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Welcome to episode 157 of the Bandhive Podcast. It is time for their episode of the Bandhive Podcast. My name is James Cross and I help independent artists tour smart. This week on the podcast, I'm gonna deviate a little bit from our navigation towards putting you on the road for success with your next tour. We are gonna talk about some touring stuff, but I'm actually gonna talk About some more foundational aspects of your business this week, and specifically I'm talking about six tools that every band needs, or really more like five tools that every band needs and one bonus, but we're gonna call it six because I'm going over six main categories today This is really important because if you don't have the proper tools to make your life as a business owner, as somebody who's running a van, which is a business easier, you're gonna burn out very quickly. Whereas if you have the proper tools and systems in place, your life is gonna be so much easier and you're going to be able to sustain the effort you're putting in because you're not constantly hating yourself for all the work you have to do.

that's why these six tools are [00:01:00] really important, and I think every artist should pay attention to these and use them to whatever extent is necessary and really possible. more tools you use within reason, the easier your life becomes. As long as you don't saturate yourself with tools and become distracted by tools, that's not what you want.

So if you find yourself getting distracted by any of these, stop using them. Please. Aside from that though, these are good tools that I honestly believe every artist should use because it. Your life better. It makes business easier. jumping right in. The first tool that I think everyone should be using is social media management tools.

And simply put, using these tools lets you create a consistent output of content. Now you have to create the content, of course, but you can pump it out. So, Much more consistently if you have the proper tools in place. Personally, I post on TikTok and Instagram every single day from the Bandhive accounts.

So on TikTok, I'm at Mad Rock X vx, and on Instagram it's band [00:02:00] hive.rocks. That's a period not spelled out, and it takes me about two hours per week to do all of my social media for a podcast episode, which is anywhere from seven to 14 days of content, depending on how much content or how many clips I'm able to pull from that podcast episode.

So that two hours doesn't count the podcast recording and editing because that's stuff I'm doing anyway, But the actual taking of those clips and making the little clips and scheduling them. Takes about two hours. It's that easy because the app I use, which is called Puer, it lets me schedule posts and they post Instagram automatically.

And on TikTok I get a little notification that says, Hey, it's time to post. Here's the video, and it actually sends it. To TikTok so I don't even have to like download it to my phone and then re-upload it. It's on TikTok and I just go into the app and add a caption and that's it. So like I said, I use Puer.

There are a few options. Puer is between zero and $29 a month. A lot of bands can probably get away with a free plan and I absolutely recommend it. I've [00:03:00] used several different apps and Puer is. The best one I've used so far. It's a new startup and the tech team is great. The founder is great. I've chatted with him a few times on their support thing over, I've been using it for like two years now, two and a half years.

Very easy to use and it's really, the features they have are so fantastic. You can set schedule for posts. You can set tags so it goes to specific time slot that you have that tag. You can set recurring posts, so if you have a Facebook community or something like that, you can have the same post going out every week welcoming new people or asking what they're listening to, or every month, whatever schedule you.

Puer makes it so easy. I I cannot recommend it highly enough. And again, it's from zero to $29 a month and probably the free plan is gonna be enough for most bands. The next one is Buffer, and this is what I used to use before Puer. It's good, it works. There are some things that frustrated me.

I was always on the free plan, but honestly it's just, not as good as puer. If you do have any reservations about Puer, try buffer. Try both [00:04:00] and compare, but I honestly think that puer is the better option. And Buffer actually is slightly more expensive. They do have a free plan, but it goes up to $30.

So it's $1 more per month, not a huge difference. And you maybe the free plan's enough. I don't know. It wasn't for me and that's why I switched to. Another one that I hear a lot of people talk about is later, which is already a little more expensive. It's from zero to $40 per month. And personally, I've never used this one, but.

I'm not a fan of it. I know people who have used it and they did not really enjoy it. So I'm not a fan of later. I'm tossing it out there as a recommendation for something you can check out if you want, but I would personally go with PU or Buffer. Last but not least is Hootsuite. They no longer have a free plan.

