They began by incorporating Lost Kids, LLC, and investing $30,000 out of their own pockets to record Brent's debut album. They then went on a three-month tour using streaming data to guide the way. Yeah, no, definitely. We need to know about all analytics, all data. There has been several evading steps filed immediately to Condor. Time minds the data for those streams to find out exactly where and when a show will sell out. I'm looking at my Spotify and my SoundCloud analytics, like the top 50 market. I'm doing ads based on those top 50 markets. I was spending money there because that's what the data already told me. All right, all right. Now, many of you might have seen this clip. I've shared it on my page or reposted it before. It's been nothing new. This is a vice news story. EJ, if you can put the link in the description for folks who want to check out the pool thing when they watched the pot. But what I love about this clip is it's very simple strategy, right? We do shows. We do music. We do ads. All right, very easy, very replicable. Very easy, very replicable. And we've seen this and we've done this before with multiple artists. And it works. It's an older school strategy. It's crazy. Like, basically, it's like old school now, right? Or Instagram ads are just ads in general. But it does work. And the thing about this, though, that I love the most is just strategy. And I can always bring this up. All right. So many people are running ads thinking how cheap can I get ads like my clip through? How cheap can I get my conversion if you're clever? Nobody's attaching it to an actual strategy though, right? And the part that takes it away from the strategy is just focusing on those direct numbers. These guys tie in brick. Oh, these are my cities that are like top for my music. We can all see this. We're all aware of this. Like, we're like, oh, yeah. A lot of people in Atlanta like my music. A lot of people in, I don't know, LA seem to like my music. But then people get afraid when they start running some ads and they see the ads are more expensive because you're focused on a tighter market. You're not just doing a worldwide ads where everything's going to be cheaper because you've got more people to just, you know, to auction with. Cool. But it's more meaningful and worse, having more expensive ads if it's tied to something legitimate at the end. If you're going to do a show there, yeah, it might suck that you're getting higher cost per conversion at that time. But if it's going to lead to you doing something real that you can't get done, what you're doing worldwide ads, because I got a hundred fans in this city, five fans in that city, a thousand fans over here. Like it's so spread out, you lose out. And so now I don't know how to just, I can't go do a show in the market where there's only five fans. It's not going to be worth it. I can't even break even. And a lot of times the goal is just to break even to make them stronger fans. Right. But you do this for years and you're touching like target the market, touch base with the fans. Target the market, touch base with the fans. Sell them some merch. All right. Making a little bit more real. I break even with the show. I make money with the merch. Break even with the show. Make money with your merchant. And that starts to build. Next thing you know, I might make money with the show and then go crazy with the merch. All right. You repeat that enough. Things build. You end up with a breath. If I ask someone, the music is good. Right. And other factors out here. But it's really not like, you know, rocket science. But it is having strategy. It doesn't have to be targeting a specific city and a plan to do a tour or anything. There's other strategies, but you have to attach it to something because all of these cost per clicks are meaningless when if you're just focused on how cheap can I get my ass and not how little money can I spend? Like that's that's always my gripe when it comes to ads and how people approach it. There's no long term and people really in this space. We get caught up or we conflate strategy and tactics and really people are very tight school. Yeah. And I mean, that's even when I liked about his clip is, you know, I have a lot of artists who will hit me asking exactly that. Like, what is the ad strategy to start with? And yeah, you can argue that his strategy was, you know, a touring based ad strategy, which anybody could do, but where you target is going to change that strategy for you. Exactly. Right. Because we don't even know about the other nuances that went into that. Right. I'm assuming that if I'm an artist that's in my day to show me that I should tour and let's say like DC, Virginia and New York, that's going to that's going to move my strategy differently than the artist is saying to have I'm big and Houston Dallas, Austin or something like that. Right. Because I know like culturally, the places are different. So that opens up to different types of activations and partnerships and things like that. Right. So I think just even even just realizing that the data can be that to be a guy for you is really valuable. Because I think that so many artists try to fight against the data because they don't want to feel like the algorithm is controlling their career. Right. Right. Yeah. Spotify is telling me Atlanta is my popping city, but fuck Atlanta. I don't want to walk in Atlanta. I'm going to go building LA because I want to do a show at LA. Which like you said, there's a strategy behind it. Go for it. The other thing, you know what I'm saying? But you know, for most other cases, it's almost like, wow, you know what I'm saying? Like we've already kind of done some of the free leg work to see that this is where your money should be spent. Why not go along with that? You know what I'm saying? Why not dig the hole that's already spitting up a little bit of oil, you know what I'm saying? It's still digging all completely new. So that's what always got me about that clip was, he was one of the first people I'd ever heard be so for the data that way, you know what I'm saying? Especially at a time when a lot of artists at that time were bragging about not looking at analytics and stuff like that, you know what I'm saying? So, but I agree with you man. I think like this is also a show that ads can be a lot more useful than a lot of artists think they are. And I think because of what you're saying, there's a stigma behind ads where 98% of people's objective is just to get the cheapest cost for quicker conversion is possible, right? And so when that's the bar for everybody, it makes it to where it's easy for people to say this thing works or this thing doesn't work, right? But ads are a lot more nuanced than that, you know what I'm saying? Like