 What do you think the most unexplainable trend in music is today? Something that might boggle your mind but definitely boggles the mind of music executives everywhere. I'm curious to know what you think. I'm gonna take two seconds. All right, I'm gonna reveal an insight from the manager of a pretty big artist by the name of Jid, Barry Hefner. We've talked about him multiple times on the pod at this point. He manages a lot of dope artists, has had a dope career, and that's why his insight is very interesting to see because he says the most unexplainable trend in the music business right now has to be artists spending X amount of time and money in the studio creating new music only to deliver the new music to the market and go ghost, gone. Here's a basic illustration of what you are doing and what you hope happens. So before I get to that, I think this is gonna be really beneficial for you, this conversation. I promise you, and I'm actually gonna share another tweet of his because oh my gosh, it's rich with stuff to pull from. You should definitely follow the guy. But before I get into this, I think artists should understand how real this is. If it's not you, I think you should at least understand where other people are coming from because when I tell you, me and Jacory have literally, but we have an agency, Contra Brent agency have blown a lot of artists up, all that good stuff, so because of that, obviously people come to us. We've had people come to us, seek us out, pay us our money, give us thousands of dollars in budget and when their campaign begins after an onboarding call, et cetera, literally go ghost. When I say literally, like we can't find you. Okay, I guess we'll start the campaign since you aren't answering. Hey, here's an update, it's going great. I'm sure you love to hear that. Crickets, no response. Hey, it's really going awesome. If you would do X, Y and Z, this looks exactly like the last few campaigns that we've taken viral. You should do X, Y and Z. Crickets, okay. Campaigns over will like to do a summary call. And then you literally don't hear from like that's a real thing. Thousands of dollars and I'm not talking about rich people. That's the weirdest part about it. So that's an extreme understand like I understand we have only had that happen a few times but it has been multiple from different people. But even still to put in all the effort into this product, right? You have this baby and not show it to the world. It's something that's extremely, extremely common. But let me say this before I get into this example that Barry gives that I think will help a lot in terms of how you see things. Mike Karen, very notable figure in the music industry. I promise you that. And I don't have time to say all his accolades cause I don't even know all his accolades but he says for a lot of artists it's about self-confidence and fear. It's not always a work ethic issue. And I'm glad to see he said this because I've said this recently while I've been trying to be more vocal about it because I don't think artists quite understand that. I understand that, right? Like a lot of times people will create and now they're not confident in their product. They're afraid, right? Sometimes people don't wanna do a door-to-door sales operation because they don't wanna go up and face the rejection. Rejection sucks. I'm not gonna go talk to that girl in the club or in the grocery store because I'm afraid of being rejected. That's what it is in many cases, right? You're afraid of rejection or you're afraid of trying and failing, right? And it's easier to say, well, I didn't quite fail because it never had the opportunity. It's the weird game that we program in our minds to protect ourselves. It's a defense mechanism and I get it. And a huge part of this channel is trying to coach artists out of that, right? A huge part of what I do and the more personal workings like our private group of artists or like one-on-one artists in my life is really coaching through that part. I really wanna get into the rest of this but it actually made me think about something that I don't really get to talk about often. But for so many artists, let's just think of it like a sports player, right? There might be a basketball player where he can shoot a little bit but he can't shoot three-pointers really well. So I have to train him on his form, right? It's like you need to shoot. You need to make sure you rise straight up and have your body in proper alignment whenever you shoot the ball. And now you understand how to shoot. Your percentage goes up. Then there's another person who they might need to learn how to dribble, right? But there's plenty of artists based on where they are and where they need to get to for their next step that actually have all of the skills and it's literally just mental, right? I don't know if you watch sports but there's times in sports where there'll be somebody who literally is known for shooting and then they'll go multiple games and it's just not hitting. They just can't catch. They're in a slump. There's something going on mentally and a lot of times artists, you have all of the resources. You have everything you need. You have the music. You even have some of the money or the ability to create the right content. But then there's a block in your mind. I can remember one artist that we went through this process with and now he