Welcome to Episode 18 of the Bandhive Podcast.

Well, folks, come on down to Bandhive dot rocks to get all your band Resource is for only 9 95 plus shipping and handling. Oh, wait. This is the Internet. We don't sell stuff like that.

That's so cheesy. I'm just going to roll with it and use what I just said as our introduction for this episode as always. Welcome to the Bandhive Podcast. This is Episode 18. My name is James, and I am here with your co host Matt Hose off alive in Barcelona. How are you today, Matt? I'm doing pretty awesome. James, How're you doing? I'm doing fine, thank you. I'm glad to hear you're having a good day. And I'm glad that my terrible, cheesy used car salesman sales pitch did not throw you off of your game.

And that's actually relevant to the episode because this week we're talking about the mindset of selling, and we're going to give you an overview of the sales process both for face to face interactions in the real world and selling online. Matt, this is something you did for years on warp tour. And we talked about this back in episode seven, which was your introduction. If anyone wants to check that out, go to band. I've got rocks slash seven. That is the number seven not spelled out. Matt, do you want to give us a quick recap of your time on warp tour before we dive into this episode?

Yeah, you bet. I think it was a total of six years of work tour selling experience. Um, but my sales game has been honed since long before then. Uh, my parents actually started a school when I was very young, and it was a non for profit school. And so a lot of the money that was made to pay teachers came from fundraisers. So at a very, very young age, I started doing door to door sales in order to raise money for schools. So I've always had a, um affinity for sales because I love people, and I also thrive really well in big crowds.

So by the time I got toe Warped tour, it was like, Oh, man, this is my soapbox. These people are my crowd like, let's get him riled up. Let's, uh, let's get some sales made and it ended up being very, very, very lucrative for us. We made a lot of money. We built a very large fan base in a short amount of time. We made some lifelong memories and some close friends as well. Along the way, That's awesome. And I learned something new every time I talk to you, because that's really cool that you started selling when you were a kid.

And that made me think of Girl Scout cookies going toward the door, selling cookies, those air life skills that the Girl Scouts are teaching. And so I'm glad that you had that experience, and that certainly explains a lot of how you and your personality were able to shine on work tour selling for your band every day all summer long because that's intense. It is it really Waas And I love your reference of the girl scouts because I think there are a prime example of how to do sales correctly.

They stopped going from door to door and started posting up outside of Walmarts instead. Instead of saying, Hey, let's go to the customers Let's let the customers come to us Let's go find a place with heavy foot traffic and partner with a large company that's willing to let us do it and I'm I guarantee you Girl Scout cookies sell way more parked in front of Walmart than they do going door to door now. Oh yeah, they're basically using Walmart as their lead magnet. That's like a genius move.

If you can piggyback off of another business without stepping on toes, that's great. If you look at the business model and you can't improve on it, then what you should do is just try to figure out a way to get your business to be a part of it. Yeah, exactly. And that's too. I like what you said about not if you can't improve on it, and from that standpoint, if you can't improve on it, then you need to scale it, and that's what they have done their nationwide and during.

What is it? January and February. I think you can't go out without seeing Girl Scouts somewhere, either at a mall or like in front of the grocery store or somewhere there like the Salvation Army bell ringers except nice and give you cookies so like, except they sell Samoa's Yeah, on and like, half their flavors Air vegan Now, depending on where you are in the States about that makes you happy. Oh, no, it definitely does. They have to Bakeries and the one that serves about half the country, including Vermont, does not have vegan cookies.

Aside from the fin mints, that's the worst it really is. The one that serves Boston, though, does. And knowing people in Massachusetts I know people with daughters in Massachusetts. I'm always like, Yo, send me that cookie link. I'm not going to support the Vermont Girl Scouts. I'm gonna buy all the vegan cookies from Massachusetts, destabilizing local economy. Yeah, and hey, they shift into my doorstep. I can't complain. That's amazing. But yeah, enough about Girl Scout cookies, because oh, man, it is January. They're going to start selling soon.