we've had campaigns before where the cost of the ad was expensive and from the artist's perspective it was a fail but then once you start explaining certain things, it's like, oh this makes a lot of sense, it's worked. Yeah man, like you're paying for a more premium of a market, you know what I'm saying? You're paying, so you're paying $2 so this shit don't optimize the Brazil. We get you that 0.001 if that's what you want, you know what I'm saying? But, you know, if we're going to build towards some type of a lot longer term play, then this is just the cost of like doing that. This is the cost of that strategy, right? And so people have to think about it like there is a cost with each marketing strategy that you implement, right? My ad strategy for an artist's only one to build internationally is going to be cheaper than my ad strategy for the artist that wants to build domestically, you know what I'm saying? It's just the nature of the game. But I will be wrong to tell either of them that if they have strategy behind them, either of them is right or wrong, right? Like this artist is like, hey, I got this grand vision of popping in Brazil first and then I'm going to go over there and I'm going to do a Latin tour and I'm going to take that money and come back into America and I'm going to invest, blah, blah, blah, right? His or her strategy isn't any more wrong than the artist's like, hey, I'm going to probably own first and then build a buzz in my own city and then I'm going to sell merch doing my local shows and I'm going to take, right? It's the same end result, you know what I'm saying? Different path that you walk, that you kind of walk together. Right there. Well, focus, which implies strategy. Brazil first, that's still specific, even though Brazil has many cities and states or provinces, whatever they call them, right? And then your hometown ideas, that's something more specific, better specific, more specific, more likely you actually have a strategy. Yeah. Right? Or something closer to it resembling. Because you got people who are like their strategy, quote, unquote, is to run ads and try to make money from streams. Yeah, crazy. Everybody that ever asked that, I just want you to know it's a hassle with a little mission that you run now. Unless you crack in the point, oh, oh, oh, one place, you know what I'm saying? Even then, that stream is on pay as much. It's a hard thing to do to literally just run ads to your stream. That should not be your plan. There are moments when you do make your money back because triggers and algorithm starts to move. So your song starts to work beyond the money that you spent. But if that's your plan going into it, the expectation you want to put on the marketer or your manager or whoever, then that's a faulty mission. That's a four or five of your play. Well, I always ask them, like, hey, man, do you have the time to do that strategy? That's a four or five of your play right there. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I'll go be a longer play. In many cases. Now, let me think about something. Well, I was going to say, you know, this whole conversation makes me think of, but we're literally watching this happen in real time. We were, like, recently. Adrien campaign, bro. Oh, yeah. Like, Adrien Milano, one of our clients who's having, you know, a lot of success right now in Thailand and the Philippines. And I remember 2020 when he was like, hey, I think I want to take the next couple of years and just focus on the Philippines and Thailand because I think that they'll take me because I make R&B music and I look the way I do. And at the time, you know, all the traditional, you know, what's pink? What's red and green, basically? What color is that? Red and green is purple. Oh, that's red, blue. Red and green? Yellow? Maybe? I don't know. I don't know my color, man. I don't know what's my color. But whatever that color flag is, we would see those flags be away. It was like, all right, man. You're cosmic-clicking. Thailand is looking suspicious, but he's telling us, hey, but now I'm getting deals in their language and they're telling me things, right? And so, like, he stuck that strategy out for two years and then the song sparked on Spotify, viral 50 for those countries. And now that long-term play has worked out. It is yellow. It's yellow. I'm good, bro. Let's talk about that. Man, I knew, hey, man, art school, bro. Pay it off. I'm not married, color wheel. The graphic design, man, bro. Pay it off, man. No, I'm a coach. But it's like, that's the same shit, right? Like, it's like, who are we in the moment to say, like, this is wrong or right? I was just glad he had a strategy. You know what I'm saying? You're like, I'm like, hey, man, we could always look back on this a year or two from now and say, hey, that was a good idea. That wasn't a good idea. Because the reality of it is, to your point about the tactics versus strategies, that's how I look at it. Tactics are something that could be completed within a couple of days to a couple months. Strategies take a year, you know what I'm saying? Like, how do I know if my strategy to build my social prominence in Atlanta worked if I don't at least have two years to go by to see how people talk about me out? You know what I'm saying? Like, it's the same shit. So like, to enact most of the strategy, like you need long term vision and the patience to kind of act it out. So I, a lot of times, and even if I disagree with clients' marketing campaigns sometimes, like a lot of times just them having a thought behind or having a why for why they want to do things that are enough to prevent me from acting. Because then I started thinking like, well, maybe they thought about this deeper than I thought about it. Maybe they've seen something. Or at the very least, I know that they have a vision and an idea and they're willing to trust it out long enough to make some assessments off of them. And like, you know, like you said, music is good and other things there. Typically it works out a long time, you know. And I'm really big on painting to, at least the clients I get to talk to, but definitely any artist that talks to me where I'll tell them like, hey, you know, there are going to be things that we do for you where you won't even really see the impact of it for like three or four months. You know what I'm saying? And so in the moment, it's going to feel like it's not working. But then three or four months later, you're going to look at them like, damn, no, that shit worked. Like, I can feel where this came from and people are saying certain things to me and my shit just spiked out of nowhere. Right? Like, I literally had a client a couple of weeks ago hit me. Her manager hit me. It was like, yeah, man, you know, in the moment, like the artist wasn't really happy with our campaign, but she was just talking to us. Like, man, they did a great job. Like, I'm looking at my analytics and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I told her, I was like, three weeks, I'd love to look at what it is three, four months ago when we did the campaign. And I said, three months have went by. I'm like, so, so I think that's a lot of times where the turds of artists are like making strategies, like those crowd of contractors, like you can't really gauge them in the short term. Like a strategy or a real strategy takes faith. You know what I'm saying? Like, you got to believe. Yeah, man, day by day, man, this shit, dropping down or spiking wherever. You're like, nah, man, I feel it, man. I got one new follower from Atlanta. He's saying great things. It's this strategy to build me in Atlanta. It's moving. It's moving slow, but it's moving. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I'm bigger if it's moving up. Man, it's good. So, as long as it's uptrending, that's what it's like to keep it pushing. So, but that was what I liked about the top club, man. It was like, one just, I think more artists need to understand that the data can be a tool for you, you know what I'm saying? And sometimes if you don't feel like you have enough information to make these strategic decisions that Sean and I are talking about, like that's why these different tools exist, to give you as much information as possible to help you make the best, most calculated decision that you possibly can. And the second thing is like, yeah, bro, I had an ad strategy get deep. You know what I'm saying? Like he talked about one, he essentially is doing like the tour building strategy, but it's like, it can get deep, right? I know we got at least like seven, eight different one. We just whip out the bucket, you know what I'm saying? I should need to go a certain way. And so it's like, if you're reading this, or not reading this, listen to this, and you've had just skepticism, little advertisement, you feel like advertising's gonna work for you. You know what I'm saying? Very rarely is the canvas the reason that the paintbrush tries, you know what I'm saying? Very rarely is the paintbrush the reason that the paintbrush tries, you know what I'm saying? I'm gonna leave that one there. Let that one soak. But I will say, the other benefit of like focus that people have to have faith to get to that moment in time when you're focused on a specific thing. I've said this plenty of times. All right. You can have a moment like Chikori pull up today. You play a song and I'm like, oh shoot, brother. You know that song? Right, that's my song. I just discovered that song on some ad the other day or some influencer in this market. Do you have somebody else? Oh, it's not. You know that song? Like that organic spread is something that's not gonna happen or marketing in all these random different places. All right. So that's been more money marketing here. Again, it's more expensive in the short term. But once I had a certain threshold, you start to have an organic effect where all these people in that same market actually know what has a type of experience. So then they start to spread and share it. And now they have that powerful experience of experiencing it with other people. We know that's the lock. We talk about how nostalgia really builds moments up and makes music more important to us than it actually was. And even the main at the time. Well, if more of us know this song, we can create these experiences together. We have experiences together, especially if they're positive. We're gonna want to replay this song. All right. This is how you start to build that and become a part of people's lives as an artist. Like being focused in a specific place and being able to take over that location and then find another location. And then next thing you know, you got the whole state, you got the whole country and maybe, you know, you're that type of artist and that's your goal. You might have the whole world. So it's something to consider. But staying in the touring space, LaRussell dropped his stats. And he really made that much money from his show. He made like a hundred dollars from a show that he threw. However, what he shared is really a positive that everybody should take from it because he showed the entire P&L from a show that he did. I don't know where it was. I think it was in Seattle. And you're talking about how much he paid in terms of the merch people. How much he paid. Let me enlarge this. It's really something we can link to this post in the comments too because I think people need to really see it to really feel it more than anything. But let's enlarge this on the screen and everything. All right. So for example, the venues. Yeah, he did on February 26th, 2003, a show in Seattle. And then also on the 25th of February, 2023, he did a show in Portland. 453 tickets sold in Seattle. And 479 sold in Portland. The total revenue was $8,176.50 from his Seattle show and $8,652.90 from his Portland show. So first of all, that's an inspiration. He made 16 grand, nearly 17 grand from doing two shows as an indie artist building up. All right. Great. Average tickets price was $18 for both of these shows. It's interesting that they're like one cent difference. And they're their average tickets price. But from there, he breaks down the flights that were involved. I don't know if that was just him or I guess, okay. Yeah, he actually does. He has the flight for the crew. Looks like he has two people on the crew, maybe. So he paid for two people's flight. He paid for two people's flights who were on merch staff. So that's different than his crew. And then two performers. That's him. And maybe that was a singer or something or a backup or maybe it was an opening act. I don't know. Now, it was interesting. If I'm tripping, one of these tickets costs a lot more than the other. Oh, yeah. Now, tell me this, Larusso, was that your ticket running? Did you got to do first class or something? When I was there. Because that was from San Francisco to Portland. The second one was from Seattle to San Francisco. I see. I see. I see. So that might be him. Maybe it's Seattle to San Fran to San Fran. Well, no, I don't know. Either way, go now. I'm just playing like, but I got to be first class. But no, maybe it might just be the city and the timing. But and also who knows how fast he had to like book the ticket. So he might not even have a chance to get the best prices. That's right. But the lodging, he breaks down all of this. So lesson here. Man, above all the whether I made money, whether I didn't make money and all of that value here, plenty valuable. But the fact that it's on