$2Billion for the Arts; Will the US Follow in the UK’s Footsteps?

The UK government announces they're gonna give 2 billion to the arts community. What will the US do?

For all you new folks here, we always highlight a little artist to the day before I get into the nitty gritty, and today's artist is one of my favorite songwriters that is on the planet today, in his name is John Moreland. His breakout record was a record called High on Tulsa Heat, which featured a song called Cherokee that I absolutely fell in love with. Since then, he's released a ton of different records and his latest one, LP 5 is quickly becoming my favorite of his entire catalog. I was really excited to see John in Atlanta this year earlier. I think he was coming to terminal West around February. And of course, that show got cancelled because the rest of the world got cancelled around the end of February, early March, so I guess I'll have to wait to see him for the first time. One of my favorite videos of John was at his performance during his first records tour called Break My Heart Sweetly, and it's just like a super painful love, heart tearing ballad that you just gotta listen to... John has one of those voices that when you listen to him, you just feel like he's already had three or four lives, his voice is kinda gravely, and it just seems like he's already lived through everything. When you find a moment in your day... Check out John Moreland.

Okay, so here we are. I am super excited to talk about this today because I feel like it is sort of the groundbreaking deal that everybody in the music world has been waiting for, and someone finally did it, which means maybe it then carries over to other countries. The UK Government announced that they're gonna give almost 2 billion to a variety of people within the arts and music community. It's rather interesting timing because I feel like this could be a domino effect that could filter into other countries that are of, say, UK status and have the ability in which to do so, the economic relief applies to theaters, museums, live music venues, and other cultural institutions, a whole bunch of music venues came together as music venues trust, which started some hashtags that really got the attention of the local government, I guess enough people with the hashtag, #saveourvenues, posted enough times to get the attention of the local government in the UK and brought this to their parliament. Also in the last couple of weeks, there's a hashtag that emerged called #letmusicplay, which was really backed by a whole bunch of famous UK artists.

So this huge stimulus package they just passed is absolutely ridiculous.

Let's break down the numbers. 270 million pounds were issued in loans, and over 880 million pounds were given in the form of grants that will not need to be paid back. That is a lot of money. So of this money, there'll be 115 billion pounds that would be sort of acting as a central hub or fund for all of the other branches, 100 million of those pounds will go towards the cultural institutions that sort of represent the history of England. Another 120 million pounds are gonna go towards restarting construction, and some of the sites that had stopped these sites are obviously cultural and music and arts related. And finally, 97 million will go to Scotland, 59 million will go to Wales, and 33 million will go to Northern Ireland. That's a lot of money for our government to invest into music, arts culture, etcetera, especially when it seems like there's so many other critical things that could have gotten that money. Now wait, I'm not criticizing this at all, I think this is a really awesome thing that the UK did, and it makes me wonder what America is going to do for its arts community? Is there any money left? Even for the arts community, I don't know.

When I applied for a PPP loan through my local bank for my businesses that are in the artist and music sort of community, I was told that there was a waiting list of over 200,000 people in my area waiting for a loan, and that the first round of the PPP only serviced about 30,000 or 40,000, and there was still 150,000 to 200000 more to serve before likely, I would get my name called. So in my business, I decided that that was probably not going to be of the best interest, mostly because they kept changing the terms after they would give people the money, it's really easy to be frustrated with our government and our Congress and our president, and everyone sort of attached to everything about how this pandemic is being handled, but truthfully, there's not really any one person or regime that would have been able to handle such a crisis smoothly and without any hiccup at all, so while we sit and we wait for all of our businesses to be satisfied with loans and all sorts of aid, which seemingly isn't really getting to all the people that we need to get it to, I just wonder what is gonna happen with the artist community, and is there anything like this even in the works currently in my own backyard of Atlanta, we're watching music venues really struggled to get by or not even reopen at all, just because of the restrictions of the capacity, my hope is, is that there's some sort of plan of action that's in the works, and that will take care of the people that need it the most.

Assuming that America does have something in the works for this, I just hope that they have one thing in mind, that simple thing is the actual people that are out there working in the arts community, what I don't wanna see is this money be budgeted to colleges or any sort of extracurricular degree program that won't really help the musicians that are out there that are not working... If something like this is to be done, I hope that it at least qualifies as someone filing their taxes as a musician or an artist or a photographer, any of these types of creative people would be eligible for this grant. So your move, America, what are you gonna do? I'm tired of seeing my friends in the artist community suffer, I think it's time you did something, so until we hear some sort of good news through this whole thing, I'd like to issue a special challenge to all my artist friends to keep creating, writing, composing, recording, whatever it is that you do in your field. Keep doing it, triple down on yourself, your brand, who you are, who you wanna be when you come out of this, it'll keep your head in a great... It'll keep your heart in a great place and it will guide you through this tough time.

That's it for this time. I'm Sweet Deat, thanks for reading!

The Live Nation Memo Highlights and Why You Should be Angry

Hey, what's up people? It's Sweet Deat and I'm back again with another topic that you need to know about. We're talking about Live Nation.

So today we're gonna talk about Live Nation, just so there's not a lot of fluff in this episode, if you don't know what Live Nation is, just Google it, you've probably been to a concert that they put on at some point in your life, some would say they even have close to a monopoly on the entire live music performance industry, their stranglehold on the club and the festival community is unparalleled by any other in the industry today.

Recently there was a memo leaked from their office outlining their plan to reimplement concerts.

All across the world, and the stipulations that they're hoping that the artists will go for, as we know, this global pandemic has totally flatlined the entire music industry, and it's really, really bad for musicians right now, the reason why I'm making this video is simply this, these terms are completely unfair. If we don't unite as a musical community right now, we're likely to lose any sort of a hold on our own individual rights as it pertains to putting on concerts through a mega company such as Live Nation. This Memo is a classic example of passing the buck on to musicians who have already had a pretty rough go of it being that physical copies of CD’s and music in general is now completely flat line to near zero.

I wanna highlight on a few things that are completely insane.

Again, it's really important right now that we all know what's going on. This moment in history could be one that defines decades for years to come, also, this type of behavior will start at the festival and the large club circuit and eventually work its way down all the way to smaller venues and smaller clubs, making it near impossible for an independent artist to get started.

Point number one today is artists are going to take... according to Live Nation, a 20% pay cut.

Did you just hear what I said? A 20% pay cut. Are you insane? If you think about the structure of bands and what money they make on the road, and think about maybe the 1% as say like The Foo Fighters or somebody like that, that makes a lot... A lot of money that draw a lot of people... This is kind of insane for an artist, that's 1% artist, as I'm calling it, them taking a pay cut is one thing, and I'm sure that would even drive their profits down so low that it would become questionable as to whether it's even worth touring or not. But for the medium to small level band, it's maybe playing Stage Three at Bonnaroo or something, are you kidding me? Oftentimes, when you go to a major festival, those bands that are playing those small stages aren't really getting paid a ton of money, so asking them to take a 20% pay cut... It's completely ludicrous.

Okay, this next point really had me upset... Minimum marketing requirements.

Yes, that's right, it's their festival in which that they're hiring you to show up and perform your art yet, now you have to promote their festival too. I think what started as an overall good gesture and also to let fans know where they're playing and what they're doing now has become standardized and in required practice, so now they're saying in plain or terms, you have to post X amount of times about our festival or our event on your social media page. And that's just a part of the contract. Now, while I'm all for one and one for all here, as far as the ecosystem all working together for the good and the glory of music, and maybe that's a utopian idea that I need to let go of, I think this is a little too much and for the next topic, merchandise sales, this memo says that artists will retain 70% of all merchandise sales sold, and I realize you gotta pay somebody to stand there and sell your merchandise at a festival while you're there, but it seems like in the beginning, what used to be like a 5% or a 10% fee now has somehow escalated to 30%, like really, is this little extra percentage really gonna help you dig out of the hole that you're in right now, which by the way, isn't anyone's fault, so why should musicians have to help pull you out of this. I just personally think this is a little excessive and may be slightly more than a little bit. Now, this next topic will really ruffle some feathers…

Insurance, this new clause and states that all artists have to carry their own insurance.

I don't know if you've ever looked into having insurance as a band or anything of that nature, but it's kind of expensive for some mid to small level bands, if this had a trickledown effect into the small club community, bands would not even start... Quite frankly, it's on the promoter to carry insurance, not on the band, you're the one that's assuming all the risk by taking on all of these bands to come in and play your festival, and the reward of you doing that is you're gonna make more money than all of us like combined. So to penalize one more time for making us carry our own insurance is completely ridiculous for bands that can barely make enough money to get from gig to gig off of the love of their art and the dream, this... It would be a total game changer and it would totally ruin people cancellation clauses like due to poor sales.

How about the fact that if they don't do a very good job promoting your show or they pick a really bad day with conflicting events going on in their city and not a lot of people show up if a show is cancelled because of poor ticket sales, and let's say that reason is because there's another event going on in town and they picked a bad day or maybe it's a holiday and the promoter struck out on his promotion, they have the right to cancel this event and only pay you 25% of your fee that you're charging to show up and perform. How insane is this?

I have a feeling that the musician community is going to rally here and they're really gonna make people walk back on some of these claims, but as for now, this is absolutely insane, and I'm so glad that it leaked because now we have a real fighting chance to sort of get ahead of the curve on this one and really show them how unreasonable this is.

And I know I'm normally in a really, really great mood and all these kinds of things, but this is not cool.

So until next time, I'll see you later!

Building Your Team Episode 3: Virtual Assistant

Hey everybody. How you do and what's going on?

I'm Sweet Deat, and I'm so glad that you’re here. If you're creative, you're gonna find a lot of really good stuff here that you can use, like business tips from beginner to advanced finance ideas, strategy, even music tips, if you're a musician like me, all of this information is for you to have 100% free because it's information, somebody gave it to me for free at some point, so I pass it to you. I'm very excited to talk about this particular topic because I feel like there's sort of a misunderstanding among the creative community as to whether or not you can afford this. I would think that if you polled anybody within the industry, they would probably say, know that most people couldn't, but the truth is, almost everyone can, and in certain situations, it could be one of the most powerful tools you have in your tool belt to land a client or to make your life a lot easier as a creative. But before we get too far into it, you know what's coming! If you're an experienced follower, you know it's time to talk about the artist of the day.