literally has, I'll just say I don't wanna specify him in this case but over half a million followers on TikTok, about 200K on Instagram. It's done somewhere around 80 million streams in the last two years, made thousands of dollars, all that good stuff, got off of record deals, turned them down. But you know where it started? For him in this case, it was posting content and he didn't want to be seen as corny. But the block was, yo, we can get you to post in a way that's not corny. Are you corny? Right? Because if it's not in you, it can't really come out of you like that. You get what I'm saying? So don't worry about being corny but what can we do that fits your brand? And I guarantee other artists, some artists will see him as corny. But guess what? He saw some other artists as corny. So it's all relative anyway so it's not even worth thinking about that. But we had to get him over that block coach and do it, dot it out, right? It's an important thing, that confidence aspect of this. But here's the rest of it. This is what you are effectively doing it. Not that we know that confidence is a legitimate reason in security or just lack of understanding and information because it's hard to be confident when you don't have the right information as well. Like if I jump over that wall, is there some ground over there or am I gonna fall in a big old ditch and get hurt? You get what I mean? It's hard to act without information which is also understandable. That's another form of confidence. So we understand that's a reason that people don't take certain types of action. However, here's the other side of it and what's happening. Barry says you are basically throwing your product on a crowded shelf and hoping customers bypass every other product and miraculously choose yours. And he has this picture of a grocery aisle for those who are just listening. And there's beans on beans on beans everywhere the route to aisle. Just cans of beans on this particular set of shelves. And how do I know to pick your beans or the other? There's no label on your beans. It's not standing out. You're choosing not to figure out a way to stand out. And this is a beautiful analogy for what content is, honestly. Because in today's era, you have the song before you were just putting your music on the radio. So all they were doing was listening. So the song being the right song would determine if it hits or not. But today you have the song. You found the right song but you also have to find the right label for that song. And that's what the content is doing. It's the right packaging. And you repackage and repackage. I put on one piece of content. Ah, that packaging didn't stand out and hit, okay? I put out another piece of content. I put out another piece of content until I put out the right packaging where it's labeled correctly and people walk down that grocery aisle and among all these beans out here in this example, they choose my can. That's what you're doing. Now they see the song that is the right song in the right way it's standing out. That's what you're doing when it comes to content especially. But in general, you are packaging yourself and your music over and over again, whether it's through content, advertising, et cetera, to connect, right? Get picked up, right? It didn't also get repurchased. If you get what I'm saying, right? So please understand this. And this goes back to brand identity. I speak on this a lot behind the scenes, but I'm starting to talk a lot more about it in front of the scenes just because I just realized I hadn't been talking about it. And if you haven't heard me mention that we do have a challenge right now where we're working with artists personally not only understand their brand identity, but how do you move that into choosing a specific strategy based on where you are now and then growing quickly. It's hard to grow quickly without those things in line unless you just get lucky and something randomly goes viral. So if you wanna join that process and get help on a more one-on-one level or at least a guided process, then hop in for $1. That's it, nolabelsnecessary.com. www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash 30 days. EJ put that on the screen somewhere so they can see that written out and we'll put it in the description and all that good stuff. Now, standing out, you're packaging, Barry goes on to say, the illusion that because the store has a loyal base of customers that come to shop at the store often doesn't always equal a win for your music. What does he mean by this? He means that, well, Spotify has a lot of loyal customers that come to that store. But just because they come to the store doesn't mean that they will see your product. It might be on the bottom shelf, tucked in the back somewhere. If you literally think about going through a grocery store, there's things that are at the end cap. That's the stuff at the end of the aisle that you don't have to walk down the aisle to go see. That stuff pops out. There's stuff just in the middle of the store, bins, right? There's things at the checkout where you just see this candy waiting for you, right? There's things that are placed in position to be more seen or things without that positioning and it's harder to come across those things. It's that simple. So if you look at Spotify, the DSPs, just social media as that, effectively what are you doing? You're