 Hey, what's up? It's Sean. And in this video, we're going to go over something extremely important. What are the pieces that you need in your team to get yourself from ground zero to moving and considered official in this industry where everybody is starting to recognize you? Now, there's a difference between old days and today. And I'm going to go over old days first so you can understand the context and how that works in today's marketplace. Right. Back in the day, a marketer, a manager and a bank, which was essentially a label. Right. Now, if you think about somebody like Jay Z, Jay Z, he was the artist. Right. This is savvy, but he was the artist. He played that role. Dame Dash was the manager and then Biggs was the marketer type guy. Also play bank role when they end up having to go indie until he got to Def Jam finally. And then the bank became the label as most traditional relationships back then. You need all of those aspects. Right. It's extremely important to have it. However, today, that doesn't quite add up because most people don't want to be your manager. Most people don't want to be your marketer because marketing costs money unless you get yourself to a certain level. Back in the days where people were going to labels and being plucked from obscurity, you're just, you know, you hear those stories. Oh, I was just walking down the hall or humming in the grocery store. And this guy ended up being a manager and now I'm signed to a deal. And now, you know, I'm a superstar. Like that was an old story that was common. It was it was a very real thing. People could just be somewhere in the next thing, you know, be signed because someone discovered talent. People don't necessarily want to discover you. Right. At this time today, they want you to reach their radar, which is a difference, right? So no one wants you down here. You got to get yourself up here. So now, before you even get to this level of relationship, which oftentimes a manager and marketer work hand in hand for a lot of people, even though they'll be like a week, they'll be weak on one end. Before you get to a level where you started seeing these things more traditionally and people care, you're able to get signed. And all of a sudden you have fans that you can monetize. You actually have to start with a team, right? A lean team that can get you to that level. So what does that look like today? All right. It's broken down into multiple categories, right? Marketer, right? Had a little drop. Graphics, videographer, two primary things. And then artists, I'll get into that in a second. All right. Somebody who can do your graphics, just make sure your brand looks good. Somebody who can make some videos for you. That could be you. You might have that skill set or you have to find somebody. You can even call them a creative director, especially if you have them doing both, right? If you find that talent, that's always good to find. Next, artist and it's actually slash influencers. This is something that a lot of artists are still having trouble with because they don't understand the value of connecting with other artists. It's it's it blows my mind that they don't get it. But if you have other people trying to move in the same direction that you're doing, they're learning things, right? So now you can borrow their knowledge of things that they learn. You can borrow their connections and all their assets and then even borrow their audience because you've built that relationship. If you go on TikTok, right? If you go on on Instagram, how many influencers do you see in each other's videos, creating videos together? How many artists do you see that seem to either make a lot of videos together or you just find out, oh, man, they've known each other for a while. They were in the studio back in the day and met at a writers camp or or something like that. Well, that's because these people, the ones that you see that are winning, they have the artist and influencer connections. They're doing that, right? And you should do that. Don't try to reach up, reach to people on your side because trust me, it comes back, right? It comes back. You got to filter. There are some people who aren't serious and all that stuff, but but getting game from other artists is look, it helps, right? I see it in a network all the time. Other artists putting each other artists on game. Now this one right here, a marketing advisor and a management, right? Advisor. Now a marketing advisor, a lot of artists, especially at ground zero, you cannot afford a true marketer, right? And that's, you know, that comes from here too, right? It's because you're almost hand in hand when we talk about marketing and management advising, right? If I'm a manager, most artists are not worth it, right? Day one, I have to see something developing. That's the mentality of how managers think today. Remember, you have to get on their radar. They don't want to discover you. They need to see something proven because people have to eat, right? So they need to think that they're investing in a person, right? That's also going to give them a return on their investment, which is their time, especially a manager who they win when you win. Real legitimate marketers, right? Yes, you might pay somebody and you feel like, oh, man, what I got, I didn't get my money's worth or they or I still not where I want to. But that marketer got paid. That sounds good. But the best marketers want to have a client that can continue to win, continue to win, continue to win so they can continue to get paid. They get the acknowledgement for being associated with that artist. So when you're talking about these quality people, you probably cannot afford them to be on your team. You're probably not enough as a position where you're not enough of an asset, right, to truly even take on that much of their attention, especially if you aren't paying the money because these people are expensive, right? Yeah, managers, technically, a lot of times, 10 to 20 percent, no matter what level you are, but it's expensive, right? In terms of you got to get in position. They're not just about to be anybody's manager, right? Now, with that being said, what does marketing advising look like? Marketing advising and even management advising. You can just go pay somebody who has that experience, whether you're paying for a one-off consultation, right? Whether you're getting a connection that can give you some, you know, advice for free because that person really, really is putting you on game. A lot of people are using YouTube and courses to actually get some of that, right? You can't get all of it, though, until you get like specific advice. You get what I'm saying? Like, yes, there's so much. We have a YouTube channel, brand man network. Check it out on YouTube, so much free information. However, I can't tell you specific advice for you through a video, right? Now, here's the difference between a YouTube video and marketing advising and management advising. There's an output like a screenshot below this video or maybe pop it up on this video. There's a member in brand man network and he reached out to me about somebody who wanted to do marketing for them. They were they knew they had a conversations. Last thing they were sending over a $600 contract, which for him, that was a lot of money, right? And he just wanted to be sure. He was like, I'm not completely sure about it. And I looked at it and then everything and I was like, yo, brother, this is a scam, leave these folks alone. This this this is not it, right? Bam, say $600 just for me being able to advise him from from not going with a scam. Now, on the other side, and people were doing a pretty decent job of seeming official, I