paper or an Excel document, if you want to be 2023 about it, like it's actually tracked. He has his numbers. This is something that everybody can be doing at every single level, like period. And I don't see enough people doing it. I remember being on a call where some people wanted to be a part of our music market program. Might have been January when I first spoke to him. And we had a conversation whether, you know, like I would accept them to the program or not. And I determined they were a solid fit and would be excited to work with them. Well, one thing they end up saying throughout the conversation was they spent 10 racks in 2022. Those 10 racks that they spent in 2022 for the music was not planned at the beginning of the year. There was no budget to spend 10 racks. You know what they did? I spent $25 here. Here's an outlook spent 100 here. Oh, so we got a music video. Oh, no, it'll be cool if we go to Miami real quick and shoot a video. And these tickets are cheap. So let's go spend another $500 here. And then marketing. Oh, I just saw some random ad and they said that was cheap. And then I just saw a new YouTube video. And then that was another $400 because that strategy was sounded like it was good. Right. And they nickel and dived and spent 10k. But if you ever asked them, was it possible to spend 10k? At the beginning of the year, they would even think that they would have come across that much money. Spit the money without a plan. Spit the money without the right decision-making precedent. If they had that mentality at the beginning of the year, it said, hey, we're going to, I get it. They might not know. Sometimes you're in that mindset. It's like it's even hard to imagine that you can spend $2,000. So planning to spend $2,000 might sound absurd to you. Right. But it's a matter. And I was part of, but I said, look, if y'all, when y'all get in, we can help you, right? Because the money you spend to even get in or be a part of this, the rest of that money is going to be spent with the proper decision-making. So you're going to see progress because y'all just spent $10,000 by mistake and didn't get any progress. All right. Or get as much progress as you would have had if you spent a quarter of that or an eighth of that on maybe getting the right mentorship or team members or whatever that might look like to get you from the right position to make, to spend the rest of the money the best way possible. And that goes back to, did you track your numbers? Like tracking it along the way. He knows what he spent. He posted this when five days ago. So that makes that, I don't know, like early March, right? And this show happened on the 26th. So six days later about, he was able to post the numbers from his shows. I'm sure he had, he might have just taken a while to even think that, oh, this would be a cool post to do. He has those numbers. They said at the end of the year, and I'll snap, I just spent this, this much money. And now he can be aware. And now he also has a threshold to say, oh yeah, okay, this is what it looks like when I spend this much money. And this is where the costs go. And now I want to do another show these are what my costs are probably gonna look like that or somewhere in St. Louis. Ooh, now, what if I can figure out a way to play a little further ahead and maybe I can shave like 400 dollars off of my tickets. And now when a profit is 600 dollars instead of 100 dollars on this show, right? Or it's just a better market or a cheaper market for me to fly to. So all of these numbers drop, right? But next time the team even sandwiches. Right, exactly. They eat sandwiches. And we all sleep in a car or whatever it is, right? But you have something to work off of and now make your future decisions off of. That's what I like about this morning at anything else. I notice inspirational for people to see like that somebody else isn't winning as big as they might look like they're winning or that there's down periods. I get all that. But the biggest takeaway should not be that shit. Like the biggest takeaway should be he is tracking his shit because that's the part that's gonna change what you do this. Inspiration is nice and make you feel better. I get that. But like if you operate like this, that will legitimately, literally change your entire process. Yeah, yeah. And I think people need to take this to understand, bro. Like breaking even in the world of throwing shows is a plus. I'm saying like most events don't break either. Like most events you mean you're lucky to not have a massive loss. Yeah. Like, oh, you only lost $5,000. Good job. You know what I'm saying? So I was like, oh, you made, you profited $100,000. Damn, bro. Good job. Because it's like, you know, like I said, he made about $16,000, but you had to spend $16,000. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so, you know, kind of going back to that strategy conversation about just having the faith and the strategy of this is gonna help because, you know, the disconnect I will see with shows a lot of the time is I think that successful and progressive artists see shows as marketing opportunities for probably the first few years of their careers and then big cap later years of their careers. Most artists are thinking backwards. They think this shit is a cap up. Okay. That can just start doing shows. I started making money. He's like, maybe if you're doing like club appearances or something, but then you're gonna be building in situations where you don't get to control much of the experience. You don't really get the data. I'm saying, so yeah, maybe you made some money, but then everything else is valuable about that you lost out on because of this, right? But for the situations where it's gonna be lucrative to you, maybe more long-term and short-term, where I, like situations like this, be putting together your own show or your own tour or things like that. One, like you said, the experience of doing this is valuable because this can be applied across the board. If you are artist and you wanna track, you know what I'm saying? You're streaming revenue, bro. Make a little cheats just like this. How much do you spend on the cover art? How much do you spend on distribution? Right. How much do you spend on marketing for and how much money does that make you back a quarter? Like you could track the exact same shit across any portion of your industry or your career, right? You're doing merch, you do the same thing. How much does it take me to make these t-shirts and how many did I sell and shit like that, right? So it's like the skill set alone is invaluable. Then two, if you're looking at, if he's looking at this like a marketing opportunity, like I feel like he is, then, you know, one, this is just the call. Now that loss just becomes the cost of marketing, you know what I'm saying? And there's always a cause of marketing. There's always the money you spend on marketing if you're probably in your back. You just gotta be okay with that, you know what I'm saying? And the change is thinking of it as marketing makes you more okay with it than thinking of it as like, oh, this is a show I'm supposed to get paid off of. Now your brain's wired different there, right? But so it's like not only is he setting the foundation where this show that he brought even on today might produce a show for him two years from now that makes it so he makes a hot cat and like, you know what I'm saying? Create real fans. That show connection is still different. We just talked about annuals this podcast will last. Wow. We'll be talking about like the remote work versus going into office. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the same thing, remote work, man. We, you just hear me on my own stream and you just watch me on Instagram but going into the office like before me in person. Checking my hand, dapping me up on stage, man. You pay $20, you know? So it's like the smart artist see shows that way. Like I have a lot of artist homies and, you know, industry friends who like, like I know artists whose team paid to get him on Rollin' Out just because of the press look. They were like, hey, like, we not gonna make any money from Rollin' Out but we can take this and he got a release coming this Friday and we can say, hey, this artist was just on Rollin' Out and won the slot. You know what I'm saying? So like sometimes you're gonna pay for and do things in music where the cap, the big cap that you're looking for isn't gonna come until later down the line. You know what I'm saying? And I think that the difference between, you know, the smart artist and the non-smart artist is the ability to see like when they make chance to do something like that. And when it's like, hey, I'm not gonna make a, I'm gonna lose 10K but if the 10, if the event hit like I need to then that's gonna be a 10K, that's gonna be 10K worth of spit, you know what I'm saying? And what's 10K of that shit bringing you back 100K over the next year or two? You know what I'm saying? See what you know what that takes? Sense and patience. And strategy, yeah. And strategy. Now, flipping this on his head, well, actually I got to, I want to read all the Russell's or Calvin's saying, yeah, you know, just to do it, do it justice. Moment of transparency. I don't always win, but I always take the risk. You know what I'm saying? That's an entrepreneur's. I'm not saying that's a quote he took from me. Oh, God, God, God. He did put it in quotes, so he probably did get a result. I'm just saying like, that's some shit of an entrepreneur. Yeah, okay. I got you. This weekend I did two shows, one sold out, the other didn't nearly 500 tickets. I still lost money all caps. This is typical for me because I allow people to pay whatever they want. I'm super grateful for those who really value my presence, pay extra and really take care of a nigga. I put on an experience that could easily charge. I could easily charge hundreds for, but I refuse to. This is the reality of how this shit goes. Pray your hands. It ain't always pretty, but it's always beautiful. Shout out to the squad, ENT Legends, for taking the risk with me even when the profit ain't there. Impact cannot be quantified. Hey, now let's talk about these folks who took the risk with them, ENT. So they made $55 Good Company, which is a Russell's company. They made $55. And maybe that's $53.20. That's what both of them made. So it looked like they did a 50-50 profit share on this risk they took together. Right? But ENT, they get a good look from this too because when they took a risk, that sounds like they're good. The artist friendly, the Russell's actually posting about this in good faith and shining light on his partners. So they're taking a risk. Right? This is, talk about the manager, the professional side, how you have to think. Yeah. This is why it's not just about an artist-specific perspective. It's understanding the people who are involved, how they see the game that you're going to be working with and understanding just a business person, business artist perspective, where the value is for you personally and others involved. So no. ENT, El, what is it? ENT Legends, that's what it's called. Like they didn't get probably the biggest win in the world, but if they're smart, they're going to know how to continue to bring value with this because of the Russell, somebody who's been moving well and bringing good attention to for himself. So they're going to be able to, like just from association, hopefully, be able to say, hey, we got a great experience with a little Russell and that dope experience that he put off for his fans. We were a part of it. Right? Now let's flip it into something that the Russell does very well. We've talked about this not from the Russell standpoint, but from other people. When I always talk about taking your losses and flipping it to a W. The Russell does this very well because he shares so much and it's just bound to happen with something. But especially with your losses, the way people are in this game, losses go viral. People love to hear, even if the loss isn't coming from a positive space and you didn't share this, people would spread it and it would have went viral. Really making money, like he say is, right? But he took control and power, not that he was afraid of it, but like even him posting it, it just comes from a different space. He's going viral for sharing this. That's more marketing for the Russell. That makes him seem and appear bigger than he is. That's all marketing is in a lot of ways, right? Because you keep getting talked about, you keep getting talked about and that appearance eventually becomes reality because people start to say there must be power in this thing because that's why it's being spoken about and brought up so much. Omni presence. Well, Russell does very good at is especially capitalizing off of the narrative, especially with the industry folks. We love talking about this stuff, right? We love sharing this stuff, right? And because it speaks, but sometimes it's just our validation to speak against, well, I'll speak about when we talking to artists' clients, like, look at Russell, man. I told you this, but that's quite easy, right? But sharing this again flips not only the show profit, right? That wasn't all that much into a good story that connects them stronger with his fans because his fans are like, oh, man, we appreciate your humility. And now we connect you with you more. And if we can pay more money, we're going to pay more money because we love the humility