E need to get that out of my head So we're going to talk about video sales and how the cookie crumbles. I had Thio when it comes Thio breaking down sales and really, the first impression is incredibly important. Just like when you make a cookie, you start with the batter, so the first impression is the batter of your sales recipe. You want to talk a little bit about that? Matt. Absolutely. I really hope this cookie analogy plays through the whole episode. I'll try. I'll try. So the batter is your first impression.

Just like anything. When it comes to your first impression, you want a good taste in your mouth. You really want, You know, when you meet somebody, you really hope they're cool. When you see a movie, you hope it's great. When you eat a burger, you hope it's awesome or for you, James, when you eat a veggie burger, you hope it's perfect. We all want the best out of the interactions that we are making, And so, in order for you to provide that want in somebody's life, you know, just like with supply and demand, The demand is for quality relationships, good products.

But the good products are very much so secondary I have purchased. I couldn't tell you how many of my friends CDs and T shirts and you know, Uzis and you name it. I've purchased so much of people stuff that has cycled through my life. But it wasn't because I was like, Man, I have to have that t shirt I have tow have that city I have tow. Have that beer. Cuzzi, it was Wow, I love this person. This guy is a great dude. This girl is a great girl.

They work hard, I want to support them. And so I dio and it's that simple. So for you on the side of sales, the first impression is always incredibly important. A lot of people overlook simple little things, like looking somebody in the eye or shaking somebody's hand saying hello asking their name, asking how to pronounce their name. We live in a society where they're, you know, we're the melting pot of the world and we have a lot of people that have, you know, growing up. Everybody was named Matt and John and David and James, and now you know, the other day I met a gentleman named Critique, which is an Indian route, which I think is super cool.

Especially growing up with the name is generic is Matt. So, like for me? I met this guy first. I saw his name on paper, and so the first thing I did was ask him how he pronounces his name. And he was blown away because he said that he's never had anybody ask him how to pronounce his name before they just shy away from it, because it's a little bit intimidating because it's a foreign name to me that speaks leaps and bounds about how you are going to build quality relationships with people if you can't even ask them how to pronounce their name, nobody ever, ever, ever wants their name to be for gotten mispronounced or just kind of like it really feels swept under the rug.

And I know that because my name is Matt, and a lot of times people are like, Oh, yeah, what's your name again? I'm like, Yeah, exactly. It's a generic four letter name. It's hard to remember, but in that single act of you not remembering my name, that showed me just how important I was to you. So the importance of making a good quality. First impression, I think, is the most important thing not just in sales, but just kind of in life. If you want to run a business, running a business requires building quality connections with people you are learning where you're aces are around the world.

You know, you really as a good business you wanna work with other good business is to achieve great heights. If you're not developing quality relationships with people or with your fan base, then nobody wants to keep coming back. And that's just, unfortunately, the cold truth. Yeah, on that note, I want to mention in Episode 12 We talked about gratitude, and part of this ties into that episode, I think because one of the things about gratitude is it's the little things that show you care that will make people think you're sincerely appreciative of who they are and what they have done for you.

So if you want to check that out, head on over to band, I've got rocks slash 12. That's band. I've got rocks slash 12, the numbers one to I really like what you're saying there, Matt, and I think that's really important. And one thing I want to mention to about first impression is that your appearance matters to like you want it to be appropriate for the situation you're in. So if you are at work tour and look like you belong at warp Tour people, they're gonna be naturally open to you if you look like a heart a Christian, among which, no offense to the heart of Christian monks.

I'm friends with those guys and I love them, but they stand out like a sore thumb. It worked or not, and I think that puts the kids off sometimes and makes their conversations a little more difficult toe have just because their first impression is, Why is there a monk talking to me rather than like Oh, this dude's down with work tour And I know like one of my friends is a monk, and he played in bands 10 years ago, and he was playing like hardcore punk shows, so at heart, he truly fits the warp tour scene.