trying to stand out in some form or fashion. That simple. Without proper visibility, Barry said, marketing and placement, customers more than likely will look over your music and stream their usual favors. And this, this is where it all ties together. When you go to the grocery store, all right, you're more likely to get the chips that you regularly get, the milk that you regularly get, right? Whatever of those main brands, you're usually going to just knock out whatever you've trained yourself to do. Because there's so many other decisions in life, we are built as humans to become habitual about a lot of the behaviors that we have. Why is that? We can only take in but so much information. We can only spend but so much time on thinking. So we need to make things that have it so we don't have to think about it. So then we can spend our time thinking about the things that we seem to be worth thinking about, right? That require more energy. We are less familiar on. We don't have enough information about so we need to put more thought into it. Until it becomes so familiar, I can just know every time I choose that. That's what's happening to us naturally. No matter what it is, we complain about it like it's an art specific thing and music in our category. That is how humans go about life and you are doing it way more than you would like to know. Because in some ways it might be not to your favor. In some ways we have habits that we need to get ourselves up out of and we're not even thinking about it. But the reality is this is what we're working with. Do not complain about people and who they are and how they are. Understand how people are, how they are and then work within that. If you can make a big enough impact, you might be able to help change them, right? But you as an artist, your job, right? Somebody who is in business for yourself if you're trying to build a career is just to connect with people where they are, right? And when you make that connection, serve them something that's valuable to them. So how to receive visibility and placements in these stores or platforms means the music or the artist has to show his or her brand or music has value that translates into money. So this is where I kind of disagree a little bit, right? This is what, because that was what Barry said. How to receive visibility and placements in these stores or platforms means that the music or artist has to show his or her brand or music has value that translates into money. I think that's kind of weird that just saying it has to translate into money but I could probably make an argument for him if I wanted to. So let me kind of explain my initial thought and then maybe what he might be talking about. My initial thought is, well, if I'm just trying to connect to a fan, right? I need to show them value but it might not have anything to do with money. We go back to brand identity. What do they see in me? Why are they connecting with me? They're trying to feel some void. Maybe they went laughter. Maybe they want to feel like they have a good time. Something to turn the environment up or maybe they feel down and they need to connect. They need to find a friend, right? There's multiple ways and reasons that a fan might identify with me. I might literally represent and validate who they think they are to themselves, right? And listening to you confirms that I am this person, this type of person. I'm an artsy person. I'm a person who cares about the environment. I'm a person who's a thug and I don't take no shit. Whatever that is, right? It's a value that I'm providing to a fan and that is not something that is necessarily about the money at all. That's my confusion or argument there. But on the other end, if he's speaking on, well, if the store from the standpoint of the business Spotify, for instance, right? The business through the fact that you just connected and provided that value with those fans now sees you as something that's financially viable for them to put in a better position because since so many people are connecting with you positively, that positive connection is gonna bring them in my store, enjoy coming into my store, which there in makes me more money, right? And that's probably what he's alluding to. Because you make me more money, oh, everybody's coming into store for this. I need to have more of you. I need to show more people your stuff, right? So Spotify as the store algorithm will show you to more people. That's how all of them act. Oh, social media, attention, that's where we turn into money. Algorithm show you to more people, right? That value translates into money from my perspective. And you would act in the same way if you had a store unless you are in a place in life where you need zero money and you could be 100% on the value of what you do to be the better art. If you had a store that had to make money and you had to run, you would probably do the same thing. Who do people like? And I need to show them more of what they like. I'm not gonna order these CDs. If we're just thinking about old school from a whole bunch of CDs from artists that nobody likes, I gotta order the one that everybody comes in for they're looking for. That's simple. So Barry ends with, so my point is less visible, the less visible the product or the artist is, the lesser the chance it has to be successful or discovered, right? Discovery and