Today's artist is a band that does not have a record out, but there's tons of live clips you can watch and they're totally insane. How in saying... You might ask, how about progress or insane? That group is called the Wednesday Night Titans. It's an incredible duo of improvisational based music that features my friend Kevin Scott and the drum virtuoso Zach Danziger, who in addition to playing with tons of jazz Legends, he is also the composer for a lot of the oceans movies, like ocean 11, oceans 12, etcetera. Kevin, on the other hand, has played with all kinds of incredible artists that includes someone that I mentioned previously, Jimmy Herring. So how does improvisational music somehow pair with wrestling... Well, it's best seen to really experience, but they take old historic wrestling clips of all sorts of famous wrestlers from their day and put together these improvisational loops and songs together to form this crazy soundscape that goes along with the wrestlers wrestling on a big screen while you're watching them play. It's crazy. But you gotta check it out.

Let's face it, we're not all good at everything, and it's kind of counterproductive to even try in some cases to be so excellent at everything.

And also creative at the same time. Maybe you can get a couple of those things together, but chances are, you won't be able to get everything, so it's important that you learn how to outsource and build people around you to make your creative life better. So today we talk about a virtual assistant, a virtual assistant is simply someone who provides support for an entrepreneur or creative like yourself, and maybe doesn't even live in the same city as you, they handle tasks like social media management, event management, managing calendars, appointments or emails, preparing reports, personal tasks like booking flight arrangements or hotel arrangement, and even simple digital marketing tasks, so even though these people aren't in the same city as you or even in the same state as you, they can be a vital part of your business. If you don't already know, later in this video, I'll reveal how much one cost and you're gonna be really surprised after I give you all the things that they can do for you.

So let's get started with number one, administrative work.

Probably the most obvious thing, but as a creative, they can answer your phone calls, they can answer your emails, they can do a lot of inbetween work with clients if you're really busy, say, working on a project with another client. From my own experience, I remember the first time something like this happened for me, I was in the middle of a film shoot for one of the bands that I represent, and it was very complex and there was lots of moving things happening all at the same time, and the next thing I know, I get an email that looks like something that's really important, before I had a chance to even pick up my phone and call my assistant to help me nurture this client that had just come in, she had already handled it, which believe me is a huge, huge advantage, and it just really takes the weight off of your mind that you're making sure you're giving the client... Everything that they need to make them feel important. So if you're a small business, you might not have an actual brick and mortar location to where you go and do work every day, you might be doing it right out of an office like this one that I'm in right now. The only real difference between an admin assistant and a virtual assistant is the virtual one is just located somewhere else, so this point is pretty straight forward.

Moving on to number two, personal tasks.

Do you ever feel like you're just totally overwhelmed with work, you've got a client over here asking for something, you've got a client over here asking for something, and there's probably one over here and they're just like, Hey, could you get me this too... It just gets to be overwhelming at times, trying to keep dates together, time together, all the logistics for each particular event, what songs you're playing, if you're a musician like me, all these types of details can be easily lost in like say, a long, long email chain that's why? Having someone like a virtual assistant will help, they'll organize all of this information to make sure that you always show up prepared and ready to go, they can organize your personal todo list book, all your travel arrangements, they can help you make gifts for clients, which this is something that my administrative assistant does for me a lot, I will personalize and think about a gift that really impacts the person that I want to give a gift to, and a lot of times I'll have workers go ahead and make those purchases on my behalf, a lot of these tasks don't have to be handled by you, they can be handled by somebody else, like your virtual assistant.

Number three, content creation.

If you've been following anything on social media, you know that content is king these days, just putting out pieces of content after pieces of content can get really taxing on one particular individual, having someone like a virtual assistant that maybe has your vision in mind for your brand or your stylings, could really help you really speed up the amount of pieces of content that you have to put out for the world to consume. So if you're a creative that's a photographer or a musician or an artist, and you wanna be top of mind with somebody that you really wanna work with, putting out content all the time really helps, and having someone like a virtual assistant near you will definitely lighten the load.

Number four, managing finances.

Now, before you go run off and try to replace your accountant, let's manage those expectations just a little bit, while your virtual assistant maybe could do a lot of those details, it's may be better if they help manage them, so maybe they help with assisting with a budget for a particular project that you have, maybe they help keep track of expenses and follow them accordingly. When tax season comes around, you won't be running around like a chicken with your head cut off, so to speak. Looking for all of the pieces of information that you need to give to your accountant... They can help with that too.

All right, for number five, we're talking about social media management.

There's no better way to get word out about what you do these days for the cost in social media, it's likely where most people are going to see you and want to talk and get to know who you are... People can also draw conclusions on who you are just simply from your social media page, and it seems to be a little bit more personal than a lot of websites, you see, this is definitely crucial for any creative because a lot of times we showcase our art on these mediums, just to let people know who we are, so they could be in charge of creating content for all the media accounts, engaging with people that maybe say something nice of something you posted, they can also gather data from the social media post and present those to you as well, so you know what kind of content is really working well, this is something you can easily outsource, and maybe before you do to that 20-something year old in your office that is really good with these kinds of things, it's really important that you cast that vision as to who you are and what you're all about before you just hand over the keys, so to speak, I think it's also important that if you are gonna hand over social media responsibilities that you have a really solid talk very consistently, like maybe once a week about the stuff you're posting and also to remind them who you are and what you're about and what your business is about, or your creative work is about.

Number six is research.

There's constantly things changing in the world as we speak, in regards to your creative world, wouldn't it be nice if somebody was just out there keeping tabs on what the trends were, what's gone viral, what's fallen sort of out of vogue, having someone keep up with the trends of today, and all the research really help you progress and make sure you're always staying in the lane that is being most viewed, so having someone just keeping a pulse on what's going on that's in trend and maybe following out of trend may save you a lot of money.

Number seven, customer service.

This one is a really, really big one. We as creatives don't always have the best reputation for getting back to people on time or working on a time frame at all, sometimes we just get so consumed with our art that we just forget about the world that's around us, and that's kind of what makes us unique, being able to block out the world and just focus in on something and create something that then could be representative of the world that you're in, really moves people, but if you're trying to get hired and you're to also use your art as a medium for work, having someone like a virtual assistant really up your game in the eyes of the client, think about it, somebody doesn't know you, and they're reaching out to you for the first time, if they're greeted with a virtual assistant, just simply saying hello and gathering their information for a potential phone call, it really shows organizational stability, and there's nothing that a client likes more than very quick responses, especially ones that are filled with organization and clarity.

Number eight, email management.

That's right, sounds ridiculous. But let me explain, think about all the emails you have in your inbox right now, they probably run together like an endless stream of information, but it doesn't have to be that way. It could be very organized and very detailed. That makes it very easy for you to find what you need when you need it, we as creatives do so much all the time, some things we can just simply give to someone else and they'll probably do a better job of organizing it. I kinda relate this with house cleaning in a way, every person has sort of their way of cleaning a house, but whenever you get somebody that's a professional in there that steps in and maybe clean your house for the first time ever, all of a sudden you see things sparkle in a way that you've never seen them sparkle before, having your virtual assistant manage your email box is a great thing, and she'll have it stick in span and looking good. So how is that? That's a lot to think about right now.

The best part... How much do they cost?

You might be surprised that a virtual assistant can cost you as little as $12 an hour, they also range all the way up to $20 and $30 an hour, and probably even farther than that, the more specific skill sets that you want likely will cost you more... The most important thing in finding a virtual assistant is someone that you really connect with and that you really, really trust, having someone put their hands on your creative world is really scary, but truthfully, not learning to let go and letting someone else handle some of these affairs, can be a detriment to your growth. I used a third party company that I hired to handle my virtual assistant, they did a search out into the world, found candidates that best suited me from a personality standpoint and from a skill set standpoint, and then presented those clients to me, I interviewed them, and then made the decision that worked out best for me, there are companies out there that do this for you, and they may cost a little bit more, but they're also really, really good at pairing you with somebody that you like.

Oh, that was a lot. I think we'll end it there.

So until next time, I'm Sweet Deat!

21st Century Musican Episode 3: Virtual Shows

I am so thankful that you're here. Thank you so much for coming!

One of my favorite things to do in the beginning of every episode is to highlight an artist to the day. So without further ado, let's get to it. This is all about my good friend, Adam Levy, who toured with Norah Jones, playing that song probably every night for eight years or so; so while Adam didn't write that riff, he played it a whole lot. Adam and I have been friends for many years now, and I've always been a fan of Adam's work. Probably the first record that really grabbed me of Adams was a 2013 release called Portuguese Subtitles. I think I listened to that record about a thousand times now, it's so, so good, and if you like tasty, it's hard playing, really cool songwriting with a stellar band. In addition to singer/songwriter records, he's done a lot of instrumental records to stuff with like Tony Mason and Rich Hinman, just to name a few. He's based in LA and he's very active playing there all the time, so whenever this pandemic’s over, be sure to check him out. If you're also a young guitar player or even an advanced one, he offers a variety of online lessons and there's not many people better to study with, I think, in the country today. So check out Adam Levy!

It's time to get to the topic at hand.

So let's go. Today, I am very excited to talk about virtual online concerts, so unless you just live underneath a brick, you've probably seen a thousand of these things now happening in people's living rooms since the pandemic started, and while some of them probably sounded really good and a lot of them sounded pretty bad, everyone is just doing the best they can so that they can make a buck and get by in this really, really hard time. Initially, it didn't matter necessarily what your production value was, you could just throw up any sort of concert online on Facebook or YouTube, not really worry much about the audio quality and not really worry much about the lighting - and boom, you are off to the races and making a fair amount of money. Now that we're pushing six months or so into this pandemic, it's starting to look a little different. People are getting a little bit tired of the model and they're not really tuning in as much. Even though everybody's a little fatigued on the whole live stream in your bedroom kind of concert idea right now, this concept is not going away, and even if you've waited this long to get involved in it, now is the time to start.