But he doesn't look like it, and I think that type of thing really is important when it comes to sales, because who are you going to trust? the person who looks like you. You know, they dress like you. They talk like you. They like the same bands or the person who dresses in robes and looks nothing like you. But still on the inside is a hardcore kid. People unfortunately, judge books by their cover, which we shouldn't dio, but unfortunately, all of us do it. Whether we intend to or not.

It's kind of a subconscious thing. Absolutely. James, No, I think that's very well put. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Dress for the job you want. And actually, you kind of lightly touched on on a sales tactic that I will actually talk about later in a webinar or in a sales class, which I haven't actually decided. Which of the two will will it be? But it's a sales tactic that I like to call inclusion. The easiest way to make a sale is to basically be a part of that person's click.

Ah, lot of us are already marketing and selling stuff to teenagers high school age, you know, kids that are very impressionable, and there's a very firm social hierarchy that's set in place when it comes to the high school life. For those of you who don't know what hierarchy is, it's basically back in the feudal systems. If the king was a the top, and then below them, you know, was the nights and below the nights where the serfs and so on and so forth. And it's basically telling you kind of who's at the top.

So I'll use warp tour is an example in the warp tour setting and in the high school setting, you always have the cool kid. Ah, lot of the time also has class clown type of vibes with them. A swell. So ah, fun tactic is to make fun of the guy who makes fun of everybody else. Now, this is horrible, horrible practice. This is something that, like it works every time. But it literally is based on degrading people, and it's something that you don't really want to dio.

But when you're playing the game, sometimes you have to play the game by their rules. I couldn't tell you how many times in different cities across the country I would walk up and say, Hey, guys like my name's Matt. I'm out here selling my record for five bucks. It's got 10 tracks on it features vocalists from here, here and here. Any chance you guys would be interested in taking a listen today and some kids would look me straight in the eye and go, No, I hate music. They're trying to end the conversation as quick as possible, and it's just with negativity.

And so, after hearing that a couple times instead of just walking away, I would turn and say, Wow, why did you pay $40 for a ticket to a music show if you hate music? And then all of his friends would look at him and wait for a response, which, of course, he hadn't thought up yet. And so then everybody kind of thinks that you're the coolest kid on the block. And so it's this weird inclusiveness where you are kind of trying to become a part of their click and basically dethrone whoever is their leader.

I know it sounds very barbaric and very archaic, and it ISS, but sales is a very, very weird world, and you'll learn that when you've poured your heart and soul and paid tens of thousands of dollars into a product and then you go and try to sell it to a kid for five bucks and he looks you in the eye and tells you to go kill yourself, which has happened to me more times than I can count. So for those who are going into sales in the sales part of the music business, be careful.

Make sure that you've got thick skin. Don't be afraid to be rejected when you do get rejected, let it roll off your back. And the easiest way to do this is believe in your product. You know, for me, it's really easy to sell my music because I wrote it. I poured my heart and soul into it. It's a project I've worked on with my best friends, and I honestly believe it's going to enrich other people's lives. When you honestly believe something's going toe, enrich other people's lives.

It's really easy to sell it, because then you can use what I call bottled enthusiasm, which is another sales tactic. Now this one is the one that I prefer to use. This is my life right out of the gate. I'm gonna talk about this product and how excited I am about it and you walk up and you're just like, man. Oh, guys, I cannot tell you fast enough like how much you need this in your life. This is my baby. I have literally spent the last three years of my life editing and writing and making sure that every single stroke of each string is perfect so that I could bring this to you.

Like, have you ever heard of this band of this band? Excellent. Well, they could get behind our product, which just says a little bit more about us for me. Personally, I just know that you're here because you love music, and I believe this will enrich your life instantly. That's a way better approach to people. And they can see your physically excited about what you're talking about. They want a part of what you have. People are naturally curious, and they want to be included with what you're doing.

If you ever want to test this theory and see kind of how included people want to be, walk up to random people and ask them for a high five. A majority of people will give you a high five because they want to be included in whatever is happening in your life. Even if you don't give them any explanation, you could be walking down the street and say, Give me a high five And as long as you're like not in New York City, you'll probably get a good amount of high fives.

