How I Got A Cover On The Top 200 iTunes Download Chart.

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Getting a song in a commercial or on TV is a great way to earn some money. But the other thing artists often consider is the tremendous exposure! We hear a lot about exposure and it’s often used as a negotiating tactic when it comes to licensing. I think exposure value can be all over the map, but this is a case where the original song and the brand’s efforts combined to boost this great cover of “All Shook Up” onto the iTunes Top 200 downloads.

Here’s a quick synopsis of my latest efforts…

The Project: One of my clients emailed me with a description of a new series of commercials he was working on and attached a storyboard (or simply, ‘board’). They wanted a sensual, sexy song for a new Trojan ad but also wanted something that people would recognize.

What I Did: After reviewing the creative material, I immediately recollected a new version of “All Shook Up” – Elvis Presley’s classic – that we had been sent by an independent artist. I pitched the song for the spot and they loved it.

There were some bumps and bruises along the way, but eventually we got it ironed out and I even got the track featured on the brand website with a link to download it in iTunes. Take a look, I think they turned out great! We just found out it entered the iTunes Top 200 at no. 152 and are expecting it to climb higher over the next couple weeks.

Listen to the Track

Music Licensed: "All Shook Up" by Avila

Watch the Commercials

Ask These 9 Questions To Ensure A Great Music Licensing Partnership

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When evaluating the business decision of choosing between a non-exclusive or exclusive deal to represent your compositions for placement in film, tv, and advertising, I’ve had a number of folks reach out and ask a little more info.

The great thing is, you can tweak or even use the same questions with ANY music business deal you are considering. Every case is unique and therefore, the goal should be to get as much information as possible. In that interest, I’ve created a list of questions that could help you spark intelligent conversations aimed to drive responses that will give you real metrics with which to you can better inform your decision-making.

While you certainly could email the following questions I would instead advise that you pick up the phone or meet in person, and have these ready to ask when it comes time to learn more about the company looking to represent your music. You will learn a lot more by speaking to someone in person than you will by reading their emailed response (if you get one).

1) Approximately how much synch revenue did they generate last year before royalties?

They’re unlikely to disclose this information, so to follow-up to this question ask….

  • Can I see a rate card or can you ballpark what you charge for the following usages of music similar to mine?
    • National TV promo
    National TV in-program
    National commercial
    Film Trailer (Worldwide)
    In-Film Use (Worldwide)

2) Do they have a reel or 1-sheet that I can see?

  • This will give you a good idea of what their promotional materials look like, and also let you gage how much work they’ve done (ie: their reel shouldn’t just have placements from 1 show, or from many shows that are no longer on-air).

3) Do they take the publisher’s share of the performance royalty? Is this negotiable?

  • Most places will probably take the publisher’s share but some will let you negotiate how much. Always ask!

4) Can you give me a rough range of how many placements you land each month? year?

  • They should be able to tell you exactly how many they get to be honest, and it should be a point of pride. If they’re new to the game they obviously won’t have that many.

5) Roughly how many ad agency music briefs do they get per month?

  • Anywhere between 5 and 15 would be reasonable. You may want to follow up by asking which agencies they have the best relationships with.

6) Who are their go-to TV and Film Trailer editors or houses?

  • This should get them talking about specific clients they have just to lend some credibility. If you’re talking to someone who isn’t on their sales staff, you may want to request she find out for you.

7) What are current film or TV projects for which they have been solicited for music by music supervisors?

  • Do some research on Variety or IMDB before your meeting and make sure you know upcoming film or TV shows in production so you can gauge the validity of this answer. You might even have the name of the music supervisor on a given project in your back pocket so you can say something like “Oh, so you know _____ ” should they bring it up.

8) What channels of marketing do they use to outreach to their client-base:

  • Generally, they should be doing email, phone calls, and in-person meetings. Some places will also do physical mailers and trade shows. You can also ask if they have a dedicated sales staff.

9) Can you send me an example of any marketing material you send out to your clients?

  • This lets you see the quality of their marketing material. The impression it leaves on you is likely to be similar to the impression it leaves on their clients.

Hopefully these questions will act as an excellent spring board for more in-depth investigation and help you better decide what kind of pro-active music licensing a potential business partner is able to execute. If you like this article, get more info on how to get your music licensed and published by subscribing to my newsletter here.

Resources for Music Marketing and Music Licensing

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This is part 4 of a four part series on treating your career in the music business or as a professional musician like an entrepreneur.
Click here for Part 1 – Being A Music Industry Entrepreneur
Click here for Part 2 – Goal Setting in the Music Industry
Click here for Part 3 – Craft A Plan

Have you noticed that when some people talk about a person who’s become a success they create a lot of reasons for their accomplishments that make their achievements seem unique to their situation? We hear about artists that achieve “overnight success,” or “well-connected” producers that get a hit song on a record. Well guess what? Most of those phrases and stories are complete B.S. It’s like going to a movie that’s “based on a true story” and believing that every last detail occurred.