I'm gonna give you a few things that will help you out in your process of luring in a consistent audience.

Sounds like fun, right? Rule number one is something that I think prohibits most people from even starting. It is simply just start making content. Do yourself a favor, don't get paralyzed about the whole issue of putting on a live stream and everything being perfect from the start, the fact is no one is an expert at this right now, and I think it's important that you just get out there and you start doing it. Yes, would it be nice if you knew every single in and out of a live stream and how to avoid all of its problems from the start, of course, but most people just get stuck there and bogged down and never actually get to the live stream because they need a certain type of camera, or they need a certain type of lighting rig, or they need to know something else that I'm not thinking of in this moment; the truth is, is each time you're gonna get better, so just start. It can be really simple, really short, it doesn't have to be an hour or anything, it can be just a little bit of time, so you get a taste of what it's like and how to improve the overall quality, which gets me to rule number two.

Before you ask, just give.

When you start out, don't ask for demanding a ticket price or anything. Personally, I think you're missing a really great opportunity to build trust between you and an audience, unless you're like a midsized level band or higher. It's really important for you to build a community that will follow you with everything that you do, even beyond this pandemic. By drawing people in with something for free, it gives them a chance to connect with you, and it also kinda lowers the standards of what is expected for this particular live stream - you don't have to have all the sound figured out, you don't have to have all the lighting figured out, you don't even have to have your set figured out all the way, (although I would probably recommend that). The fact is, it just gives you a chance to connect with people in real time in a relaxed setting. Remember, you're learning here, so it's about not having everything perfect from the start and building that history. This is for everyone, by the way, this is not just for singer/songwriters that can sing and play. If you're an instrumentalist, you should be playing instrumentally, even if you're like a drummer or something, find some loops, put on a click and play along to a track or something that people might know, or just put on a weird percussion track and practice improvising around it and then talk about what you do. You will be surprised how many people really want to hear what you do and also experience what you do in this time. Remember, you're learning a valuable skill, you're learning how to bring people in and connect with them and also get feedback from them while you're there, which... Oh, by the way, I think is number three.

Number three, ask people about what they want to hear.

By just simply including them in the process, they're gonna get to know you better, and they're also going to say, ‘hey, can you play this really cool drum part, say if you're a drummer to this particular song because I've never seen anybody play it before and it just totally baffles me’ and boom, you've got an idea for the next episode of what you can play already. Sometimes simply just polling the audience is the best way to figure out what to do next. And I think that if you just put yourself out there and you do it, you'd be surprised what might come up and what also might inspire you for new directions for your future streams by just simply including them in the process. You're building that connection, but there is something you can do during this whole process to continually get better.

Number four consult people that you know that it's already doing this.

And ask them for tips. I'm pretty sure everybody at this point has friends has been doing this, so just reach out to them, don't be shy. I'm sure they would love to talk about their process and help you in the beginning of your process to hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls. Pitfalls could be everything from lighting to tech things or just topical things that didn't really go anywhere for them, it'll save you some time and some frustration too. This also opens up the door for something really cool that will also grow your viewership faster, and that's collaboration - someone may be willing to do a live stream with you (socially distant of course), and that might actually give you the chance to see their process and learn first hand.

Finally, rule number five, if you really wanna speed up the viewership of your channel, learn how to use Facebook advertising or whatever platform you're using.

Learn how to use advertising on that. It's really not that difficult and it will save you a lot of money in advertising for a long, long, long time, because right now, it's a great time to buy Facebook ads, and not that little pesky boost button that is super lazy and super broad and doesn't focus in on the people that you need to see your stuff. Learn a little bit about Facebook ads and see your viewership just be transformed.

Until next time!

21st Century Musician Episode 2: Stop Wasting Your Time!

Time is the most precious commodity there is. Today, I teach you how to save a whole lot of it!

Today's artist is someone that the Atlanta area knows really well, and LA is really finding out a lot about these days. That person is Adron. The first time I heard Adron ever was at the Earl in Atlanta, Georgia, and I stumbled into a show because a friend of mine was playing with her and said, I absolutely had to check this person out. I had absolutely no frame of reference as to what this music would be like, But I lived down the street and I was like, Hey, I'll check it out. She started off with a flurry of notes on her nylon string guitar, and wow, she opened her mouth and started singing, and it was like an angel had walked into the room, her album Organize Mode immediately became one of my favorite records that's come out of Atlanta since I've been living here for 16 years or so. She lives in LA now to my understanding, and I think she's doing pretty well there.

Anyway, today's topic is a part of a series I'm doing called The 21st Century Musician, and it's all about empowering people to kinda move from 1970’s mentality to present day mentality, giving them tips and tricks to succeed in this 21st century world that we live in today.

So today, we're gonna talk about CRM, Customer Relationship Management.

CRM is a technology that manages all of your customer relations, a CRM system does wonders for business, it helps them stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and helps improve profit margin. The numbers don't lie. So let me give you a few of them that may encourage you to after this video, take action and install one yourself. On average, people who use a CRM see the following results number one, 30% increase in lead conversions, number two, 30% increase in sales, number three, 35% increase in customer satisfaction, number four, 38% increase in faster decision making from the client, and number five, a 25% increase in overall revenue, what... As far as expenses that I've incurred as a business owner, this by far has been the best tool to organize all of my information that I receive and also give to my clients, it's really remarkable. And whoever invented this, which I should probably look that up, I wanna buy you a drink someday, you have saved me hours of work, so before I dive into it, here's a couple of notes for you to clear the brain on... Alright, let's dive into it with four points.

Number one, lead capture and autoreply.

I want you to envision going to sleep... No, not right now. I mean, let's say it's like 11 o'clock at night, you've had a long work day and you're tired and you're just trying to go to sleep, and all of a sudden you hear that you've got mail sound... You recognize that sound and you realize it's probably someone wanting to inquire about your services at 11 o'clock at night, so what do you do? You roll out of bed, you grab your phone, you turn on the light, you start texting, Hey, I'd love to talk to you. Let's set up a time to talk. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Not ideal, right? You're trying to get some sleep. Not anymore. Those days are over with the CRM, so install CRM with your contact page on your website when someone messages you, vet CRM will automatically kick back a message that says, Hey, thanks so much for checking out my website, would you like to schedule an appointment or a consultation? Any of this type of information that you want to have related in your initial response for you, you could even have things like a link to a calendar page that has direct access to your calendar, and they can schedule a meeting with you right there without even talking to you, without a text message and without being woken up in the middle of the night, say they don't get back to you in 24 to 48 hours, well, you can have your CRM set up to schedule as many followup messages as you like, and again, all of this is done without taking a single ounce of your time.

Number two, contracts.

You can save all of your contracts in the CRM and send them electronically for people to sign electronically, they're very easy to alter because we all know each gig that we do as creatives are completely different, require different set of logistics, etcetera, and just like the auto reply, you can have it programmed to send every 24 to 48 hours if they don't get to it. Again, a huge time saver.

Number three, client billing.

So say someone signs a contract with you for you to show up and do your creative work, once that contract is signed, you could leave like an hour buffer to make sure you could go back when you get a kickback notification saying that they did sign it, just to review and make sure everything is good to go, you could program to say in an hour after that for your deposit information to show up, that first initial billing will automatically be sent out on your behalf and just like the contracts, and just like the auto reply you can have a program to send every 24 to 48 hours if they forget to do it, so no more bugging the client about, Hey, did you pay the deposit yet? Because the CRM will just do that for you. And what I really like about this is it sort of takes the emotions out of the game, people are busy and clients are busy doing whatever it is they do all the time, and we as creatives are constantly looking around, seeing what money is coming in and out, and it can be really overwhelming at points to where if you don't have control of your emotions, you could say something that might upset the client, even if they're late on getting you the payment, so by having that automated message just reminds them, Hey, don't forget you owe this amount, etcetera, and giving them a window of time to sort of complete it in, it just sort of takes you out of the equation and all of your emotions, and it just makes for better client relations.

Number four is logistics, and this one is maybe my favorite one out of all of them.

So once the lead comes in, once the contract is signed, what's the initial deposit is given, then you're in the period of waiting, just waiting for the date to show up for so you can do your work as a creative, right, every client wants to talk leading up to the event to make sure everything is in order. So a CRM can really help in this aspect of your business because you can preprogram inquiry forms to go out to your client at a certain date, in certain time leading up to the event, this could be like, Hey, what special songs do you want... Hey, what time do you want us to load in and set up our equipment, what time do you need is to be set up by for the event to start? You know, all those little idiosyncrasies that sometimes get lost in the mix, this is an invaluable tool to help create consistency across the board for both you and client with the information, so say you require certain information at 90 days before the event or maybe 60 days before the event, or even 30 days before the event, you can program all of these forms to go out to the client for them to fill out, and... Yes, they will automatically resend if they don't fill them out, it's unbelievable. At any point, I can just check in on the forms and see if they've been missing them or if they've been filling in all the information correctly, it really makes for clear communication and it doesn't take hardly any time out of your day.

One final part about this, say you don't own a big music business or something, and you're just an individual musician, all of these concepts can be applied to your own individual music career, think about how much time you waste just trying to get a hold of people as to saying, When I'm I gonna show up for a gig, when am I gonna do this? When am I gonna do that? You can install this in your own individual artist career, just to send to the people that usually hire so that you can fill out all the information, it keeps you from getting lost in the fray of logistics and billing and contracts and all that kind of stuff. And keeps you focused on what's most important to you, which is your art, so I hope this has been helpful.

Do you have a specific question about CRM? Leave a comment below and I'll be sure to get to it. I'm Sweet Deat and I'll see you next time!