and the thankfulness that you still express, even though you didn't make money. And we see and understand the risks that you're taking. People are paying the money that they're paying for allowing Russell's shit because they understand what this nigga's going through. A lot of y'all's stories because you're trying to appear so fucking cool, people think you're cool. Like close mouth, don't get scared, bro. I thought you had everything handle. You were like, man, nobody can help me. It's like, bro, as far as I knew, you were cool. I didn't know you were going through it. Not that he's positioned as like, what was me? He's just sharing a journey and people see that it's more effort than it looks like. It's not all, you know, rainbows and butterflies. So now they understand the impact of the effort that they're putting in. And it's easier to impact here and feel a positive dopamine rush of investing and helping this guy who is, than it is for me to like go vote on. Like the president or something. I don't know if my vote was the one that took the scale or not. Right? I know it's 20 dollars. Got him wrong, doesn't it? I know this 20 dollars. Help this man get home. I know what to fly. Let me see. $20 ticket, five, 53. You know, like we're talking about literally tipping the scale. $53 in the profit. I could have been one of the five people that made this thing go in the green. Yeah. All right. So there's so many benefits of sharing your story because there's so many stakeholders. You got the fans that are going to connect more. You got the fans that are going to understand and now want to invest more. You got the other people that are just going to share it for better or worse, whether they're trying to say, oh, this person ain't making no money like that. Or they're trying to say, hey, man, this is an inspiring story and I want to share it. You got the other people who are being petty and like, hey, bro, I told you, see, I'm sharing this just because I want to prove it to my other folks that I was right or this is how you just a part of the game. So now you and now you're getting additional marketing going viral for free. All right. Off of the quote unquote loss, which isn't a loss like you are alluded to. It's very hard to make show money. It's like coming from ground zero, especially like just fuck, fuck, even just coming from ground zero. It's hard for big artists. Oh, yeah. We got a link to it with what was the name? Lord. Lord, there we go. Yeah, lower situation. Yeah, like it's actually hard period. Let's actually get back completely, right? It's not even we're talking about Jay-Z had to change the ticket prices a few years ago and say, well, I forgot what excuse they use, but we've seen it with Jay-Z and make him a nudge for a period. And, you know, that don't mean they aren't as big as they are. And they aren't like legit. It's just it really is hard. The man to figure out the shows and the logistics and do it with the real production. Man, I wish I got to see some video from this performance. It's a little rustle. He pretty much records like every day. So hopefully, you know, he posts it or whatever. He probably will. But he said he put on experience that he would have filled up charges. He couldn't have charged hundreds for it. I want to see that shit. Not because not from a hate of respect, but I want to see it like it really do I really see. Can I? Doesn't really seem like it was something that could have charged hundreds for it. Because you have people that will say that shit like in their ego, like, man, this shit was amazing or not even just being able to see like the value that it was for other people. Because I know I put so much in this shit. I feel like I could have been able to do but maybe it wasn't all that like extra adult. All right. So there's that thing. And then the other thing is, well, maybe he actually did put on a crazy experience. But that doesn't mean capture it in a way that you could tell. And that was some shit that I always tell people I learned that shit from doing the festival. First time. Didn't really know what for the cameras amazing event. Nobody happened. You know what I mean? Except for all the people that went. Luckily it was a whole lot of people. They wanted me to do it again. But like when I was trying, when it really hit, was what I was trying to market it. The second time around, I was like, damn, I got no footage of this shit. No proof with the foot. And then the second time, I was like, all right, let all these things with cameras in all these people with videos and did what happened. I had cameras, I had videos, but that shit didn't really do the experience justice. All right. Some people just weren't good photographers. Some people were and they were, but it wasn't enough or they were. They didn't capture the full story. They were and it captured a different POV than what I was trying to express creatively through the marketing and the event itself. Right. The third time. All right. Yeah, we're going to let all these people in free to capture all these random images so we can get some extra stuff. But I'm going to hire some dudes specifically to tell the exact story that I want to tell and say at this time, these doors are opening. They were going to surprise people with these doors. This room, this is going in, that's going in. I want you to be at this door when we open it so you can see people coming through. And now we got a legitimate experience that people can tell that there's multiple tears and it's a lot of shit going on. All right. So I want to know from that perspective, because it would suck if he has an experience that legitimately was something extra and dope, but it didn't get captured in that way. And I think, you know, it's hard to know that shit in front, right? Because you know you did it, but it takes a few times where you're like, that's not hitting like, and this shit just looks like a regular party or a regular concert. I promise you this shit was not regular. Right. You know what I'm saying? Like, I promise you for the next time while you change it. So I would love to see what it looks like when he comes out with you. Yeah. And just to learn, like you said, he could have been undercharging. Yes, exactly. Well, no, he already said that. Well, you know, you're right. Well, he could have been severely undercharging. Right. But I mean, even on that real quick, I feel like he already said the parameters for the next batch of fans. He already said I could be paying hundreds for this. And now I know as long if I'm going as a fan. Marketing message. Exactly. As I'm saying, bro, so now I know as a fan, like if I pay anything between here and here, I'm within, you know, I either got a good deal or I paid about what it was going