And that's because people always want to be a part of what's going on around them, especially if it's beautiful. And if you're on fire about it, this is why everybody looks at the guys who spin the signs for, you know, whatever they're spinning, and it's exciting because they're having fun doing their job. When people have fun, you wanna have fun, too. It's just the natural progression of things. This is why everybody that's at a sporting event is all in it. Together, they all love each other because they're all having fun together.

And so the strengthened relationships is really built through a couple different ways. One is by long time of friendship. Another is through strong adversity, and so you're basically trying to use one of these tactics, too. Build a relationship with these people. Sales is all about building a relationship. It's not about selling a product. It's not about looking nice. It's not about making the most money, because each and every day you're gonna make a different amount of money. You are going to find different battles. You're going to deal with different people, different personality types, and you have different hurdles to get over.

It's your job. Is the salesman to not let that affect you and keep getting up day after day and chasing it is what's important to you. So on warp tour. And I know that you've had days like this, James, where some days you wake up in your like, I cannot go take another single rejection from somebody. Definitely. I have talked to 300 kids today, and they've all been so me. You probably dealt with out more than I did because at least I was selling music. You were actually working for a cause.

I mean, how often would you get rejected? James About 50% of the time? Yeah, 50%. And that's good. That's a good number, like 50%. That's a high success rate in the sales game. I attribute that to not asking for money. It was like we were giving away free stuff in exchange for text messages. You know, exactly. And thio touch on what you were talking about earlier with kind of making fun of people. We would do that to like to an extent, you know, like turn it around on them because it is like we'd be selling to a group of like, four or five people.

I say, selling it as faras. You know, pitching are her cause, and the first year I was out there, we were doing a go vegan campaign and there would always be this, like 16 year old jock is like, Oh, I love my meat. I'm just Oh, really? That's what she said. And everyone laughed at him and they all end up texting in, and he just looks bummed. I'm like, Well, it's all about that friendly banter. It's not like you're trying to degrade these people. You're really not. The thing is, you're just trying to deflect anything that's coming at you because you know people who are really good at sales like and it's not just people who are good at sales.

You have ah, emotional attachment to what you're selling, you know, this is your baby. This is like something you've worked really hard for and that you're really seeking. You know, like verification from other people on. You want industry people to affirm that what you're doing is good. You want these kids to affirm that your music is good. You want other people who are working alongside you to affirm that what you're doing is beneficial for your business. And so when you walk up to a kid and they are without a set, you know, just like you were talking about earlier, we all make that initial snap judgment that initial like this is how I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna judge this book by its cover and they come up to us and they're saying, You know, these kids have probably been especially a warped tour.

They've probably been talked to by, like, four or five different groups. At this point. Chances are they don't actually hate music like when they tell, you know, I hate music. But the thing is, if you're not ready with some sort of comment, that deflects the weight of that comment, then everybody in that group sees that is like, Oh, guess what this guy's being weighed down by this comment he couldn't hang and based off my very simple high school social hierarchy. You are now the loser for lack of a better term, and you can leave.

And so that's just one of the, you know, different tactics that you can use and what I would call my inclusion tactic. This one is you know, it's very negative, but there are some very positive ways as well. I'll use a short example. One year of warp tour. We use a lot of orbiter examples. There were kids that brought it was San Antonio, Texas, and a kid brought Twister three game. We've all played Twister before a bunch of different colored dots, one person spinning and telling you what Lim you gotta put where I saw him setting up Twister on this in dirt parking lot and I said, What are you guys doing?

He's like, Oh, we're playing Twister man. And I was like Twister, you brought Twister. He's like, Yeah, do you wanna play? And I said, Well, that just depends. Do you wanna lose? And so instantaneously we had this friendly rivalry where it was like, Let's have fun together and we'll have a little bit of smack talk. But in the end, the goal is for us to have fun. You know, these kids are all about to walk into this awesome festival. And so the kid goes, Oh yeah, sure, totally.