Building Your Team Episode 2: Financial Planner

Hey there creative. If you're not saving this amount of money every month, you are missing out. Let's get to it.

All right, everyone, my name is Sweet Deat and I'm so glad you found me on the interwebs! This particular post is a part of a series called Build Your team, which is all about creatives, building the people they need around them to succeed. So let's face it, we're creatives, we like to write things, create things, take pictures of things, whatever, and we need to be focused on that while we build a team of people that are around us to handle all the things that maybe we're not so good at. if you're just meeting me for the first time, my name is Sweet Deat, I'm a guitarist, I write music, I perform music for people, and I run a bunch of businesses that are around the music world. After 15 years in the biz, I'm starting this YouTube channel, and it's been a ton of fun, just talking about things that are I'm really passionate about, and that I feel like other creatives should be passionate about to really step up their careers.

As many of you know that have been watching, I've been giving out shoutouts, the artists, every single episode, just because I wanna raise awareness of some of my favorite music that's out there. So the artist of the day today is a band called Yob, or is it “yob”, I've heard both. Maybe I should Google it. Okay, so I'm looking at the Wikipedia page and I don't see any indication as to how to pronounce it, so we're gonna go with Job. I was first introduced to this band by my really good friend, Kevin Scott, and they totally blew my mind. If you're a fan of sludge, rock metal stuff that sort of falls in the world of say The Melvins, I think you'll really like this band, they have a little bit more of a, I don't wanna say pop sensibility or just more accessibility maybe, but they're unbelievable, they're trio, and the music that they write is transformative, these songs go on for like seven minutes at a time. It's ridiculous. I really love bands who are able to sort of tell a story, even through long compositions, like seven minutes long, and I feel like there's some of the best in the visit doing it. In 2014, they released a record clearing the path to a sin, and that record flipped my head upside down for about two months, I think the biggest hit on it was this song called Marrow. Stop what you're doing and go check them out. They're unbelievable. The next record they released is called Our Raw Heart, and that was released in 2018, and that also is amazing. So there's your artists for the day, go forth and rock!

To build your team is all about financial planning and finding a financial planner.

I've talked a little bit about in previous videos about why having a financial planner is super important, and I'm not gonna go into so many of those details, that video is called, and a very scary title at that, “your music career will suffer if you don't do this,” which is all about all sorts of different ways of financial planning and stuff, but today I'm gonna talk a little bit more about budgets, and I'm also gonna reinforce that with the idea of going and getting a financial planner, I don't care where you are in your walk of life right now, do it. Chances are, one of your friends already know someone that has one. We as creatives or really just about anyone in our world these days, lives beyond our means, the world tells us to buy by by finance, finance, finance, we're bombarded with it every single day, and as you know, when you're bearded with an idea, every single day, you end up giving in, we look around and we see our friend groups living a certain way at a certain status, and we feel like we need to be included as well. So what do we do? We go out, we rack up credit card debt, we go out to eat way more than what we should, we rack up tons of consumer debt, and the list goes on and on. All my friends, I'm here to tell you today, we have to break the cycle.

And unfortunately, the hard truth is, you have to stand up and be accountable for your own decisions, seriously, at the end of the day, it's your fault, you went to school, you racked up $80,000 or $100,000 worth of school debt upon celebrating your graduation, you went out and bought a brand new BMW, and then once you got settled, you went out and got approved for financing on a house that was $300,000 or something, seriously, all of these things are your fault. Now I'm gonna throw you a branch, your parents told you to do all this stuff probably right? They probably told you to go to college and get a degree because it was the best thing for you to do, they were given bad information and they pass it on to you, and that sucks, but ultimately, you made the decision to go to college yourself... Let's start with some personal ownership of where we stand right now as a community and individually, so if any of this is gonna work, you have to start with the fact that you made the decisions that you made, and now you have to live with those consequences. I know, I know. I'm sorry, this is heavy, I'm not trying to hurt you, swear, but this is why a financial planner is super, super important, coming to them and laying your life on the table for them to evaluate from a number's perspective is going to give you a way out of this this time, I wanna give a big shout out to my friend Bill.

Bill paid off over $60,000 of his debt by going to a financial planner, figuring out how to consolidate that, move things around and save money, and also attack that debt with as much money as he could every single month. He stayed focused on his dream of becoming debtfree, and after all these years, he finally did it, Bill as a bass player and a tuba player, and I know that he probably worked so hard in taking every give he could get that paid just about any kind of money that he could to put towards this fund, and I'm so proud of him, so... Dude, thumbs up to you. So any good financial planner worth their weight in salt as they say, they're probably gonna say, to pay off your debt first is fast and efficiently, and responsibility as you can... You obviously don't wanna be in the poor house eating ramen noodles every single night for years upon years to pay off a debt, it's not really a healthy and sustainable way mentally to accomplish this goal. Every case is different, and everybody's situation is different, so some planners may say, attack the debt and only do that, some planners may say, attack the debt, but also save a little at the same time, so that you can build stability and also pay down your debt. So a simple rule that I have followed for most of my musical life, I would say the latter side of it, the post 25 or so, has always been a simple little equation that I heard in passing along the way of life from people that were way smarter than me, and somehow it just stuck with me and resonated with me, and so I'm going to share that with you today. It's called the 5030 and 20 rule.

So the 50/30/20 rule. Let's talk about it.

The first number, 50 percent, that is your fixed monthly expenses, what I mean by that, like say the things that you absolutely have to have to survive. So a roof, food. We're talking about the things that are absolutely nonnegotiable, not things you want, but things that are nonnegotiable, that's where 50% of your income will likely go if you've been considering things that were not safe, fixed expenses that were in that category for you, and that it's higher than 50%. Maybe you wanna figure out how to work that number down to where it's closer to 50%. The second number, 30%, this is what you call discretionary income, like going out and having a drink with friends, or maybe a subscription to a website that fulfills you and keep you entertained. What I found in my own life is whenever I go through and sort of recalculate year to year on this 50/30/20 rule is that 30% is usually where my spending gets out of hand, I've got subscriptions over here, I've got subscriptions over there, and next thing I know, it really piles up, and most of them I'm probably not really using that much, so come through your budget, figure out what's that discretionary 30% income, and you'll probably be surprised how much you're spending that you don't need to be cutting out that alone will do so so much for the next percentage. 20% is what you should be saving. Now I know that's an aggressive number, and for you in the beginning, it may be completely impossible to start with 20%. Honestly, I've been through periods of times in my life where 20% was just not reasonable, it was more like 10% or 5%, but sometimes I may have a really big month and I can put a little extra to counterbalance those months where I didn't have a lot to give. That's also part of being a creative. Right, our money seems to come in in spurts, so if we can get ourselves on a fixed budget as much as possible, you're going to see longterm success in your portfolio, and you're going to be ready for things that come that you don't expect to hit you like Coronavirus, take a look at your own life, 50/30/20.

Maybe the answer is increasing the amount of work you do, and if that's the case, maybe you can look for a second job to supplement what maybe your creative passion is shortterm. It doesn't take a lot of time out of your day, but adds a few extra hundred dollars a month with the internet, these type of things have never been more possible. It's really quite incredible what people are willing to pay you for these days, and you'll see what I mean when you read the comments below.

So that's it for me. My name is Sweet Deat!

Building Your Team Episode 1: Lawyer

Hello Everyone!  It's Sweet Deat! 

If it's your first time here, thank you so much for coming. I do appreciate your click and you making it this far into the blog. We talk about all kinds of good things here for the musician and the general creative music, business, finance strategy, and, uh, everything to do with current events. As the title indicates, today we're going to talk about how to make money during COVID-19, and I'm really looking forward to sharing all this stuff with you. But before we do that, everybody knows when you come here, you always learn about an artist that you need to check out, and today is no different. So let's get to the artist of the day.

Today's artist of the day is not Taylor Swift.

It's actually a band from right here in Atlanta, where I'm based (they play at The Earl all the time.) The name of the band is Slow Parade. This year, Slow Parade released a new record called Hi-Fi LowLife. And it's, uh, led by my friend, Matthew Hendrick. I first got to know Matthew in a singer songwriter sort of get together that I was holding at my own home at one point, where I would invite all sorts of different writers over and we would all share a song and then kind of critique what everybody was doing and talk about what the song meant or felt to them. His song was so deep and impactful that I think several people in the room were almost moved to tears, we were dumbfounded at how much of a poet he was. So if you like really clever lyrics mixed with some indie rock and roll, Slow Parade is definitely a band for you ready to make some money.

How to make money during a pandemic.

It's really hard because all the gigs are gone and you can only teach online if you're a working musician and some of us had teaching jobs and some of us didn't. So the people who didn't have teaching jobs just don't have a job anymore. How in the world are you going to make money? Well, I'm going to preface this entire conversation with this might mean you have to get out of your comfort zone just a little bit. So with that piece, let's get on to number one.

Merch.

Yes. I'm talking about t-shirts, coffee, mugs, bags, all kinds of things. So check out - it's not crazy. If you've got a logo for your brand already, just go to teespring.com and set up a free account. teespring.com is what they call a “print-to-order-store” - so they don't actually ship you anything that you have to then reship and sell. They actually just print it and then send it directly to the person that wants to buy it. Their margins end up coming up close to 50%, but it's literally money that you didn't have to spend to set up something about yourself that you could then sell to people that like you and want to support you during this pandemic. And I know what you're saying, you may be just a side man, musician like myself, that nobody really knows.

And maybe you don't write music primarily and you just show up and play the gig and go home. Right? Well, it doesn't matter whether you have a brand or not. I'm sure that if you sat down with a pen and paper for like 15 minutes, you could think of something that would be cool to put on a tee shirt that would represent you as a human being, whether you know it or not, there's lots of people out there that are a fan of you and what you do on your instrument. So don't be afraid. Take the step out of the comfort zone and just write down some funny, stupid sayings and put them on a tee shirt. You'll be surprised who might buy it and the money you might make. But remember, there's more than just t-shirts at teespring.com. There's things like coffee mugs, there's tote bags, leggings, even face masks. Iin the description below, I'm going to leave a link to my own personal story that has some of my branding and also just stupid things that I thought of that I thought would be cool on a tee shirt. Check it out, give it a look and just kind of see how you might fit into that equation and start your free account like, yesterday. On to number two...