visibility leads to opportunities. Opportunities are just an artist's chance to prove that he is a star or she is a star and worthy of people's attention and money. What do you think about that? You are constantly proving that you are worthy of my attention as a consumer. You are proving you are worthy of my attention and my money. How do you feel about that? I think that's something that sucks, right? Being a product in that way, but I think that is some whatever reality and that's why things become so sensitive, right? This is like I'm constantly trying to find a woman and I'm hitting on people or a woman or what China starts, start a vibe and pick up a nice young woman, right? And I'm always putting myself out there. And if I thought about it blatantly as I just need to show myself as worthy of being a husband or worthy of being somebody come that she could come out with and worthy of her attention financially, that would suck, right? I'm not in that position in life where I need to do something like that. However, like as an artist, because you are that product, there is a sense of that. Obviously it's not done so directly and it's happening whether you like it or not. Now I do not encourage anybody to think about themselves as doing that consistently because most people can't like hold both of those thoughts at the same time like in functioning a way that's beneficial and constructive. What I do say is again, it's about understanding your brand identity, understanding who you are personally. What is your voice? What do you want to say? What is your taste, right? And what are the type of people that appreciate those things? And when you do that, all of those other parts of the equation happen for you, right? Without having to dilute your own personal value, right? Or minimize yourself and your art to a dollar or whether you're worthy of attention or whether you're worthy of a couple of minutes of somebody's time, right? Because that sucks to operate in that way, all right? So Barry says, interview shows, radio liners are all just opportunities to market yourself as a star. This is a fact. This is an opportunity to get yourself out there. If you're selling books, it would be your opportunity to market that your book is worthy. In artists' minds, you are marketing your music and then overall yourself as a star. So his point is you have to market yourself. I think we all get this, but if you do not, you are literally hoping someone walks down the aisle and scans through all of the other products and chooses you. And if that's your strategy, good luck says Barry because it's more and more cans being thrown on the shelf every second, 100,000 songs a day, or 100,000 cans a day, if you will. So I'll leave it at this, right? Having a strategy built on hope is not a strategy that I would lean on. I would invest my time and my life on, right? So the game when it comes to marketing yourself, the game when it comes to building your business infrastructure, it's actually to minimize risk as possible. It doesn't mean don't be innovative. It doesn't mean don't be creative. It doesn't mean don't push the boundaries. There's a balance, right? And the weight looks a little different in every single business model, but it does mean that you need to control as many variables as possible so you aren't reliant on luck, right? So that means I could be lucky and have somebody just talk to the engineer who mixed my song and then the engineer is playing it or they're still mixing it and they're like, what song is that? And then that person ends up being like some big label executive and they reach out to me and they say I wanna make you a star man. This song connects with me reminds me of the song that my dad used to play when I was little, you can rely on something lucky like that or some random influencer hearing your song and blowing it up. You can rely on that, but how can I improve the chances that that happens? Cause none of us can guarantee automatic success. It just can't happen. No marketer can do that. No label can do that. Y'all say all this money, people are successful just cause of the money. Everybody in the business on the back end knows the reality is none of us can guarantee something happens. I don't care if you got $50 million. I'm telling you, it cannot be guaranteed, right? You can get more progress, right? And you can give it a higher likelihood of success, but you can't guarantee the success, right? And your job is to improve the likelihood of success with the resources that you have and then do it in a way that hopefully you get more resources. So the next time around, you can improve the chances of success with even more resources until you get to a point that your odds of success are higher and higher and higher year over year over year. That's it. Again, if you like videos like this, make sure you subscribe, man. And even more importantly, if y'all are trying to get your levels up for the year, we're looking for artists. We're looking for artists. 90 day, oops, it's a 30 day challenge, I meant. One dollar to hop in. We're not only giving you access to us in the strategies, but even some of the tools that we use to help our artists level up. Check it out. www.dondolegalsnecessary.com slash 30 days and other than that. Watch this next video. If you found this one helpful, I think you'll find the next one helpful too. Peace out.