There is no such thing as an overnight success. People put in TONS of hard work to get where they are, and then probably twice as much to STAY where they are. They didn’t do just one thing or have one good connection unique to their situation. These people have struggled, strived, and probably have made just as many bad decisions as good ones. Today we’re going to focus on the final area of the Music Business Entrepreneur Series and it directly relates to the above. I’m talking about when people use a phrase like:

Excuses

I could totally do that if I had _________ .

or something like:

If it weren’t for _________, I could do that too.

You’ve heard it a million times. You’ve probably said it yourself. I used to do it often. I’d make excuses about how my situation wasn’t fair or how much more talented I was than someone else, I just didn’t have fill-in-the-blank-with-an-excuse-that-allowed-me-to-not-work-hard.

First, let’s identify some key items that we usually “don’t have” when we talk about achieving goals:

  • Money
  • Contacts
  • Special Knowledge

As you look at this list, you can pretty much see how most things we’d come up with would fit into one or more of these broad categories. The interesting thing is that all of these are 100% achievable. There is no reason why you can’t make money, meet people, or are not able to acquire whatever knowledge you need to complete a goal.

MoneyMoney – Duh, get a job. Even if you’re a barista at Starbuck’s, waiting tables, or pumping gas. Obviously the more you get paid, the faster you will have resources. However, there is NOTHING stopping you from saving at least 10% of whatever you make except yourself. Already have a job? Cool, go get another one. I’m dead serious. Money is probably the most over-rated resource out there. On top of that, people constantly try to get bargains or get stuff cheap. Why not make more money instead? If you need $5,000 to be able to create an album or EP, you should be able to get that in under 6 months if you start busting your butt.

Contacts – This can take a little longer, but realistically you should be able to add to your network relatively quickly. I talk more in depth about in The Low Hanging Fruit Series. But the long and short of it is if you’re effectively talking about your current projects to the people you interact with frequently, you’ll be setting yourself up to create and capitalize on opportunities. Those opportunities can result in money, more contacts, or special knowledge (or any combination thereof). In fact, I would rate this category as the most effective way to advance your career.

Special Knowledge – First, you’d be surprised at how little ‘special knowledge’ matters. Or for that matter, what little conventional education most successful people have. Typically you can find someone who has knowledge to partner with, or pay someone to apply their special knowledge to your situation. However, there also tons of benefits of being self-sufficient or to at least know enough to be able to make educated decisions. Typically you can buy books, courses, or seminars and educate yourself. The nice part about courses or events is that you can meet other people, thereby increasing your contacts.

When it comes to resources in general, you need to remember to replace your excuses with one simple phrase:

How CAN I make this happen?

Once you give your brain a sensible question instead of some dumb-ass excuse ( “My high-tops aren’t sparkly enough!”) you’d be surprised at what it comes up with. It will definitely take more time than you might anticipate, and it will DEFINITELY require A LOT of hard work, but at least you’ll be working towards a dream instead of resigning yourself to complacency. If you’re waiting for the perfect pair of sneakers to complement your wardrobe for a once-in-a-lifetime meeting with THE ONLY person that can help you learn the secrets of music licensing – well, you’re a jackass.

jackass

Careers don’t develop because of one unique event or situation. It may SEEM that way, but it’s NEVER the case.

Work 5 times harder than you are now. Meet more people on purpose. Read more books about what you want to do.

Action Steps: Write down the following phrase –

“I would be able to ________ if I only had ________ .”

Try to come up with 3 ways to complete that phrase with various elements. Now try this one 3 times –

“I can’t do ________ because ________ .”

Now, after each of the above, add the following –

“…but if I had to come up with a way to get/do it, I could try ________ , ________ , or ________ .”

Fill in the blanks with as many words/phrases as you like. Finally, for the rest of the week, listen for excuses that you create, or that others create for themselves. Then try saying “wait, that’s not true. How CAN I make that happen?”

You just might surprise yourself (and I hope you do).

Low Hanging Fruit in the Music Business: Part III – Get Noticed By Music Supervisors

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Before we get started, if you’re new to the blog you can read Part 1 of the Low Hanging Fruit series about getting music licensing or other music opportunities here. When you’re done with that, hit up part 2 here to learn how to make key music licensing contacts. If you’re done with one and two, strap in! We’re going to cover how to rapidly make connections with people who can actually help you in your career.

When you’re engaged in a conversation with someone – friend, stranger, or enemy – it’s key to have some triggers set up mentally. These triggers will act as stimulus for you to ask leading questions to help bring you closer to generating a genuine connection with someone that can help you. For instance, if I’m talking to a new acquaintance or stranger, the topic of “what do you do?” inevitably comes up.