Online courses.

Now you play music, right? You've probably even taught a lesson at some point about what you do. As you know, there are thousands and thousands of guitar teachers online, but they always seem to make money, right? Human connection is what seals the deal between the consumer and the product. You creating a product such as learning how to play guitar online, and then giving that away for people to check out is a way for people to connect with you. And if they feel through your introduction video that you would be a good fit for them, they're going to buy your course. So take time either with a nice camera or just an iPhone camera and make a course, show people what you do and what you like to do and make it really personal. You'll be surprised who might buy it and support you.

Live streams.

Now, before you get crazy about live streams, let me just say, I know there was a rise for live streams in the very beginning of this pandemic, and everybody was throwing out crazy money for people. And since then, it's kind of tapered off.The reason why it's tapered off is not because people don't have interest in giving money, it's that people are not willing to pay money for an average product anymore. What do I mean by average product? I mean, just like a thrown together in your bedroom, not produced, not well lit, not good sound type of live stream. People want production value and they also want a theme or something they can get excited about. Not just you sitting on your bed, playing your favorite song.

There was a time in the beginning where people were new to this and they were willing to give that money, but now that time is over. And if you want to make livestream money, you've got to step it up in the link below. I'm going to provide some platforms that provide this sort of presentation that you need such as like a waiting room, like as if you're waiting for a zoom call to be led into a call, but it looks nice. It feels good. Even maybe has some countdowns, et cetera. You want to put on a concert, put on a show for these people and you can do that with not really a lot of money with just some good creative lighting and some good creative audio. And honestly, even if you don't have like a big budget to go out and blow out on those kinds of things, it's actually really easy just to create that sort of mystery and also presentation in just taking a couple short steps.

The biggest step is just not giving it away for free. If you tell people, if they buy a ticket and you sign up online and you present this concert to someone it's going to make them feel like it's, they're a little bit more special and you're not just openly broadcast into the world, you'll be surprised how many people might want to buy a ticket from you just to show their appreciation for your art and what you do. And for my instrumentalists out there, I'm talking to you to put on a concert. If you're a drummer, put on a concert, get some light beats and some loops and stuff like that and show them what you've got. There's no shame in not having all the pieces of the puzzle. If you're a rhythm section instrument to put on some kind of creative concert when putting it on, maybe think about having tiered systems.

So maybe a VIP ticket gets you into the platform, 30 minutes early, where you can hang out with them exclusively as if they were at a show early, maybe print some flyers of the show. Maybe just like you had a real show like in person somewhere and sign it and mail it to them for costs. Now I say all this, and it's not because I don't like the casual livestream. I'm actually a really big fan of it. And here's why if you do casual livestreams and you make it more about just getting to know the audience and sort of pulling them as to what they might want to hear from you, or just checking in on people and seeing how they're doing, they feel that engagement and they want to then go and buy your ticketed concert live stream. So I'm not just dogging the casual ones because I think they serve a lot of purpose too.

To recap: merch sales, online courses, and live streams. There's no excuse you can't figure out a way to make a little bit scratch in this pandemic. And while we all hope that it goes away really soon, these are things that you can do right now and start making a little bit of money! I hope you enjoyed this post, until next time!

21st Century Musician Episode 1: Facebook Ads

Hey everybody. It's Sweet Deat. That's right, I'm back again.

The artist of the day that you should know more about is Jonah Smith. I think Jonah has about eight records or so to date that he's put out under his own name, and every single one of them are great in their own way, two of my favorite albums that he's done over the years... One of them is called Lights On, and the other one is called Stay Close. So if you get a second, Google, Spotify, YouTube, whatever, Jonah Smith, he writes great music. And I think you'll dig it.

So about this new series. I thought it'd be a really good idea to do a series of videos on skills that everyone needs to learn for the 21st century, some of these will be music specific, some of them will just be creative, specific, today's is definitely more of a broader subject and could be applied to anyone in the creative field. So let's get down to it.

We're gonna talk about Facebook advertising.

Everyone should get on board and learn a little bit about Facebook advertising now, before you get on Facebook and you just... push the button that says Boost. You need to stop and learn a little bit more about how to run an ad, the boost feature is a very general way of advertising, it kinda takes a lot of the guess work out, but by not knowing how to run Facebook's ad manager platform, you're actually short changing yourself on what your money could be doing for you, the boost feature only has a few options for you to choose from, but the ad manager platform has tons of specifics, if you've never done anything like this before, I just wanna run over a couple of basic things.

So say you're a jazz guitar player and you're looking to grow your exposure to new people that could be interested in what you're doing inside of the ad manager platform, you can type in keywords like jazz guitar or West Montgomery or Joe Pass. You can narrow down by age, demographic, location, all the way down to zip codes if you really want to get specific, and you can list direct links to your website or your Facebook page if you're trying to bump your likes up. It's the best way, I think, currently, for someone who's not in the advertising game as a full time job to really get the word out about their product.

What I'd like to talk about in regards to Facebook advertising is what kind of content are you putting out and give you some tips about how to make your advertisement interesting to the eye so that someone clicks it.

So let's get down to it. Here are three helpful tips!

Number one, videos always outperform photos.

As you can see, I'm pretty close up in this video that we're having right now, that's the reason for that, if I was all the way back there, it wouldn't really translate that well, you'd be more focused on the things behind me rather than me in front of the camera also, if you're performing in a video, make sure somebody can see your head as well as whatever it is you're performing, the worst thing in the world is the watching video and somebody's hand goes out of frame like this, and you just wonder, what were they playing, remember, there always should be a call to action in your video telling people what to do, usually works, you'd be surprised how many videos that you click on because someone said, Hey, click on this and you just subconsciously did it. What if you don't have any videos? That's okay, you can still run ads with photos, they weren't great, just not usually as good as videos to... If it's quality content and the photo tells a story, people are gonna be more likely to click on it.

Alright, point number two. Tell a story in less than 15 seconds.

So think about the video that you're making, for example, does it have a beginning? Does it have an end? If it's you performing, try to think about telling a story from the beginning to the end to bring closure. So at the end of that 15 seconds, if somebody's still watching, they wanna click that Learn more button, also, lighting really matters, so make sure that you have good lighting when you do your... Same goes to your photo, if you're gonna do a photo, make sure you have great lighting, and finally, number three, you need compelling ad copy, think about what you're doing when you're scrolling down your phone, you're just looking for the next thing to interest you or catches your eye right. There's plenty of ways to do this. Think about using terms like don't miss or limited time offer, say if you're selling something, people also love to phrase how too... As a matter of fact, I'm using it in this video, figuring out how to say what you want to in a few words as possible, it goes a long way on running a Facebook ad, remember you're trying to compel someone that maybe doesn't know you to be interested in who you are, so think about these three points as you get into your beginning stages of running a Facebook ad, one, use awesome quality video or photos, but preferably videos to figure out how to tell a story in about 15 seconds.

Three, compelling ad copy.

Remember, after they look at the photo or the video and their eye catches it, they're going to read the ad copy to see whether they want to click on it or not, learning this 21st century skill is essential to the future of your business, whether you're a photographer, a musician or anywhere in between as a creative, you don't have to be a was at it. You just need to spend a little bit of time getting to know the platform. Big businesses paid millions of dollars for people to do this for them, and obviously we're not in that position as creatives most of the time, in the beginning, as you build your team, it's really important that you take the time to do this and learn this essential skill.

So until next time, I'm Sweet Deat. I hope you have a great day!

Building Your Team Episode 1: Lawyer

Okay, so why am I here this time? So this new series that I'm going to start with this particular episode is entitled Build Your Yeam, and yes, it means exactly that in this world that we navigate as creatives, we need a team of people around us to keep us organized and keep us on point as any business grows, things get complicated and having specialized people in different areas will make your life more focused on your art, which is what you wanna do, and also give other people an opportunity to handle all of the other aspects of your business. One person can't do it alone. Believe me, I tried. I used to work seemingly 18 hours a day trying to keep up with all this stuff, and the minute that I started outsourcing some of these responsibilities and building a team of people around me, I became a much better person, and I slept a lot better in my art, I feel like got a little bit better too. So in the first episode of this build your team series, I'd like to talk about dumb lawyers. I truly hope this information helps you out, so this word lawyer, it's scary, it seems like every time someone brings up the word lawyer, it's always in a negative connotation, like I'm about to get sued or I'm gonna sue you... Someone's feelings are always hurt. And that kind of sucks. So hopefully by the end of this today, you'll be able to look at the word lawyer in a slightly different light and realize that they may be one of the most important players on your team. The first thing I'm gonna tell you is to simply talk to a lawyer before there's any sort of problems, hopefully the things that they provide for you will help you avoid any of these drastic situations that you're always used to hearing the word lawyer thrown around in. So being ahead of the curve is always a good idea, so let's talk about five things that a lawyer can do for you!

Number one, the most obvious thing that I think everybody's thinking about right now. I'll just go ahead and say it. It's the elephant in the room: having a contract.

Before you rush out to contract dot com or give me a free contract dot com or whatever those free websites are where they give you some documents that are super bland and don't really cover you... You should think about having a conversation with someone so they know your intricate needs and they can craft a contract for you. So here are some of the clauses in a contract you should see: Terms and Conditions, details about a gig performance schedule, cancellation policy, late payment fee configuration, staging, hospitality, artistic control, independent law, governing law collections, and usually there's a little thing at the end that just says “entire contract.”

Some of these we’ll skip over, some of these we'll talk about depending on how obvious they are. So think of terms and conditions is sort of like a big subheading of all the other things that I basically just talked about, so we don't necessarily need to talk about that, including the terms and conditions or things like performance fee, and maybe the schedule in which that they plan to pay you some people have 50% deposits and stuff like that, so that's where you list that information.

