Andy Lykens

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

April 30, 2013 by Andy

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

Watch the Commercials

Ask These 9 Questions To Ensure A Great Music Licensing Partnership

April 23, 2013 by Andy

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

Every case is unique but the general goal should be the same: get as much information as possible.

In that interest, I’ve created a list of nine questions that help you spark intelligent conversations and aimed to drive responses that give you real metrics which can better inform your decision-making. You can also tweak the same questions to make them relevant to ANY music business deal.

Also, while you certainly could email the following questions I would instead advise that you pick up the phone or meet in person. You will learn a lot more face to face than you will by reading an email response.

What to ask your potential music licensing partner…

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 (what they use to pitch their catalog)?

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.

These questions will act as an excellent spring board for more in-depth conversation and help you better decide whether or not to go into business with a potential licensing partner.

If you like this article, get more info on how to get your music licensed and published by subscribing to my newsletter here.

Low Hanging Fruit in the Music Business: Leap-Frog Cold Calls And Get Noticed By Music Supervisors

March 9, 2013 by Andy

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!

How To Start Crucial Music Industry Conversations

March 9, 2013 by Andy

What do you mention when talking about what you’re up to musically? Anything! As an indie musician you need to be highly versatile and agreeable to ANYTHING that has to do with music. A friend wants a band to play at a party? Someone else needs a DJ for their wedding? Your boss needs help choosing music for her kids? Yes, yes, and yes.

Get used to saying yes to everything that has to do with music. Even if you’ve NEVER done it before. Even if you don’t have the right equipment. Say YES and figure it out.

This is a key insight into the minds of some of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs. They see someone with a need and find a way to fill that need for that person. Eventually their reputation grows as a problem-solver and soon enough they’re making money – or even building a company – by simply having capitalized on the opportunities all around them.

Here’s how it could work:

Your friend’s friend needs a band to play at a party.

You say YES, figure out what kind of music they want, and do it.

When you go to the party, use it as an opportunity to:

Sure, you may get nothing or you might meet a bunch of people who work in accounting firms who seemingly can’t help. However, if you convey your message clearly, it makes your message easy to remember and easily repeatable. They can then relay your skills to their friends. You can see how literally anyone becomes a great new lead. Plus you might need an accountant some day anyway!

Here’s another more basic setting:

Your friend needs some new music for their daily workout.
You say “I know a TON of great workout music, what kind of stuff do you like?”
You put a playlist together, put yourself in the meta-data in iTunes with your email address, and tell your friend to spread the playlist around if they like it.
– This could potentially lead to a few new fans or mailing list subscriptions, or just some new friends-of-friends who loved your choices, who can now think of you when they think of music.

Saying “yes” is also a great way to learn new skills and develop side projects and alternate revenue streams as you pursue your passions – all because your friends know that when they think “music,” they should think of you.

But this email is titled “what to say” and I know how most of you feel when it comes to self-promotion. You think of it as annoying or contrived and it may make you feel uncomfortable. Well the great news is if you’re starting with friends and colleagues conversations are immediately more comfortable.

But the key when talking to anyone is to thinking about talking UP!

U – Updated
P – Positive

This means that everything you say about your career should be some new detail with a positive spin. Let’s say you’re currently trying to find a music publisher. When your friends ask “hey how’s it going” you could respond by saying:

“It’s going really well, thanks for asking! I actually reached out to a few different music publishers last week about my new EP!”

Your friend might ask what a music publisher is, or ask to hear your new songs, or maybe they just change the subject. Whatever they do, if they engage in a conversation later and music comes up, you can bet they’ll say “oh yeah my friend’s in a band – in fact, I think he just recently was talking to a music publisher about his new EP.”

Simple phrases like that go a very long way. From here it’s possible your friend’s friend could want to get in touch and ask how you did what you did. Maybe they need advice because they’re starting to record their own EP. Or maybe it’s something simple like they’re looking for a new guitar player. This means potentially being able to advise them about publishing, helping produce their EP, or getting an extra gig with their band.

Either way you can see how each time you simply mention what you’re working on in a positive way, the response can lead to a situation where your skills become relevant, interesting, and useful.

Why is it so important to be positive?

Well, check out this response to the same question of “how’s it going?”

“Pretty good I guess. I tried emailing some publishers but I haven’t heard anything back yet. It’s really frustrating. The music business is so tough to get into. I’m not even sure my new EP will get listened to by anyone.”