This was like 10 years ago, the one that everyone used. Now, it's something that bigger companies and agencies use because it's $50 a month to start and they have much larger plans, but like the base plan is $50 and I have. And I'm not a fan of it at all. Like the interface is just not a good [00:05:00] interface.

So again, I would recommend Puer or as a second choice buffer over Hootsuite any day because I don't think Hootsuite is worth $50 a month unless you're taking advantage of the specific agency features that it has, and most bands aren't running a social media agency, so you don't need to worry about any of that stuff, and it's not gonna be worth burning $50 a month when you can get a paid publisher plan, they start at like 15 or $17 to get a lot of the features that Hootsuite has for 50. So it's just not worth it, In my opinion, that wraps up the social media management tools. There's lots of other tools you can use to plan out your social media content and to think about it, brainstorm, storyboard, all that kind of stuff.

specifically talking about the social media scheduling and management, that would be the these four apps that I think are the most popular or best ones. Publisher is definitely not the most popular, but. I think it's the best one anyway, moving on to the second type of tool that every band needs.

It's a website and a [00:06:00] web store. Now these are actually kind of two independent things, but a lot of times you can get them together reason you need a website and web store is the site is your central hub. This is where you can list any tour dates, news for the band, contact information, And it's a lot easier for people to find information frequently on a website than it is on your social media, because social media, you can make a post with information and it quickly gets buried as you post more. But your website, you can have individual pages or sections or however you wanna structure it and say like, Hey, for this information, go here to contact, go there Now one caveat is you need to keep your information up to date. It's so frustrating when I look up a band's site and I see tour dates from earlier in the year or worse, like a few years ago, and the same thing goes for bio press, information, contact, whatever it is. All of that stuff needs to be updated, but especially the tour dates, like you really you should not have any past dates as tour dates unless they are clearly marked as shows in the past. But even that, I'm not really a fan of. Like you can have [00:07:00] a separate archive page, but I wouldn't keep that on your tour dates page.

then last but not least, the merch store. That's how you sell merch to your fans when you're not at shows. You can even do pre-orders of items to test they're gonna sell and see if it's worth producing. And it's also a really good way to set up. Maybe if you have like a fan subscription and you don't wanna use Patreon, but somebody wants to give you five or $10 a month, you can set that up in your web store.

Most web store apps will let you do a recurring. Now there are a few different options here, and I'm gonna go through three of them, three and a half for, the first one, and this is what I typically do, is WordPress on third party hosting us is very important.

You do not want to use wordpress.com. Never use wordpress.com. It is a ripoff. They will nickel and dime you do not use that. The difference is wordpress.com is a for-profit company while wordpress.org, which is the stuff you use for third party hosting, is free. I believe it's a non-profit. now the funny thing is they're [00:08:00] founded by the same people.

But the.com version is, like I said, gonna nickel and dime you. So how this third party stuff works is essentially you hire a hosting company. I use hosting her, and I should mention all of these links that I've talked about. All of these apps will be in the show [email protected] slash 1 57.

That's the number 157. So, Any of these places you want to check out, head on over to Bandhive dot rock slash 1 57. So I use hosting your and you can pay hosting your to host a WordPress website and that's gonna be a lot more cost effective than going to wordpress.com. Other hosts that you might be familiar with are like Host Gator or GoDaddy, and those are fine too.

I mean, I haven't used in probably about five to 10 years and I've never used host skater, but I know people who have. I personally just like hosting your, because it works and it's inexpensive. You could get a website for five to $10 a month. You can also pay way more if you want to, but for hosting your, you can get a pretty good deal on your first sign up.

they have good recurring prices as well. So that's why I use hosting your, I've been [00:09:00] with them for about four years now, and honestly, I don't have any complaints. Like, if I did, I would've moved. So WordPress on third party is a good solution, but I would not recommend it if you. At least a little bit tech savvy.

It does take more work than the other options I'm gonna talk about, not by a lot, but a little bit. So it helps to have that basic website building or coding knowledge, because then you're going to be able to troubleshoot things much more easily. The second option is band Zuel.