Performance schedule just lays out the general idea of when they are going to play, it may not have specific moments, but it may say something like, for a fourhour time block beginning at 8 PM, and of those four hours, three or hours or performance time and maybe one hour isn't.

Cancellation policy is pretty self-explanatory. What happens if things get cancelled, this is usually where a very popular clause, like a force of nature clause comes into play, and I think after this pandemic, a lot of people know what a force of nature is. So I don't really feel like I need to talk about that either, but if I do leave a comment in below and I'll give you the full explanation.

Late payment fees, is there a charge if they're late to give you your payment that you're requesting.

Band configuration, how many members of the band are going to be there.

Then we get to the topic of staging, that's a really important one. Is there gonna be stage there, is it a flat surface? All these things need to be laid out to make sure you don't show up with nowhere to play. Are they giving you any food, are they giving you anything to drink, are you allowed to drink on the gig? All those types of things.

Artistic control, this is sort of a defense measure against people getting sick or having family emergencies, etcetera, and the client coming back at you for maybe not having that one favorite person in their band that they really liked, and maybe that's the reason why they bought you in the first place, as we know, things pop up, it's not something that we can control always. There always needs to be grace between the client and the artist, so a clause like this in your contract is really cool. Independent contractors, maybe you have a clause in your contract, it says that we are an independent contractor and we are not an employee of your company for the day, this is kind of important for obviously a lot of reasons, governing law, this is establishing if there is an issue and this is to go to court.

A collection clause, that's like if you go to court and whoever wins doesn't have to pay the lawyer fees essentially,

and the entire contract clause, that just basically means that we're all agreeing on the terms that are listed above.

So obviously that's a lot of stuff. And if you don't have a lawyer that has personalized a contract for you, you could have some holes in your contract and you could be in trouble if something goes wrong, so moral of the story, book an appointment with a lawyer that you trust. And go in, meet with them. become his best friend and work out all the details for your business, specifically in the event you ever have to exercise clauses in the contract, you will be thankful.

Okay, number two the reasons why you should have a lawyer on your side is trademarking your brand.

Trademarks are really important if you're trying to build a company and someone else comes along and starts a company with a similar name and then files a trademark before you... You're out of luck. Now, I'm not a lawyer, so I just wanna go ahead and say that out loud. But to my understanding, he who files first is in the courts favor, so just be careful to always get a trademark done for your brand.

Number three, if you're a song writer and you're getting together with friends and writing songs, it's always important to have, you guessed it - a single song licensing form on hand.

If you know anything about the music business or music history in general, there's been lawsuits for years about people stealing songs or claiming they wrote certain parts of the songs, and those things are so hard to prove when you get done making a piece of art, just sit down and say, Hey, how much did you write to that, how much did I write of that that stuck, and how should we split this... Having this document on hand will save you a lot of trouble, and if you have a good lawyer friend, he can help you out with that number four: negotiating.

Negotiating.

So say someone wants your song or a piece of art to use for something, a lawyer can look at what they're trying to pay you and negotiate for you a higher number, it's always great to have a professional like a lawyer working for you to get what you deserve, it's kind of like those lawyer things that you see online all the time, we'll get every dollar for you that you deserve and blah, blah, blah, right. Same thing here, somebody wants your song or your piece of art, a lawyer can help you make sure you get fair value for that, they'll be through all of the contracts and everything, and make sure that you're not getting host... Let's face it, where musicians were creatives, this is not something we spend all of our days on, and I personally would just rather hire someone that I trust and that does solid work to handle this part of business, and that gets me to number five...

That's right, five. Number five is what we all know lawyers for doing, being there quickly in a time of need.

Now, it's really simple here people, when you need a lawyer, you gotta act fast, time is usually of the essence, so why wait until you desperately need one, it seems like to me, it makes the most sense to seek one out when you don't need one, to make sure, that you've got the right person for the job. When you need a most... So don't be a statistic, think about and research what lawyer would be great for you now. If you do the things that I told you to do in this video, it's likely that your bad law experiences will be kept to a minimal. So hey, I hope you enjoyed this first episode of build your team.

Until next time, I’m Sweet Deat!

The Music, the Hang, and the Money

Hello friends, we are back with another episode of a whole bunch of stuff that no one likes to talk about as a creative. Have you ever been stuck on a gig and wondered, why am I here? What am I doing? I don't wanna be here. Why didn't I see this coming? It seemed like a good idea at the time. But here I am, and it's not a good idea.

Let's talk about the three things that make a gig worth doing. So without further ado…

Topic number one, the music.

It's why we're all here, right? Think about it, if you're gonna take a gig, hopefully you like the music, right, you're not just taking it because it's there, if you're taking a gig just because it's there, you're robbing somebody the opportunity of having that gig that maybe would appreciate it more. There's nothing worse than playing a gig and not liking the music, you're not gonna prepare for it as well as you would if you did, and therefore you're gonna make your band leader really unhappy when you show up with a lackluster performance, so don't take a gig where the music doesn't inspire you, that's probably a pretty good rule of thumb across the board, right?

Number two, the hang.

What do I mean by that? Well, it's pretty simple, if you don't like the people you're gonna be around, you're not gonna have a good time, it's gonna influence everything else... Right, this is sometimes controllable and sometimes it's not... Obviously, for the band leader, you can choose whoever you want to to show up, and hopefully you're thinking about the personalities involved, so when they all come together, it's a good match if you're a side man, sometimes asking who's on the gig can leave a bad impression with the leader, because you're maybe only taking the gig because of other people that are on it, but if you can articulate it in a way that it's constructive, then maybe they'll see it as a way of you thinking about whether you're best suited for the gig, sometimes you know there are musicians you gel really well with, and sometimes, you know there's musicians on the scene that you don't yell with, and it's totally okay that you don't musically jell with everyone, it's just the fact of life, personalities are different with music as well as people, so in taking this gig that you might be miserable on, are you looking around and realizing that everybody around you is not somebody you really wanna hang out with, so it's really important that you just think about who's on the gig oftentimes on these gigs, you're gonna be around someone for hours at a time, right? If it's a photo shoot or a music gig, where you're at a wedding or a corporate event, or you're doing an original artist gig, there's going to be hours where you're hanging out, it's really more of that than it is even playing music... Think about it, you play music from say, one hour to three hours at a time on an average gig, and you're usually there like six or eight hours, so making sure that you're around some people that you really get along with, or just being an easy hang personally it's gonna really serve you well in the longterm. And a quick side note here, a great way to get in good with your boss for the day when you're playing music is to just be available to help out, there's always something to do, and after you get your stuff set up, offering a helping hand to everyone that's around will really go a long way in building relationships with people.

Finally, number three, the money.

Now, this one's pretty self explanatory, but it's worth talking about. How much does the pay... Is it a lot of money? Is it not a lot of money? Not every gig you take has to pay a lot of money, I understand about setting your own personal rates so that you always make the money that you deserve, but some gigs are gonna be more fulfilling artistically and are gonna pay less, and some gigs are not gonna fulfill you very much artistically. And they're gonna pay way more. The trick is, is finding the balance based on all of these three principles and coming up with a formula that equals a yes or a no... So here's the magic formula, and by the way, this isn't rocket science in my book, if you find out if all three of these are in the plus column, then you have found the gig that matches you and you should take it.

Where it gets interesting is when one of these three options are in the negative column.

So let's go over it, let's say you have a gig that has good pay and is a great hand, but the music is... What do you do? Are those two pluses enough to overcome the negative? That truly is a personal decision and is entirely up to you, what about the other scenarios, what if the music is off the charts and the hang is with all your best friends, but the money is like next to nothing is that something you're gonna be okay with, what if the music is awesome and the money is great, but the hang is going to be horrible, you just know that there's more than one person in the band that just totally gets on your nerves, are you gonna take that gig, asking yourself these tough questions in advance and coming up with a formula that wins for you, helps you be able to process this information whenever it comes to you, and somebody is so nice enough to offer a gig... You'll know exactly what to say. The great thing is, is that this is all subjective. You can have your own formula and I can have my own formula, and each one of us is gonna come up with our own decision, for me, personally, I feel like I have to have at least two of these three words to be a positive in order for me to take the gig. If two of three of those things are there, I'm there and I'm gonna have a great time.

Again, thank you so much for tuning in and I'll see you next time!

Why Are You Afraid of No?

Hey everybody, it's Sweet Deat. I'm back again with another topic that no one likes to talk about, so let's not waste any time, and let's get right to it.

No, think about that, just for one moment. The word... No, we've been hearing this word our entire lives for our parents, friends, people that were not friends with... And obviously, there are times when No means no, but as it pertains to a career in the arts, specifically through the lens of music, because that's where I'm coming from, no, to me doesn't have the same meaning as it does to other people. So let's talk about now for just a second, how many times have you heard the word No in your music career and it stopped you dead in your tracks, and you just moved on to another idea, maybe you asked a friend to play music with you in a band or something, and he said No. Or maybe just the thought of the word no, coming out of someone else's mouth, totally stopped you from even giving your idea a try?

So now I'm gonna tell you a quick story about now and how I learned to overcome it in my own personal life. So once upon a time here in Atlanta, Georgia, I graduated music school, I had an amazing time and I learned so much, but unfortunately upon graduation, I still was not hireable... Sure, I knew chords and I knew scales and I could improve a little bit. I could even sing a little bit too, but I didn't have the confidence that I needed to succeed in the marketplace, and I also didn't have any connections, I wanted to interact with other musicians and play music with them, but I just didn't have a lot together quite yet, and I was practicing really hard, hours and hours a day trying to up my game and make it attractive for somebody to want to play music with me, it was in this moment that I had to make a decision, I was going to have to take control of my own career and not wait for somebody else to give me an opportunity, so without having a clue as to how to do this, I blindly started walking into places and asking if they wanted to have music. So what kind of places were they? They were bars, restaurants, clubs, everything in between, if there was a space in the corner and there was some sort of service being given, I was asking if I could play in it, and I was asking for a certain amount of money in exchange for my services.