And so then I I knew this was a good opportunity, so I said, Do you wanna make it interesting? He said, Sure, I said, If I win, you buy a CD now if I lose, I will publicly humiliate myself. It was like I will stick my legs behind my head and I will spank my own. But in front of all of these people and you know, this kid thought that was the funniest thing ever. So we started to play and mind you, this is like we've been on tour for a week.

It's like 100 and 20 degrees, and we're all like, you know, there's four people playing Twister were literally all touching each other. It's all sweaty and gross. Well, I'm not the first person out, but I'm probably like E remember if there were four or five people playing, but I was like, right in the middle I got out, And so then it all all these guys friends were like, Oh, he lost. He lost. And so I then made a giant announcement. I said, Attention, everybody. I have just lost it this game of Twister And we had agreed that if I one thing he would buy a CD, and if I lost that, I would publicly humiliate myself.

So this is my public humiliation and being very flexible. I stuck my legs behind my head and I spanked my own. But on the ground, with probably 253 100 people watching, that's amazing. Now this caused so many people to think that I was cool in the fact that I, A played Twister, be made a friendly bet and then see followed through with that public humiliation of myself. I sold the rest of my case of See It was just like 22 CDs. So I use this opportunity to play a game where I had the potential of buying or selling one CD. I'm sorry and leveraging it to sell 22 CDs, and it was just a no brainer.

And how did I sell? I sold by playing Twister sales is going to take whatever form that opportunity creates. Sometimes it's going to be a door to door sales. You know your door to door sales and somebody opens their door. And you Onley have this, like 32nd window to try and make yourself seen and known. But sometimes it's gonna present itself in the form of like, I waved it, somebody and they waved back at me. We've already entered into this, like conversation, this body language, and I haven't even said anything.

It's your job is the salesman Thio. Identify how you're going to make your approach. Determine what strategy is best for you. There's lots of strategies. If you guys are curious about more strategies, I will definitely definitely have a much more in depth class on sales in general, because so far we've only even talked about face to face sales. Yeah, right now, I just kinda wanna Segway over into online sales and show you how it's a little bit different, but also kind of the same real quick. Before we jump into that, I have a small anecdote.

Essentially a few months ago, I was on vacation in Germany and walking through downtown Boko in Germany, which is a small city of like 354 100,000 people. There's this dude just asking people who passing by. Hey, do you speak English and obviously me living in the States. I speak English, although I do. You speak German as well. And I was looking at him. I'm like, you know, everyone's passing him by, but he kind of looks like a metal head s. So I stopped and like Yeah. Hey, what's up?

Turns out he's in a band called Ilham any, um, from Estonia. And they were driving a couple hours every night to get down to Frankfurt, Germany, to go into the studio, and so they could have driven that in like, two days. But they were doing it over two weeks, just hitting up a new city like a now er or two from the last one every day to spend a day selling CDs to fund recording the album down in Frankfurt. That poor guy who's getting so much rejection because saying Hey, do you speak English to random strangers in the middle of Germany is not a very effective approach, but he was the nicest guy and we had a chat and I remember his name.

It was Eric because of how that stood out to me and on the way back, because I was going to a store, I ran into two of his bandmates and they were so shocked when I was like, Oh, are you guys from Ilham? Any I'm like, How do you know I'm like, Oh, I met your friend like, 15 minutes ago. And so it Z stuff like that. It's really cool. And I know, Matt, you could do something like that. You've sold at gas stations and stuff. I'm sure you could go to a random city in Germany and be like, Do you speak English and sell CDs?

Uh, it wouldn't surprise me one bit. And the cool thing I noticed after looking up this band on instagram is that not only did the band members do this, but they have enlisted some of their friends to like on their days off, go to a different city and sell CDs like you can go look at their Facebook reviews, and it's people being like, Oh, you know, I met blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah like the guitarists brother and he was selling CDs and, like, That's so cool that they got the whole family behind it.