A. This is a cool app. I first heard of it probably about 10 years ago in college because one of my professors is friends with the founder of Bandel, and it's about 10 to $20 a month depending on which plan you get. And it's built just for artists, musicians, and bands. So it's really cool. And like the name implies Bandel, it's made for this.

So it's a good app, in my opinion. It's not the most flexible. I don't typically like Bando sites when I see them, but it is a good app and it gets the stuff done, and you can have a store built in as well, depending on which plan you're on. So it's a good option to [00:10:00] check out if you're not comfortable with your technical abilities to do WordPress on third party hosting.

The third option is Wix. You've probably heard of this one. In my opinion, it's incredibly overpriced. They are one of the worst, like wordpress.com. They will nickel and dime you. The plans they have go from 16 to $45 and that's just the base plan. That's without any add-ons.

And trust me, they will get you with those add-ons. So, I would stay away from Wix. Same goes for Squarespace and a lot of those other sites that, have huge marketing budgets, just stay away from those personally, I would say WordPress on third party or band, Zuel, one of those two.

But I'm tossing Ws in the Squarespace out there just to say, Hey, these do exist, because otherwise I know people will be saying, Why didn't you mention these? Well, They're not that great for artists and they're really pricey. So anyway, w Squarespace, all of those, they exist. I would stay away. One good thing though is that these do have stores that you can add on, or sometimes maybe they're on the higher [00:11:00] plan. Either way though, it's typically not worth it because all of the money you earn, you're just dumping right back into that Wicker Square space subscription.

So if you are looking for something that's easy, go with Bandel. If you're a little more tech savvy, go with WordPress. Now, the fourth one, which is not technically ready yet is Bandhive, is actually gonna have a merch store solution in the near future. I'm rolling this out to my coaching clients first, and they're kind of like the beta group of the bunch.

In the near future, I'm gonna be offering a online web store. I'm not sure of any of the pricing or anything like that yet, but it is gonna be available to members of the Van Hive community. It's not gonna be a website builder. It is purely a merch store, but you can go and get.

A website builder like WordPress and link to your merch store. And that's totally fine. It does not have to be the same tool. And in fact, a lot of artists do this, like a lot of bigger artists because they have merch companies running their store. So they'll have their website and then you click on merch and it goes to a different website.

It might not even be [00:12:00] their domain. It might be like band name dot, you printing company.com or something. So don't sweat it if it's separate. And same thing goes if you're on WordPress, you can go with a different merch company. Like Merch now is one of the big ones.

Or I'm blanking on the names right now, but you can always go with a different merch company than your website provider. That's fine. I'm just trying to tell you about the ones that have stuff built in. And WordPress does actually have one that you can get as a plugin. It's called Woo Commerce, and I'm sure there are also plenty of others that you can add to WordPress because there are so many thousands of plugins for WordPress. It's really fantastic and and that's one of the reasons I'm such a big fan of WordPress. But anyway, the Ban Hub solution will not be a website builder.

It is purely a MER store, but that doesn't matter because you can still use it with your current websites. The third category is a band, email and communication tools. And the reason you need them comes down to this. Anybody can use a gmail.com address, which you know totally fair if you do that's not gonna be a make or break [00:13:00] deal.

If your band [email protected]. That's totally fine 90% of the time, but you can get a branded address from Google Workspace for $6 a month. It looks just a little bit more pro when you're reaching out to somebody, a talent buyer, promoter, manager, whoever it is, and you're using an official email like James vanti.rocks.

keith band name.com, like whatever it is, it looks a little better if you have that because you're investing in your band and $6 a month is nothing. So really, when it comes to options here, Google Workspace, $6 a month, and this also includes Google Docs, Google Sheets, all of that under branded account.

So you can use Google Docs and Google Sheets, and it will come from your name at band name dot. Or contact band name.com. Now that $6 a month is per account, most bands just need one account. like Keith band name.com, and then have [email protected] [00:14:00] as an alias. So it goes to Keith's inbox, but you're still only paying for one account.

the only time you would pay for more is if you have multiple accounts. So if you create an account for your band mate or your manager or whatever, then you'd pay a multiple of six. Each account would be $6. But all that aside, you really only need one account and just don't bother with other options.