I'll never forget the first time I walked into a restaurant and I asked the general manager if there was an opportunity for me to potentially play here; the manager looked at me with his furry eyebrows and said, no, so being the general positive spirit that I am as a person, I just thanked them for his time, and I walked out, sat in the car with my hands on the steering wheel, and I thought to myself, How am I going to make a music career happen? It just doesn't seem like it's going to work. And then I looked across the parking lot and there was another restaurant, and so I went into this restaurant and asked the same question again, and guess what they said no to across the street. There was another restaurant. I walked into that restaurant and asked the same question a third time, what do they say? No. This process continued for over a week, I can't tell you how many bars and restaurants and clubs I walked into just trying to find someone that was willing to pay me to play music, I could have stopped right there. I could have given up hope, I could have said, You know what, forget it, I'm not cut out for this. Maybe I should go back into the military from where I came, maybe I should just play music for fun and not think of it as a career, I had all of these doubts just swirling around in my head, and I could have accepted no as the final answer but I didn't.

Finally, after a week of going around and asking countless restaurants, fine-tuning my pitch, someone said Yes.

I almost didn't know how to take it at first, I was like, Wait. Oh, okay. I walked out of that meeting with my head held high, and I realized that I could do this, so fast forward about a month or so, I had eight gigs every week, regular happening on a schedule, working three hours a night, playing the music that I wanted... The truth is, if I can do it, anyone can. I didn't have a lot of skill. I wasn't somebody that was special or someone that had a unique sound, I was a brand new guitar player in the career field, they just wanted to work and play guitar and get better at it and get paid to do it, so if that story is inspired to you at all, let's look inward and figure out the three reasons why maybe you haven't done your part yet. One of the first things that I hear come out of people's mouth is, it's not in my personality, or it's out of my comfort zone. Listen, I get it. A lot of people are not social, they're not people that inherently are extroverted like me, but I'm here to tell you that even introverts can do this and succeed. It was out of my comfort zone. The first time I got behind the wheel of a car and try to figure out how to parallel park... But guess what? I learned it and I did it.

So why is learning how to walk into a restaurant and talk to somebody about maybe hiring you any different?

Stop being afraid of the word, no. It's not a scary word, the truth is, you have to figure out your match, some people are a match for you, some people are not, don't take offense that somebody says that they're not a match for what you do, there's hundreds and thousands of other places that you can play, that will be a match for you, so let go of these inner feelings that you don't have a good personality to talk to people about trying to broker a deal. It's insane. You can do it, just try, your delivery will get better over time, and eventually someone is going to say yes. And why are they going to say, yes, it's because they probably like you. People hire people because they like the person, so work on being able to communicate who you are to that person, so they can make that decision as to whether they like you or not, if they like you, they're probably going to hire you, reason number two, you haven't done your part yet is you are still waiting for perfect, and what I mean by that is you're still waiting to think that the skills that you have are good enough.

Now this is a subjective one, obviously, I don't know who you are, and I don't know how well you play an instrument or how well you do, your art, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and just simply say that if you even think that you're decent or just mediocre, you are good enough musician. Art is a constant pursuit of perfection of which we never achieve, so being comfortable with where you are on your journey, makes you more comfortable and being able to deliver yourself to the circumstance that you're trying to get a gig for, so have some realistic expectations, if you just know how to strum a few chords on a guitar and you can sing... You might not wanna go to the biggest theater in town and ask for a gig, that's probably not a winning scenario for you, but if you're just getting started and there's a corner pub down the street that might have 100 or 150 bucks to pay you for a couple of hours of music that could be a winning scenario from you and the skills that you learn on that gig will probably increase as long as you push yourself to learn more than what you know in the previous time you played there, and that could grow into something...

And finally, if you're afraid of judgment, I could boil this down into three words, get over it.

There are so many people out there in the world trying to do their thing, you're just one of them. Who cares what somebody thinks online, who cares what somebody thinks down the street, it doesn't matter because this is about you and what you want to achieve and what you want to do, who cares whether somebody down the street thinks you're good enough to have something else, doesn't matter. The only way you get to it is by asking, and if you fail, you fail, you take that circumstance and you look at why you failed, and you figure out how not to fail next time, the amount of nose that I've gotten in my life from just asking far outweighs the yeses. But the yeses have gotten me to this point. So don't worry about what other people think. It's just not that important.

Now, I'm gonna give you three tips to help you change your game.

Tip number one, get your brand in order, whatever it is you're chasing after, whether it's a gig or otherwise, you need to have your brand in order. How does your website look? How does your video look... Are you on all the social media platforms? It sounds so silly to say these three things, but it's really true, so many people I know don't have just those basic three things in order, and that's prohibiting them from really taking a step forward with their career,

Number two, if you're not asking, they'll never know you want it... I've told this to, I can't tell you how many different people, but if you're not emailing or phone calling or texting 10 or more people per day about your career and advancing it, you are not doing your part, this ideology of you being able to sit back and let the world just come to you. Drives me crazy and yes, for some people that works. That is a very small group of people. So no matter how good you are, don't just sit back, hope for the best, take control over what is yours, this is your career. Own it.

Okay, and the third and final thing I'm gonna give you today is probably one of my most favorite things to talk about, and that is, what kind of relationships are you building? Relationships with people within the industry don't happen overnight, it takes time, effort and work. You shouldn't be thinking about any of this as a quick fix, but it's something that is a longterm investment, relationships go beyond any gig that you ever have, so if you make solid relationships with people, you'd be surprised how many places you may get to work with them, the world is ever changing. So no one's ever going to stay in one place forever, I'm still working with people that has worked in four or five different places, and I've worked at every single one of those places as you take control of your career, value those relationships like gold. Alright, everybody. That's it for today, thank you so much for tuning in.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments below and I'll get right back to you. If there's someone out there in your life that needs to hear this, share it with them, I offer all this information for free because I want people to be encouraged to take control over their career and really take it to the next level.

So again, my name is Sweet Deat, and I will see you next time!

Now is NOT the Time to Relax!

Hey folks, this is Sweet Deat, and welcome back!

Now is not the time to relax. What do I mean by that? It's very simple. Let's take a trip back in time. To the end of February, early March, what were you doing then? running around, being crazy. In your routine. What was that like? If you're a musician like me, I'm gonna assume the following one, you were practicing for gigs that you had coming up to, you were going and teaching some students or something of that sort, three... You were probably just thinking about how to get from day to day what you were gonna do, maybe this weekend, etcetera. The point is everyone had a routine, and guess what, that is over now I don't need to talk to you about viruses and pandemics and all that kind of stuff, I kind of feel like everybody's had enough of that, I'm gonna skip over all that because I'm not an epidemiologist. So here we are now, there's no gigs like anywhere... I played my first gig in three months, just a few days ago on Mother's Day, and it was for a really nice couple, and we stood like 20 feet away from them and sang some songs for an hour... That's it. In 15 years of my music career, I have not had a break like this, so admittedly, for the first two weeks or so, I think like many people, I just sat around and I didn't really do much. Now, after watching Netflix for way too much and probably more than I ever have in my entire life, I finally got tired of that too, and I had to come to grips with the reality that one day this is going to end.

So my question is to you, have you been on vacation this entire time, are you still sitting on the couch watching Netflix, well, guess what, it's time for you to take a moment and think about the future of your career. What does that look like? Are you still playing gigs at bars and restaurants for the rest of your life, are you... And if so, that's totally cool because if that's a conscious choice that you're making, then that means you've thought about everything that goes into that, and that's your decision, which is totally cool, but if you're just going out and taking gigs as a musician and not really thinking about the direction that you're going in, you're gonna wake up in 20 years and realize what happened. So without further ado, here are the four steps we're gonna walk through to see if you're on the right path.

Number one, self-evaluate.

That's right, it's time to take stock in everything that you've been doing, so if you're a musician or a creative... What kind of gigs are you doing right now, are you happy with those gigs that you're doing, are they fulfilling you... Is the majority of your work something that you like doing or is it something that you don't like doing, do you feel like you're stuck doing something within the career field that you wanna do, but you're not exactly happy with how it's working out. I can say at one point I was doing a ton of singer/songwriter cover gigs, and at some point I had just had enough of that and I made a cold stop and move to something else, that's something for me was playing jazz and more improvisational based music.

Another question to ask yourself is, how did you get there? What sequence of events did you say yes to to get you into this position, knowing this information is gonna help you not make the same mistake again, if you are unhappy with your situation, what are the positives and negatives of your current direction in evaluating your situation was it something as simple as you made one short little wrong turn and maybe you can just write the ship really quick, or maybe you made a series of decisions based upon maybe money or something, and now you're stuck in this world and you're like, Man, how do I get out of this, it's not fulfilling me, even though maybe it's filling the bank account, so once you've taken stock and where you are and where you're going…

Number two comes into play, which is recalculate.

Now, I've gotta tell you, this particular part takes a lot of guts, it's easy to continue down the path that you've been going down, it's usually the one with least resistance, but that's okay. People think about the end result here. You gotta understand, whenever you recalculate your life from an artistic perspective, it takes a lot of courage and it's something that's not gonna happen overnight, so this process of figuring out which direction you wanna go in can last as long as it needs to... I remember for me, whenever I left all those cover gigss and all those singer song writer gigs, and I went to a more improvisational and jazz direction with my career, it was difficult for a few months, the phone kind of stopped ringing... I didn't really have a lot of money, I had to say no to some gigs because they weren't fulfilling me, and even though the world that I was stepping into was pretty well defined for me as to what I wanted to do, jazz and improvisational. Music is something you just can't step into and start doing overnight, I mean, yes, you can... And I guess you could call it art too, but the point is, is that it's a high art, it's hard to learn, it's hard to take the concepts and the practices and somehow turn them into music, and that is music that somebody would like to pay to see you do. So I had to go through this phase of trying to figure out how to do all this, and what I felt like had to be a light speed amount of time, but through it all... You have to remember one thing, the promise of the future stands taller than your current situation, remember the work that you're putting in is worth it because it means something to you, so once you figure out how to recalculate... It's time to move on to number three.