WHOA! Big difference right? This statement sure says A LOT about how you feel about your own music, and how successful your friends perceive you to be. What do you think your friend might say to their friend now? Do you think they’ll relay a simple, positive statement that gets the person they’re talking to interested? Probably not.

Furthermore, how do YOU feel when someone talks to you in this fashion? How does someone who is positive affect you? Start paying attention to it today – you’ll be blown away.

Here are a few more examples of updates you can give to friends when they ask you “what’s going on?”:

Invites to upcoming live shows (that you’re either playing or attending).
New gear you bought.
New songs or bands you love, or how you’re re-discovering a classic (this one is really easy)
Some new tool you use on the business side of your efforts (maybe you started using Evernote for keeping an archive of industry contacts)
New songs you’ve written or co-written (feel free to talk UP co-artists too!)

You might even mention that you dig working your day-job because every paycheck brings you 10% closer to your next studio day or an awesome effects pedal or whatever.

Finally, I’d like to talk about when you really don’t want to, or can’t say “yes.” Keep in mind you can always TRY to help. Let’s say someone loves Neil Young and wants to meet him. Well, unless you know Neil or his manager, it’s unlikely you can help, right? But what you might do is head home, hit up the internet and see if you can find a few tips others have used to meet famous people. Then fire off an email with a link.

It might not be an intro to Neil Young himself, but you never know how it can help someone until you try.

Action Step: Write down an example phrase you can use no more than 2 sentences long for each of the 5 examples above. Then, just like you would when working on a song lyric, edit them relentlessly until they are positive, precise, and clear. Start putting one or two of them to use immediately the next time someone asks you “How’s it going?”

We covered a lot in this email, but I hope you found it useful. If you have, please pass it along to a friend, or tweet it and mention my name (@andylykens). I would very much appreciate it!

In the final LHF article we’ll be covering WHO the best people are to find when it comes to advancing your career, and how to find them more quickly through genuine connections to build strong relationships.

Low Hanging Fruit in the Music Business: Part I – Find Opportunity Anywhere

March 9, 2013 by Andy

The how to be the first thing to spring to mind when a contact thinks about music.

What is low hanging fruit?

Low Hanging Fruit is a sales concept which means that we need to be sure we’re capitalizing on the opportunities in the places where the fruit is ripe, and easy to pick.

While the metaphor is obvious it exists for a reason: we often get so focused on some large, grandiose plan that we tend to miss out on the easy-wins that surround us everyday…or we get so paralyzed and distracted that

This is especially true in the music industry and getting music licensed. Yes, it’s insanely competitive. Yes, there is a TON of specialty knowledge to learn. Yes, there are a LOT of things you “need” to do.

So we focus on major projects or outreach looking for that big score – music in a commercial, a music publishing deal, some mega-artist recording our song…

But what would we see if we looked for the low-hanging fruit first?

Where do we find it?

Friends, colleagues, and aquaintances. That’s where. Maybe relatives sometimes too.

“But I don’t have any friends in the music business.”

Shut up and stop being dumb. You don’t HAVE to have friends directly involved in the music industry. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t since the music industry is a complete shit show right now anyway.

Capitalizing on the opportunities that are around you everyday will involve people that work for an entity that simply uses music. There are obvious ones like ad agencies and production companies, but it could also be less obvious like a dog food company, a car dealership, or even a school.

Being tuned in to what your friends are talking about, getting interested, and simply talking about what you do is the next HUGE step you need to take. Once you do that, you’re on way to being able to genuinely help them while applying those skills and traits we mentioned before.

Now pay attention because this next bit is SUPER important:

Low-hanging fruit will scarcely be a 1-step process

Think about that. It means that when you talk to a friend or connection, you realistically cannot expect that because of one conversation all of your dreams will come true. Instead, you should expect that it leads to ONLY ONE MORE step toward uncovering an opportunity to exploit your music.

Yeah, yeah, that isn’t sexy and it certainly isn’t what people want to hear. Tough cookies. Take a look at the goals you created from the last email. How many of those can you instantly achieve in one fell swoop? Probably none. But the nice thing is there is good news about this too:

It also means that you don’t need to know someone super important to take a step in the right direction with your music career.

You may not know anyone directly in the music industry, but I bet there’s a great chance that you know someone who knows someone that can use your skills. Or who knows someone who knows of a conference or event where you can meet people to start making real strides.