They're all terrible. I've used Outlook and Microsoft Custom email. I've used hosting your email, and as much as I love hosting yours, web hosting product, their email hosting is terrible. So, Whatever other options people are offering you just ignore it. Go for Google Workspace, it's worth it. It syncs so well.

It's literally exactly like Gmail, except it's your custom domain as the email address, and it just makes your life so much easier because then you have this nice branded communication tool. That's really all I can say about that is it's nice to have it, and this way you're also on brand and you don't have to worry about switching your email in the future.

That's a big plus as well.[00:15:00] All right, time for tool number four, file sharing. First of all, why do you need a file sharing tool? Well, it's simple. You make music, so you're probably gonna need to send music files to somebody at some point, right? Not only that, you're also gonna have images, so cover art, band photos, promo photos, whatever, all that kind of stuff.

Documents, any of that kind of thing to share. Yeah, you're gonna need to do that. My daily file sharing tool is Dropbox. I use it to sync files between my different devices. Cause I have several computers. I have a phone and an iPad, and I. Everything that I need on multiple devices with Dropbox, and I can also use it really easily to share with other people.

I just go in to find it on my Mac and I right click it and select the Dropbox link. I right click it and I select, get Dropbox link, and then I can send that link to anyone. it's really easy. So promo assets, stage plots, whatever it is, Dropbox is my go-to. Now, there's a couple different options here.

The first one is Dropbox, which I've been talking [00:16:00] about for the past few minutes already. It's $10 a month. It's an amazing app. I really love it. And the integration on Mac Os is absolutely a lifesaver. It's so seamless. And if you pay for it, cuz there is a free version, but if you pay for it, you can actually desy files so they're not on your local computer, but they're still in the cloud.

And that way you save space on your computer, but you can go and get those files back at any. The second option, and really these are the only two that I consider legit. Like we transfer is good for sending stuff, but you can't keep stuff in there. So really you're looking for a place where you can keep stuff.

Google Drive, which is part of Workspace, is literally the worst file sharing app I've used. Please don't use it. I absolutely hate it. The interface is clunky and it's old. It doesn't play songs or videos properly half the time, which with Dropbox it plays. It just works. So please, Pay the extra $10 a month for Dropbox or use the free version, that's fine too, as long as you don't have too many files.

But don't use Google Drive. I know it's an tempting [00:17:00] alternative, but you get what you pay for and Google Drive being part of Workspace or free, if it's on a Gmail account, it's just not worth it. Like I pay for Google Workspace. I have multiple accounts on there, and I do not use Google Drive.

I'll use Google Docs. I'll use Google Sheets. That stuff is great. This outline is in Google Docs. Our episode list is in Google Sheets. I've built so many things in Google Sheets. I love those apps, but I refuse to use Google Drive because it's literally the worst interface and I just do not like it.

So that's my rent for the day. You know, every episode has some kind of random it. In this one, it's about Google Drive. Just don't do it. It's worth it to use Dropbox, even if it's an extra $10 a month. It just makes your life so much easier, especially if you're on a Mac. But the Windows integration is pretty good too, from what I hear.

The fifth tool that we're gonna talk about is merch management. And really you need it because tracking your sales and your inventory on hand is incredibly important because you wanna know when it's time to order more [00:18:00] merch or which markets you sell a lot of merch in, and how much merch you need to order for your next run of shows so you don't run out because you can base that on your past history of shows.

There's lots of ways. Track your merch and do merchandise management, and the easiest one is Google Sheets. It's free. A lot of the tours I've done, we've used Google Sheets, that's as simple as that. at some point I might share one of the merch sheet templates that I have, but for now I'm just gonna say it's pretty easy to make your own.

And if you don't get too fancy with it, it's gonna work just fine. If you do try to get fancy, you might mess something up unless you're a spreadsheets whiz, but if this is something you'd be interested in, let me know because if I hear enough people talking about this, then I'll probably release it sooner rather than later.

The second option is merch Cat, and I have to say this is hands down my favorite dedicated merch app. Not only because the owner of Vanessa is really passionate about helping artists, but because it's also reasonably priced, it's $11 a month and it has some really cool features. Like if your fans get [00:19:00] the Merch Cat fan app, they can preorder and pay for merch to pick up at your shows, which is really cool.