Make a plan.

Making a plan in the beginning is easy, the hard part is in the details. So you hear a lot of talk about five-year plans through your plans on your plans and breaking it all down... I'm sure everybody's heard that before, right? You just need to make sure that the goals you make are realistic for you to execute, so a great thing you can do is just study other people that are on similar paths as you study everything about that person or that company figure out the trends and the way they do things by observing someone that's successful within your career field, it will give you a path, but in doing so, don't take yourself out of the equation here you're not the same person as someone else, so in learning their tips and tricks, hopefully you can evolve those and make them your own, lastly on this, you should consider how to give to others as a part of your plan. What does that mean? Well, I'll tell you one of my early jazz mentors, his name is Cory Christians, and Hikari, he told me once that if you wanted to advance your career, that you need to figure out 10 people in your life that could do that and figure out some way, any way I mean, any way to impact their lives for the better and do something that can help their career. That one piece of advice has been better than any scale that I've ever learned, any core that I've ever learned. Any marketing tip that I've ever been given, it's probably the number one piece of advice I would give anyone at any time, but here's the trick with that, you can't exactly just call them and say, Hey, what can I do for you? Or maybe you could, I guess, I think it's really cool for you to do the research about that particular person and then figure out a way to impact their lives for the better, they'll be genuinely surprised, and you'll be surprised at the relationship that you form with this person could impact you for the future. I should also note in this whole giving thing, that you should be willing to give to these people without any reciprocation whatsoever, your intentions have to be pure and truly helpful to that person, this is not an exchange services, this is you seeing something in this person, giving to that person because you believe in what they're doing, and you want to be a part of that, if your intentions are pure and giving, it's likely that at some point it will come back to you, that could be one month that could be six years away, you just don't know, but giving is what makes the world go round, so if you're not actively doing that in your life and in your career, that's probably the number one thing you could change immediately for the better.

And finally, number four start new habits.

How long does it take you to start a new habit? A week, a day, a month? Sometimes a year, maybe. Hopefully not. I think for me, starting a new habit takes about two weeks, the first two weeks for me are always the hardest, I have to really muscle myself to do whatever it is that I'm telling myself that I need to do, whether it's opening my calendar that I make like starting an exercise routine, for example, that has always been a hard thing, but once I get into it, for me, I can't live without it, but somehow when I'm out of the habit of it, I just forget that it's supposed to be happening, so I starting habits don't do everything at once, just do one thing at a time to get you to where you are a brand new habit machine, pumping out all sorts of efficiency and your new goals and dreams, set small goals so that you achieve them and then that confidence will build you into larger ones. A great way to keep yourself accountable is to find people with common interest and try and get you to go along with the journey. So for example, once upon a time I was doing this 30day fitness challenge. I got about four or five people to join up, and we kept each other accountable for pretty much the whole month, and we got through the Fitness Challenge, and it was cool, support groups always work when you're changing your habits. So seek them out, you might be surprised who might be looking for a change too.

Make sure you list a comment below, what are your habits? What's your plan? What are you doing? I wanna know until next time I'll talk to you later. Peace.

Your Music Career Will Suffer if You Don’t Do This

Money. It's not something that we maybe talk about a whole lot aside from maybe what we got paid for a gig or something, but let's be real, this is a serious matter, and if you're not paying attention to what you're doing with your money, you will get caught with your pants around your ankles, if you know what I mean.

So let me tell you a story. So there I was, showing up to the Tin Roof Cantina on a Sunday night. All of you Atlanta folks remember back about 10 years ago or so, maybe more like 12 even, it was hopping, every Sunday night was crazy. And it still could be that way, but honestly, I've not been back in many, many years, so walking up to the venue with my guitar or my shoulder, I see a familiar face, which shall remain nameless. Upon seeing him there, I knew that he was kind of a fish out of water because usually I see him at other jam sessions, not particularly this one, so I walked over to him just to say hello... After exchanging pleasantries, I asked, Hey man, I haven't seen you at this jam session before. What brings you out? I'll never forget the response that I got from him that day, he said, Yeah, man, I'm low on gigs, don't really have a lot of money right now, and I need work. And I heard this was a place that you could get work, so I'm here... Who do I need to talk to? I just remember in that day thinking to myself, Wow, this guy is 50+ years old, I'm 20 something years old, and he's here today trying to find work, in my mind, I just always thought that people in your fifties, as a 20 year old who surely have their stuff together, right? But life's not always that way, life there's people curve balls all the time, and we have to be prepared and ready for it.

Right, so as he walked away, I realized, wow, I don't have my stuff together at all, and I cannot turn out like this guy right here now for all I know, like I said, he could have had a bad run a book and just... Things didn't really work out for him, and those things happen to people all the time, but to the people who plan and work really hard at planning their financial future, you would be surprised what they can endure, and from this day on, I got serious about money.

Okay, the first thing that you're gonna do is you're going to ask your friend network, whether it's your parents or friends and family that you deem somewhat responsible, just ask them if they know someone that has a financial planner.

Financial planners are really cool, they set up all of parameters for you to meet these goals, for saving and investing correctly, and the good news about it is their job to really guide you with good information so that you make wise choices if you don't have a lot of time or you feel like you're overwhelmed in the whole process, these people really help you figure it out. Now, some of these things that I'm gonna tell you, they're probably going to tell you, but in the event that you just feel uncomfortable talking to someone about it, you'll at least have some information.

Number Two, you're going to get a Roth IRA.

Yes, I know, it's a scary word. What the hell does it mean? A Roth IRA is an individual retirement account that allows tax fee growth and taxfree withdrawals. A basic rule about a Roth IRA is if you wait till after the age of 59 1/2 and you've at least had it in there for five years, so I'm assuming if you do it in your 20s or 30s, obviously you're going to qualify for that, you will not pay any federal taxes on that money. I can't stress this enough. Compound interest over time, means something... The market goes up, the market goes down. These are things that you just accept as an investor is what's really cool about a Roth IRA is you can choose how aggressive or how conservative you'd like to be with your money, so that if the market dips too much, it doesn't make you feel a little queasy about losing money that you've invested... But you have to think about this as a longterm thing. You're thinking about 59 years old. Chances are, if you're watching this and you're a young musician, you're probably in your 20s or your early 30s, that is so far away that if you just continue to put in money, you'll be surprised what you can achieve. So currently, the financial world allows you to contribute up to $6,000 a year for a Roth IRA. So you have to prioritize this in your budget, $6,000 in one chunk sounds like a lot, but if you divide it up over an entire year, it's not that much.

So forego the extra coffees at Starbucks or think about all the small gigs you play from time to time, for example, this is a great way to get your financial health up. Let's say you get a gig and it's $50, right, you get done with a gig, you don't buy a beer at the bar and slowly decrease that amount, but you take all that $50 home with you and you decide to put it into a high interest rare account, for example, that you can withdraw at any time, that will earn you on average, maybe 18 to 22% per year on your money, that $50 will add up very quick, if you continue to feed it, so take that $50 gig, right? Put into a high interest savings account at 22% or something and watch the money grow.

There's this really cool app called Acorn, have you heard of it? It's pretty awesome.

What it does is it actually rounds your transactions to zero, so let's say you buy something for $3.60 cents, what it'll do is it'll add 40 cents to your bill and that extra money that it rounds up, it invests, it's a really cool trendy way to save money these days, and a lot of people are doing it. So you should check it out. They also offer a lot of really cool perks to sign up, like free money and stuff like that, so check it out.

The next bit of advice is really simple, and it doesn't cost you anything.

One of my favorite apps that I use for finances is Mint, Mint is a really cool platform for linking all of your bank accounts together, so that you can see your overall financial health, you can set different budgets for different things, like I spend $200 a month at the grocery store, 'cause I'm a single guy, and I eat the same things every day. You can budget how much you want to spend out for the month and it will warn you when you're getting close, which is really cool because sometimes we're dumb and we make dumb decisions. What happened to me over longterm use of using Mint was really interesting, I started recognizing my spending habits right away, and I started making cuts, so my budget actually shrank over time because I realized how much money I was wasting.

Where is all the savings going to?

That's right, you've heard it probably a thousand times from a whole bunch of different people, you need to have $10,000 in the bank because let's face it, bleep happens like pandemics. And listen, I realize it might be a really hard time for you to implement these things right now, but I promise you, if you stay true to yourself and you follow some of these rules, you're gonna be in a far better financial state than where you were before. Something like this, pandemic came along, and so that's why I bring this up now of all times, financial health is so important. It factors into everything I do daily. If you're not serious about your financial career, your music career is going to suffer.

Thanks for reading!

Hi. I’m Sweet Deat!

What's up? My name is Jacob Deaton, and my friends know me as Sweet Deat. I've been in the music business from 15 years, just being a musician as well as a multi-business owner within the arena of music, and I would like to be your new friend.

Deep down in my heart had I have a real desire to help people in the music business, I like getting down to the nittygritty things. The things that people don't like to talk about, Civil, entrepreneurship, business strategy, finance, healthy habits for success, contracts, how to book a gig, basically everything that you need to know to be successful in the music business. I'm here to talk about... Oh yeah. And there's music, I love talking about music and why it inspires me. We're also gonna talk about some of the fundamentals of everything down from how to tune a guitar, all the way to melodic, minor, triad, parents, seriously. Anything within a 15-year period that I've been on this Earth plane, and it could be an asset to you, I want to give to you. So if sounds really good to you, it sounds like something you wanna be a part of,please continue to follow along here or on my YouTube channel!

This information is for everyone. I want everyone to succeed. That's my goal. That's my dream. So let's get to it!