And they're basically saying, You know what? You did It worked for Matt, do that in public, and that's gonna be so much more difficult, but also could be really rewarding when you do find those people who are into that. And obviously you know, I was dressed in all black. I'm sure he's, like, singled me out. It was like, Oh, this dude is going to talk to me But hey, it worked. So anyway, that's my little anecdote. I'll hand things back over to you. That's such a wonderful anecdote there because you just recounted that story and you're telling it on the podcast.

And there's no saying how many different people will end appearing that yeah, and aluminum will be in the show. Notes. At Band I've dot rocks slash 18. That's band I've dot rocks slash 18 So now I'll just go ahead and segue right into online marketing. And really the biggest key point that is the same between face to face sales and between online sales is that first impression. 70% of languages. Body language, you know, you know, if somebody's threatening or unassuming or like you can feel a presence when you see them.

We don't have this luxury when we're buying things online or when we're selling things online. We don't have the luxury of getting a feel of how the sellers body language is coming off. And so if you are the seller, then it's very important for you to realize that you have to use every single avenue possible to make yourself seem non threatening, unassuming, inviting, inclusive. You wanna be building a friendship. These air generally traits that you put off with your body language. And so the struggle is on you as the salesman or saleswoman, too.

Make sure that you're using every single opportunity and avenue for sounding professional for me. An example. If I'm doing direct Facebook marketing, which, if you think that you're gonna get to the point on the Internet where you're doing massive marketing without the ground level marketing, then you're trying to run before you can walk. You have to learn how to get on and send a personal message to a the people in your friends list B. You need to be willing to go to other bands who you sound like or who have a similar demographic to you and try to market to their fans.

Let's say, for instance, you think you sound like breaking Benjamin. Or you think that fans of Breaking Benjamin will also be fans of your project. Then go to breaking Benjamin's page and go look at their fans and then start sending direct messages to them. Don't make it this generic like I'm gonna carbon copy this message, and I'm gonna send it out to as many people as possible until Facebook Messenger blocks me. That's a bad way to do. Marketing. A good way to do marketing is two messages people and say like, Hey, I see that you're a fan of breaking Benjamin.

We've had a lot of similar fans from breaking Benjamin like our project. Would you mind giving a song a listen? Don't include a link. Don't make it seem spammy. Tell them a little bit about yourself, maybe a little bit of something personal and start a dialogue with them. They might tell you that they're not interested, and then you need to respect that you represent every single person in the music industry, and so you want to make sure that we all look good. If every single musician worries about all of us looking good, then we will all succeed.

It's the people who don't care about the fans or how they appear, or people that are still trying to live the old rock star lifestyle that kind of ruin it for a lot of the rest of us. You really want to make sure you don't over saturate the market with generic mass marketing. Essentially, don't burn the cookies. Amen. Don't burn the cookies. Nobody likes a burnt cookie, so it's up to you to start a dialogue. Tell them who you are. Tell them about your product. And then if they say, Yeah, I wanna hear it, then send him a link.

Then they know they're talking with the human being. Even social platforms will not allow your posts to get us faras. They're supposed thio. If you include links in them, they realized that it looks spammy. A lot of people don't like clicking on links. There's so many marketing agencies out there that use automated procedures for sending out these things. Every once in a while, you'll get You know, I'm sure everybody's gotten a phone call or a text message from a random number telling them that their car loan is overdue or something like that.

But it's from marketing agency trying to make money. It's not actually a real human being looking at you and trying to identify a need and then supply that need. That's what your job is in sales is to identify a need and supply that need. If the buyer cannot identify that need by themselves, then it is. Your job is thes sales person to help them identify the need. This is why I say selling things that you believe in is super easy. Because if you just sit there and talk about how much you love a product, people want to be a part of that.

It's like when you say, Oh my gosh, look at how terrible this artist was. Look at how drunk this singer got asking Alexandria, look at how drunk their singer got on stage. What's the first thing that happened? Everybody went and looked. So then they had these YouTube videos of this drunken idiot on stage, making them thousands of dollars after the fact it came out that it was all on marketing trick from their manager and how asking Alexandria had fallen off of the planet because Danny went sober.