just have a certain knowledge about, you know, certain people and connections at labels and knew that they could not have been a certain representative. And with that being said, then he reaches out again later on is like, yo, man, that meeting I had with y'all where y'all gave me a plan through the network. I now have 3000. I think he had 3000 more followers and he said he had a video that had a hundred thousand plus views at that point. Right. So what happened from marketing, advising and management, and management advising a little bit of mix of both? Well, he saved $600. All right. And then he gained 3000 followers, 500,000 views. It's all decision making. That's what this is about. The advising and most artists don't understand what you do not know. All right. So you're thinking, oh man, I don't want to pay for this. I don't want to pay for that. Or, or I just feel like I can learn everything by myself. Trust me, you save yourself so much time and so much decisions by getting this advising, right? And this is what helps you get to this level until you can have a manager, manager till you can have a marketer or a full marketing team, whether it's in-house, right? Or again, like just an agency that you build a relationship with, whatever that looks like. But these things are what people are using to get there faster. All right. They might even just have a, you know, a family member who has a homey that was in the industry and pretty successful. So that person acts as an advisor to having conversations here and here and there with them so they don't necessarily act as a manager, but at least that connection allows them to get some legitimate information. The information is half the game. Understanding how to think through the game, make certain decisions. The advisor do not sleep on advisors. Again, back to the artist that I just mentioned, right? He saved $600 and then he got plus 3,000 views and plus, no, plus 3,000 followers and over 100,000 views. By the way, that plan did not cost him any money to apply. He didn't go spend a lot of money to get 3,000 followers off of ads. It was just a content strategy plan that we had put him on to and bam. So he not only saved $600, he got the results for no money, right? But this is what a marketing advisor, management advisor type can do for you. Being able to apply the advice to you specifically. That's completely different than a YouTube video, reading some articles, trying to get some social media tips and things is never going to do as much for you if it's not specific to you because all these plans don't apply to everybody. I know a lot of people by my analysis, I realize, yo, they get confused. I have to tell people all the time, yo, when I have a YouTube video, it doesn't necessarily apply to you. Yes, it's a strategy that works, but it might not be the strategy for you. So that's a danger of taking in so much information without having people to give you information specific to you. Now, what's happening here? Where's the bank? Where's the bank? Where's the money coming from? If I'm not at a label? Well, the new bank today, last part of your team, most artists are getting a job, right? Or staying with their job and using that extra money to go towards their career. Now, I know that might not be the ideal answer, right? That you hear, you're hoping there's some other finesse. There are entirely different frameworks for, for built fundraising. It's a real thing. And that's just for a whole another conversation for another day. But check this out. Why is this? How did this become? Well, back in the day, it wasn't even possible. It was too expensive, right? The average artist doesn't matter. They saved a whole year's salary legitimately. Like that $50,000 wouldn't have did anything for them back in the, you know, 80s, 90s. Like it really wouldn't have, right? Now, today, $50,000 can take you far, right? Today, $5,000 can take you pretty far. If you have these people, $3,000 can take you very far. If you have these people, even free, right? Can give you legitimate progress in the same way we told buddy, yo, just do this. And he got plus 3,000 followers and 100K plus views. Why? All right. He didn't have to spend money. He had advice. That's why everything starts to fall on this advising connections with your own peer group. You got to get about your own way, right? Stop being up in your ego and thinking these people aren't worth it. These other artists and these other influencers, right? Build with them as well. And we've seen that value in the network. The artists who do that build and grow even faster. And this right here, this is about giving people something to cling on to. So when we talk about graphics and videographer, right? This is your brand. Like put it that way, right? That's simply this is your brand creating that world, that image that people actually care about. All right. Of course, you can do a lot of things yourself, just creating videos on TikTok, just creating the content on Instagram. But this is going to allow you to elevate it into a vision that's a little different, something that looks more thought out, right? So don't sleep on it yet again. Other people creativity, but these three roles have now been split into one, two, three, four, five, six roles. And I know it sounds like, man, that's that sounds even harder. Well, we're talking about getting to a point where you're really on these people's radar. This is ground zero. People don't care until you're at level three and four. No longer going to pick you up from level zero. I'm not even trying to do music or level one. Hey, I want to do this, but I don't have a fan base. You need these to get you there, right? You can try without any one of these, but you're going to suffer. Most likely, of course, there's always a story of someone who did it without marketing, someone who did it without graphics, because the song just blew up randomly, got placed somewhere, somebody who didn't have any manager advising, marketing, advising, or a job, I guess, right? Any money at all. But you want to put yourself in the best position to win. So you're not going to put yourself in the best position to win with everything in your control by hoping that you're a special case that happens one in 100,000, one in a million, whatever, whatever, whatever. And even if the special case happens to you, if you have these things, you're going to be able to capitalize it even on like way, way better than somebody who doesn't have those things in place. That's a whole another story. But capitalization, most artists who don't have these, especially the ones who take off, go viral and you don't have those in place. You're now an alliance then and everybody you're talking to, right? Doesn't necessarily have your best interest in mind because now people are trying to sign it like you don't have anybody to trust. It helps to build this trustworthy relationship before you start getting in that, like that part of the atmosphere, right? When you get to that level. OK, so that's it. Take these things to heart. These six positions are extremely important if you do these, right? If you find those people, right? Some of them you can combine in one. Some of them you might have to have split and they just be that if you find those, though, they will make your career. So much easier, give you so much less to think about, especially these two people, because they can just, hey, say, go that way and tell you why. That will allow you to focus on your artist artistry, right? Allow you to get a more profitable career faster and most importantly, right? The dream, get closer to the dream that you are looking to live. All right. That's it for this video. Peace.