to be. Right, right. He gave him the, this is value that. $5,000. I'm going to give it to you for one piece. Hey, hey. But if you want to pay $5,000, I ain't going to stop you. That's why I look at him as a marketer first, but I look at a lot of you. At first, it was that it's so good it is, but I'm glad you get you that. I'll pay that meal. I thought I could have told me how much I could have paid for this. Hey. You pay a couple of money, bro. How much you could. Hey, for real. And now you see that value. Yep. That's for real. Now, with that being said, let's final topic very much related to these last topics. It's been teams and touring today. That's what we've been talking about. For reasons why musicians should throw their own shows. Board control of the feel and intimacy of the show. Thanks. I am a huge advocate of this. I say shit all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time. Whenever I did my events, I never did them in like a show specific venue because it already has a tone that's set and it's hard to create an experience outside of the experience that most people are going to get when they go there. Here's the stage. Here's the bar. And this is where everybody can stand. And you can't really change much about that. They don't really let you in many cases. And also the tone is already set. All right. But if you have a different, well, if you have your own venue and it's a typical show venue, at least you have more control of doing a show when you're on somebody else's show, right? Whether it's a promoter or an artist, at least you have that. But the next level, which we talked about a few weeks ago, is having a spot that's not even necessarily a typical live event spot. They might have all the outlets and shit like when we did a big JTL in the school or they might have, I think you said y'all did a bookstore or y'all were going to do some shit in a bookstore. Yeah, our very first show we did at the back of the tattoo shop. That tattoo shop, right? So you can create all different types of vibes. It's so, so valuable. I cannot stress enough how valuable it is to do shit in non-show venues. And you make more money that way. You don't got to deal with all of them other overheads and things. LaRussell, we just talked about. LaRussell, the backyard. That shit would not be as special if it wasn't in the backyard. And that was just at some regular venue that might have been, he could have been getting to be even free because he got some homies or whatever. So it's not even about the price. The same thing, even if he didn't have to pay for it, wouldn't have the same level of benefit for him on the back end, if he just did it in a regular venue instead of doing that shit in his backyard. That's a part of the fucking story. So you got to tell the story and you create the story by doing stuff in different spaces. Now, the second thing that they know is more earnings, which, hey, well, yeah, you control more of it. You make more money. You have to pay less people. You don't have to pay the event space on or whatever. So we get that. I think the last thing is just as important as that first thing. Those are the ones I focus on the most. More control and fill in intimacy of the show. And number three is, you can get a new perspective on show projects. All right, so much respect for it. You don't respect putting a show together and so you put a show together. It's different. It's different. You understand all the nuts and bolts. So you got all kind of respect for the team, the anything that goes wrong. You understand it more, but also it allows you to think from a different level of creativity, too. Because when you understand those elements, you can think, oh, when this happens, I'm going to do that. Or typically, this is done this way. But now that I understand holistically, I actually realize I don't have to do it that way, right? Because this isn't going to domino effect and shut everything else down. Sometimes we don't change stuff because we think it has to be done that way. Or else none of the rest of this shit works. But once you understand it, it's like, oh, no. Yeah, I can move this and then insert something else. So that new perspective helps there. I mean, obviously when you scale up, as an artist, just understanding how your team works, the nuts and bolts of everything, the new perspective is huge. So that's what I'm going to show on this one. You got anything else that you want to add in terms of like throwing your own shows in terms of value? That makes it cool. That makes it more valuable. I mean, I would say with it, controlling this way of watering is getting yourself a production. I mean, kind of like I was saying earlier, you get a lot more control over the data. Right now, you get the emails. You get the phone numbers. You control the way you can interact with fans. And the venue, which, I mean, most venues are typically pretty cool with that. And you set certain things up. But you know, you want that complete control, you know, your show. But that one is huge to me, because like I said, that could be the difference between like a hundred person show financially isn't crazy, but a hundred emails is very valuable. So I think like just being able to get access to that says a lot. And then I would say, I mean, I guess it does fall within the, you know, curation of the experience, but putting y'all on the show together also makes sure that you get the most favorable light in the event. You know, because every artist is going to get booked for an event where they put you in a tri-slot. It comes with the territory. So it's a growing pains. You know what I'm saying? You're going to be first, you're going to be last, which everybody thinks going last is cool. Going last is only cool if you're the headline. If you are not the headline of material, going last is a death wish. You know what I'm saying? Everybody going home, you know what I'm saying? Everybody know, I got no time to get to park a lot before you finish. It's just great. This is what I'm getting out. So, you know, but you get more control over when and how. Like I mean, I know artists, when I first ever started working for their label I worked for, I remember there was this artist that we saw and in his college days, he would, he went to college like somewhere in Boston and he would just like book acts to come through Boston and like make himself the opener. You know what I'm saying? But so he was also making money off of throwing these shows around the Boston area and using them as a way to like plug himself and plug his own music, which I always thought was genius because it was like, hey, brother, double difference and you make some money and you going to make sure, hey, I'm going on right before this person come