What does this really mean though? That you need to be some sleezy, sales-y, douche-bag handing out business cards and CDs to any and everyone you meet? Excuse me while I puke.

No, quite the opposite (this is why your friends are great contacts – they’ll make funny faces or throw bagels at you if you’re being creepy and weird). You can never look ahead into the future to see where things may lead. So, even if you think your friends don’t know anyone it’s important to just talk about what you’re up to as far as music goes. Then, if they ever hear of someone needing a musician or song or something related to music, they immediately think “oh wait, my good friend can help!”

Now we start taking action. Here’s what I’d like you to do to start practice this technique, do it now:

Make a list of friends, co-workers, and aquaintances you can start talking to about your current music projects.
Next, make a list of skills or tools you have that pertain to music.
Now, next to each friend’s name, see if you can come up with 1 or 2 things they may not know that you do.

*note: if you’ve only mentioned something to someone one or two times in the past, they don’t know you do it. Trust me.

The next time you see anyone from your list above, try and work just one of those things into the natural conversation. Maybe you have a live show coming up, maybe you love making playlists for peoples’ parties, or maybe you have an in at a studio. Whatever it is, just be concious of that one thing the next time you see that one person.

So now we’ve honed in on our skills and goals, and we’ve started integrating those skills into conversations with friends. The journey continues! Do you feel like a hobbit? That’s too bad cause I’m dressed like Gandalf today.

Planning Music Industry Goals

February 12, 2013 by Andy

This is part 3 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 to register for the newsletter to be sure you don’t miss out on the rest of the series…

Crafting a plan for any music industry project is key. It allows you to materialize an action plan, gives you a tangible list of tasks that act as a checklist and can present to potential partners, and allows you to lay out risks and pitfalls in order to nip problems in the bud.

The key element to ANY music business plan starts with your end goal in mind. We talked about setting goals in the last newsletter so if you missed it, click here. Clearly state the specific goal you have and then list a few of the positive outcomes it will create. Your goal can include acquiring new fans, creating a fanbase mailing list, getting in touch with music supervisors about music licensing opportunities, or even your next EP or album project. Let’s use creating a mailing list as an example.

Example: Create a mailing list based on email addresses acquired at live shows of at least 50 fans over the next 4 gigs.

Once you have your goal stated clearly, you can then consider the steps it might take in order to achieve the goal:

Register for an email service

Research and choose a way to collect emails at gigs (ie: apps, sign-in sheet at door, collect after the show)

Outreach to local venues to get more gigs

Write, edit, and practice mic banter for asking for emails at gig

Create 4 emails to be sent to the list, 1 per week for the next month

Promote email list sign-up via social media and website

Your list might look very different than mine for this particular project, but you get the idea. You’ve got a goal, you’ve got action steps. An excellent start to any plan. What’s next? Adding a deadline of course!

We already know we want to populate the list with at least 50 people over the course of 4 gigs. We can take this 1 step further by adding something like “or in 1 month, whichever comes first” (although, without a live gig it might be tough to populate an email list).

Then take a look at your other tasks, and work them into that time frame. Once you’ve got it planned set calendar reminders on your phone or laptop, write it down on a calendar near wherever you work, or just refer to it in the plan anytime you boot-up your computer. I will say here it is DEFINITELY a good idea to have it in front of you physically and having your phone beep at you once in a while so you don’t lose sight of your project.

Great! We’ve got our goal, our plan, our schedule, what could go wrong? Exactly! That’s what’s next. Let’s try and come up with as many things that can go wrong along with at least 1 solution for each. It might look something like this:

Band member has to leave town – get a back-up player for each band member lined up for gigs

After 1st gig, email collection is poor – consider giving away an EP or band sticker in exchange for an email sign-up

Not able to get more than 1 or 2 gigs – ask some other musicians about getting an introduction to a venue booker in order to facilitate getting a gig

Again, your solutions and dilemmas may look different than this, but the key is to find reasons why you CAN achieve the goal despite setbacks. This helps break barriers. Again keep in mind, you won’t find the BEST process for goal-planning immediately. It will take time to learn how long it takes to do things, and what things work best as far as accomplishing certain goals. Once you find some processes that work for you, iterating the process and tweaking it to increase your success rate.

Whatever you do, remember to craft a plan, and get started. You may not hit your mark exactly at first, but like we said in the last email, there really is no such thing as failing. Learning, improving, and tweaking is all part of the process.