Cause then they just walk up to the merch tail and say, Hey, I'm so and so, I have a pre-order. And you're like, Oh yeah, here's your stuff all packaged up, ready to go. Super easy, and especially during pandemic times, it can help to reduce the contact between people at your merch table.

Now, I'm not saying shoo them away. You should still talk to your fans, but you don't have to spend time. Going back and forth about, you which shirt you want, this or that, what size, blah, blah, blah. Plus you have that money before the show actually even starts. So it's nice to get a little advance on those sales.

Really cool app. And it honestly makes merch management so easy. I've used others of them, I don't think it even exists anymore, but Merch Cat is my favorite so far. And the next one, Honestly, like it is the industry standard, but it is not worth it for artists because it's at venue, an amazing app.

But basic plan is $68 a month and that [00:20:00] is way too much and it is really good, but it's nothing fantastic for that price level. It's really not worth paying. It's $50 a month more than Merch Cat, unless you're at a higher level and need the advanced features that app venue offers. Let me tell you, if you're listening to this podcast, I mean this in the nicest of ways you don't need those features.

Those features are for like bands who are selling thousands of dollars of merch per night. Now, if you look at at venue, you'll see there's a $12 per month plan on their website. Do not get that because that's not actually a merch management plan. It only tracks your music sales, so CDs, tapes, vinyl, all that kind of stuff to let you do sound scan reporting, which Sound scan is the company that handles all of the sales reporting for Billboard to assemble their charts.

So if you're trying to chart this $12 a month plan, go for it. But if you don't care about charting on billboard or using sound scan, don't pay for it cuz you don't need it. And honestly, That plane is so annoying because I had one tour where they [00:21:00] did want us to use the sound scan reporting every night.

So I had to use one app, which is the one that no longer exists to track my actual sales, and then at the end of the night, I had to put them into a spreadsheet that I had, which is where I did my count in and count out because that app didn't have count and count out. And then I had to go in and report the actual sound scan stuff, the music sales in app venue.

So I was basically entering data three times, one as I was going two at the end of the night. And then three for the sound scan sales. So if you do care about sound scan, then maybe you should probably pay for the $58 a month plan on app venue. But aside from that, don't do it. Just use merch CAT or make your own spreadsheet.

Bug me about releasing a template and I will at some point. Again, all of these links will be in the show [email protected] slash 1 57. That's 1 57. So we've covered the first five tools that artists need already, and we're down to the sixth one, and is why I say maybe it's more like five and a half, because not every artist [00:22:00] needs this one, but as soon as you start thinking about touring, this is definitely one you're gonna need because it keeps.

Your life. Simple. All your shows and tours will be organized in one place and you're going to have a much better time of not going insane on the road if so that's the sixth tool, right There is a tour management app.

Anything from routing to budgeting should be kept in one central location. And this avoids confusion and multiple sources having conflicting data. I don't know how many times artists have sent me a Google Sheet, a Google Doc, all kinds of stuff with conflicting information.

I'm like, which one should I be listening to? Which one's the most up to date? What's accurate here? And they don't know half the time. So you always want to keep all this data in one central location and have this be like the. Information database for your. Now you do have multiple options here.

The first one is Google Sheets. As with merch management, this is a free option. You can build your own template or you can look up some basic stuff. And I actually [00:23:00] do have a tour sheet called the Bandhive Tour sheet, but I'm working on something better for the future.

So I'm not necessarily gonna plug that here. If you do want the band type tour sheet, let me know and I can send you the link. But aside from that, I'm not going to. Really pitch it because Because I'm working on something better for the future.

I'd rather have you get that instead of the tour sheet. Granted the tour sheet is a great resource if you don't wanna build your own sheet, but still the new thing is not gonna be based on Google Sheets. I'll get to that in a little bit. The second option is Master Tour, which is an absolutely amazing app.