on. I'm not putting random little who the fuck whatever. You can go first. You can go last or whatever. So I think it's undervalued about controlling your position on the show because like you to your point, once you understand your audience and the people that's attracted to the event, you know exactly what you want to put yourself. Like whenever we used to do blue summers, if there was an artist on the blue summer docker that we really, really fuck will, we put them like third or four because we know it's a great spot. You have enough time for all the early people to come in and get settled and then they're a little lit and they having fun, right? And you're not like too far out where like people are going to leave doing your set. They know it's still more to come. So they're going to stick around for a little more versus like the first three and the last three, they got different issues. No, the different sides of the same coin were basically the same issues, right? But yeah, position on the show is super, super valuable. But other than that, man, I think they touch on, touch on all the big stuff on like why you should be throwing show. I guess the last thing I would say would be the reason you should throw your own show because nobody else is booking you. You know what I'm saying? It's as fucked up as that sound. That's the a large reason. That's the reason I know why many artists are throwing their own shows. It's the only reason I started throwing shows. Like I had an artist that I was managing. Nobody would book the motherfuckers. So I started throwing my own events. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm going to put you on that shit, right? And like I said, I've met, there's an artist in the city named Jelani. Jelani's like that. Jelani's like, you got to start doing his own show where he wanted pretty much all the things that they said like that comes with control. But then he was like, yeah, man, I just know it's like, I want to do shows like once a month and nobody was booking me once a month. So I started throwing my own shit once a month or however frequently he was doing it. So that could also be a reason you put a show together is that nobody else will book you for better or for worse. You know what I'm saying? For whatever reason is the reason people won't book you. I ain't here to talk about that. I'm just saying if it ain't happening, you can do it because it's not as complicated as people think it is to throw it. So it is complicated. Don't get me wrong. But it's not as hard as people think it is. It's like a very simple show. You just need a venue, a DJ, you know what I'm saying? Some performers and it's people to help you promote it. But that's a little deeper in that. But at very service level, that's all you need to throw at a decently successful show. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And then you can build in production value and entertainment value stands got won. But like that formula alone, I've seen already be able to put themselves in front of their first 20 people with 30 people, 50 people crowd, you know what I'm saying? And then go from there. So yeah, nobody's booking you, bro. It's not something maybe you got to prove with the people why you should be booked first. Put your money up. Throw a five show. Get some footage of it, like you said. And then that becomes your highlight reel. And then people will book you. You know what I'm saying? Like my hardest one, we did the blue summers. Or not, because we never put on a blue song. But the early shows, like that did help. I remember sending emails with footage from the first couple of shows and like, yo, look at them. You know what I'm saying? He's a star. Don't you want to book this guy? I just want to throw us a bag and come out of wherever you at. This is something that we did very well. I actually didn't have anything to say until you said that last thing. The highlight reel for your artist is rich. That right there is another thing you should add to this list, right? Just all out. You get highlights that you, excuse me, you get highlights that you can, you know, flex about social media. Now you don't help use to get yourself booked for other shows when you can vent and you're like on the line. Because there are some people who will book you if you seem like you can bring a good performance. Mm-hmm. All right. Yeah, man. I don't care about crowd. Damn, I certainly grow out here. I don't care about you having a whole bunch of followers or streams and any of that stuff, right? But this goal is especially for people who are throwing shows. Your show will go to another level if you look at everybody as your customer. Artists, this works as well, right? Because you need to look at your fans and where's your customer and then your fans. Not just, oh, how cool I look, but how can I make sure they have the best experience ever? But what we did was make sure the artists had the best experience ever, too. We gave them looks and feels like they were not giving looks and feels. Like, I don't know if you remember some of their shots. Like, one for Floyd. Like, bro, we got a crazy photo of Floyd that I remember I still think of to this day. This thing you look lit. Like, he was like, he's an artist in the world. You know what I'm saying? Like, you do that kind of shit. Like, people are going to want to be a part of it and you don't have to do as much to find artists and convincing people because they're like, dang. Even if this wasn't big, just to have this shit for me to market later would be great. But they also are going to start to feel like, well, this is something official. You will start to get better curated selection and everything. So yeah, if you can think about everybody, like a customer, that's the simplest way of saying it and serving that way. But especially with the artists, they make them look as dope as possible. Because that's also going to make them feel dope and it's going to make, it goes full circle. So yeah, that highlight reel is essentially what I thought about when we were like, yeah. Help the artist make a highlight reel for themselves if you're more of a promoter and somebody who's trying to build from the ground up. I like the typical club shit because, you know, they got different. They got different things. Different group. They don't, yeah, yeah. They don't have to think much. They got different sodals. They're different, definitely different struggles. It's definitely different stretches. You got anything you want to end with? Nah, man, I think that was everything. All right, that, that, that. Well, as always, there's another episode every Tuesday and Thursday of no labels necessary. Episode number 40. Today I'm brand man Sean and I'm Corey. We out. Peace.