In the last email, we talked a bit about how to respond to this question (you can tweak those phrases a lot to really behoove you, but I’ll cover that in a future email). Once a conversation is rolling, here are some key phrases to listen for (they should be blatantly obvious):

  • Advertising
  • TV
  • Film
  • A&R
  • Record Label
  • Publishing
  • A Brand

These triggers are probably already setup in your head and if you meet someone that works in these areas or knows someone in these areas, you obviously would like to dig without sounding greedy or pushy. Ideally, you’ll setup some form of informative conversation where you’re not taking too much time from the other person and make it REALLY easy for them to help you out.

When you hear any of the above, here is a string of questions you can use to try and find out if you can get connected:

1. Which company do they/you work for? This is an obvious one but even having the name of a company means you can at the very least go home and research it online. For instance, if someone works for a brand, even a local one, you can see if they’ve done any sort of media with music under it.

Example: Griffin Technology is a well-known brand. If you live in Nashville, TN this means that you may have a connection to the company. Their website is easy enough to find, and if you head over to YouTube, you can see they’ve posted content that has music under it (check it out here).

2. What do they do for the company? Another obvious question and to be honest, the answer doesn’t really matter. This conversation is all about connecting with someone who is willing to help you. If they happen to work in the mail room or are the CEO, someone willing to help you is more valuable than where they lay on the food chain (you will also find that people who are willing to help others are often higher on the food chain anyway).

3. How do they/you like it there? This question is great because you’ll almost always be interested in the answer. People really open up when they talk about what their work life is. Also, they can leave clues here if they’re struggling in accomplishing a task or project. You never know, that could be something you can help them with.

4. What are they/you working on right now? A heavy hitter. Here again you’re giving the person a chance to talk about what they’re doing and to see if you can help. If you’re talking to a connection, here’s where they may not know. That’s fine but if it’s the case you can follow up with “I would love to sit down and chat with X about what they’re doing.”

As you can probably tell, these questions are great and they’ll help you start a natural dialog. Even with people you may have little in common with, you may just find out something interesting about what they do. Here’s where what we talked about in part 2 comes in handy – always saying yes. Keep your eyes open for ANY opportunity through the natural dialog above will help you help more people.

Next it’s good to know some job titles because ultimately we’d like to get our music on TV (or published or what have you), wouldn’t we? So when you hear these job titles, or phrases, get real curious and see if you can’t fix yourself up with a meeting by drilling down with the questions above:

Producer
- Producers exist in music, TV, advertising, still photography, and much more. Generally being a producer means being responsible for over-seeing a project and helping facilitate the various logistics.

Art Buyer
- Ad agencies have art buyers to, duh, buy art. That includes ANY sort of art including music. And because music and picture so often go hand-in-hand, these folks can be great to get to know. Even if they don’t do anything with music, they will know who does.

Creative Director
- At an agency, creative directors are responsible for the overall creative vision for a brand. They oversee and conceive of major creative ideas for commercials, packaging, and any place where you’d see some sort of brand execution. Obviously they are key decision makers and are great to know or meet.

Copywriter
- These folks write the verbage for whatever brand they’re working on. Whether it’s a commercial script or a print ad. Sometimes they’ll be tasked with coming with lyrics for custom music as well.

Director
- An obvious one, these guys are responsible for the overall vision of a video project for either film, video, commercials or music videos.

Publishing
- Generally speaking people at music publishers can do any number of jobs – the good news is they’ll typically know who to talk to if they’re not it!

Record Label
- Another obvious one. Same as publishing above.

Line Producer
- Line Producers are tasked with budgeting on a given production. For this reason they interface with all departments and know how much money they have to spend on any given piece…like music!

Any of the above with the word “associate” in front of it, or “coordinator” behind it.
- Generally speaking these folks are going to be pretty new to their industry, or to the company they work at. They’re great to get to know because they can move up very quickly but are also receptive to things like free show tickets and album downloads.

These are just a few of the many types of names and titles at production companies, ad agencies, music companies, and people in the film world. However, having a good idea of the TYPES of jobs available at these companies, combined with a few simple questions, you can really set yourself down a path to making solid, real connections quickly.

It’s also important to remember what I said in a previous article: you’re not looking to solve your ultimate goal, you just want to meet and talk about what they do and see where it leads. The very worst that can happen is they can’t help you directly but you end up with a new friend or contact. It’s important to keep that in mind because literally ANYONE can be a fan.

Action Step: It’s time to prepare yourself for conversation. First, do a Google search for any music companies, ad agencies, production companies, or other entities in your city (or in the one nearest by) you’d like to contact. Take a look at their “about us” or info pages and look for any relevant material like video with music underneath it. Then do the following:

Email 15-20 of your friends individually (personalized messages)
Ask if they know someone who works for one of your target companies
If so, ask them if they’ll connect you to that person, and see if you can all grab a coffee together sometime.
If not, tell them to keep their ears open and that you’re looking for music connections based on what you found doing research on the company.

I hope you’ve found The Low Hanging Fruit Series useful. I’m working on my next batch of emails so stay tuned for more music business strategy (including how to put your best foot forward when pitching your music to a contact) and if you need to subscribe, click here!