I love Master Tour. It's one of my favorite inventions of all time. But it's way more powerful than pretty much any DIY band needs. So you don't want to waste your money until you actually need it because it's $65 a month and that is very steep for an independent artist. I know that's only like three shirts, but still that is a lot of money to drop on a term management.

I personally don't recommend it for that reason, unless you're already at like the club level touring [00:24:00] where you need something with more features in it. Then last but not least, as with the merch store, there is gonna be a Bandhive solution. There's gonna be a web app for tour management in the future.

This one is a lot earlier in the development stage than the merch store. The merch store is definitely gonna be out sooner, but there will be a Ban Hive tour management app in the future, so stay tuned for that. the meantime, spreadsheets are probably the way to go, just keeping all your information in one central place is the best thing you can do for tour management.

But again, this sixth one is not for. Every band. It's only for those artists who are already going out on the road. If you're doing weekenders or something like that, you should definitely be using this. But if you're just playing one offs locally, then you don't need a tour management. Now to wrap this all up, these tools are the absolute basics, and while there are so many free or cheap options, don't cheap out on these tools because they can probably be written off as a business expense.

Don't quote me on that. I'm not a cpa, and you [00:25:00] should check with your CPA before you write anything off. But these tools, even if they're not a write off, we'll make running your band so much easier. And honestly, as a whole, it's only gonna cost you 50 to a hundred dollars a month total, and that's assuming you don't use the free plans for a lot of these options.

So as long as you actually are using these apps, it will be incredibly worth paying for them. The thing is, you have to set them up and learn how to use them and then start using them consistently. also keep in mind that once you have a web store set up, Just a few merch sales are gonna cover the monthly expenses for all of these tools.

So you really have to think about, Hey, we are investing in our band. Instead of buying that $3,000 guitar or $2,000 head or whatever it is that you're looking at. Set some of that money aside from the band fund and put it towards tools that will make running your band easier. So you can go out there and focus on the music more than [00:26:00] focusing on, Hey, I have to post every day because you spend an hour on one day a week and you scheduled everything and now you don't have to post every day anymore because it's doing it for you automatically.

doesn't that sound wonderful? And that's the thing with all these tools, It takes a load off of you. It's like having an assistant for 50 to a hundred dollars a month. Isn't that amazing? Like that's fantastic. This is why I'd nerd out about tools so much because if it weren't for all of the tools that I use in Bandhive in my business, I would not be able to do what I do.

These tools literally enable my business, and it will do the absolute same thing for your band. So ultimately, even if you only use a few of these tools, which I recommend starting with a social media management app in your website and a MER store, you're gonna quickly see the benefits And probably all of a sudden you'll want to use the rest because you've seen the benefit of those first few. So again, I honestly believe that every artist should be using these tools with maybe the exception of the sixth one, the tour management app, If you're not at that level yet, but[00:27:00] if you start using these tools, you are going to quickly see those benefits.

So please go out, get yourself set up with these tools, explore a couple different ones, find the best options that work for you because they're not one size fits all. And use the time that you save to focus on your music, to focus on your fans and build a community and a following around your music because then you'll see the snowball truly start to grow.

That does it for this episode of the Bandhive Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening. I really appreciate it and I hope that all of the tools I discussed in this episode are going to inspire you to go out and do bigger and better things because taking that load off your shoulders and having essentially a software assessment for a lot of these tasks will change your life and your outlook as an artist.

Again, if you want to check out any of these tools, all the links will be in the show [email protected] slash 1 57. That's the number 157, and you can find all the tools linked there. You can explore them. most of them have free trials, so [00:28:00] do that if they don't have a free plan already, but they're just so many options, so please go take a look and see what your band.

Urgently and do that first, because the more work you can take off of your back, off of your shoulders, the more natural it's gonna be for you to focus on what you wanna do, which is making music, making people smile, making that connection with your fans.

It's really important to be able to do this without getting burnt out by all the administrative tasks, the social media posting, everything we've talked about in this episode that you have to do to keep your business running. That's all I've got for this week, but we'll be back next Tuesday at 6:00 AM Eastern with another brand new episode of the Bandhive Podcast. Until then, I hope you have a great week. Stay safe, and of course, as always, keep rocking.