And so his manager got him drunk and then filmed it and then released it and it went viral. And that caused a whole bunch of people to go and see their band. And since then they've never stopped touring pretty much now again, I think that's a horrible, horrible way of marketing. However it worked. And that's kind of the marketing world. I don't think you should ever do anything that's going thio demean your character in terms of marketing. And that's why they say the world of business ethics is a very confusing world to be in, because in the marketing world, it's kind of like you kind of have to do whatever you can to get people to look at you.

And unfortunately, a squeaky wheel gets oil first and which is a nice way of saying that people who kind of make the loudest fuss are the people who get noticed. Anybody that's ever worked in customer service knows this you know, it's always that really angry person shouting at the table. Who's going to get their sauce first after the patient people? Because nice guys finish last. When you're doing sales, you wanna make sure you're putting your best foot forward. You wanna make sure that you're using human language?

You wanna make sure you're revealing things to them about yourself. This is your band. This is your business. You want people to be a part of your business. You don't just want one sale. You want somebody to believe in your product so much that not only are they willing to buy your products, but they're willing to go and hang out with their friends and put that in in the CD player. I remember the first time I listened to homesick from a Day to Remember and cover to cover.

It was with my best friend sitting in my car in the middle of a town that had 500 people, and he and I just drove around all day just listening to the album over and over and over again. And he had never he'd only, I think, the only hardcore band he had ever listened to at that point was blessed the fall. Now this then, of course, turned into us like going to all these different concerts together. We bought, merged together we, you know, like we then followed warp tour, and they were on one year of works where we went and watched them and you know, So for me, it turned into a lifelong love of this band, and not only because I loved the band's music, but we also because I had these awesome memories, thes moments with my best friend, where we enjoyed things together.

We built a friendship using a data remembers product. So you, as a seller online, really need to focus on that part of your strategy. What moments am I gonna be able to deliver into people's lives? Some people I have, ah, friend who was out on the Warp for many years and he had a instrumental project, and he was very, very good salesman. But one day I told him I was like, You should really just start marketing this as like music. You have playing in the background while you're chilling with your friends, and he's like, Well, what do you mean?

I said. We'll watch and I walked into his group with him with his product and I said, You know, everybody loves to sit and hang out with their friends and listen to something. Super chill And I started playing the music. I was like, Can't you guys just imagine everybody hanging out in the room? Not a care in the world. You're talking about your favorite video games. You're talking about other people at school or whatever, and just like these awesome vibes air coming in and keeping you nice and happy.

And everybody just kind of started to, like, not along with me. And they really could feel that same feeling that I was feeling and then in their minds, they were thinking about the moments that could happen with this awesome music. And from there, you know, he then was like, Holy cow. I never realized how well that would work. He taught his entire sales team to do that, and then he went on, and he actually years after that, he has the sales record for warp tour for a line band in a single day.

In a single morning in, I think it was Minnesota, Wisconsin he sold over $4000 worth of merch before 11 a.m. Who It just goes to show you that when you really identify how you're going to sell something, the trick is identifying the bridge, the customers on one side of the bridge and you and your product or on the other. And you just have to figure out how to bridge the gap. If you could do that online, if you could do that face to face, then that's incredible. But no matter what, you're going to be doing it by building a personal relationship with these people.

Yeah, I agree with that. And that's one thing. I see so many bands who just post on Facebook like, Hey, we have an album out, Check it out! Cool, see you and that's it. But then there's bands like Infinite Signal, Shout out to my Friends and Infinite Signal. You can check out their music. It'll be linked in the show notes. At Band I've dot rocks slash 18. They are dropping um, E P at the end of January, and they've been pushing it since November. And Matt, you saw Kelly's post in the Facebook group.

Kelly is the bass player for Infinite Signal. Okay, Excellent. They've done two videos. They've been posting about the album and their pre orders for merch pretty much every single day. But they're not doing it in a spammy way there changing it up. They're posting other content aside from just selling. So people still stay engaged with it, and they aren't just like it's another sales post. I'm going to ignore it. So shout out to them for being able to harness this and using live videos to show people what it's like to be at their show.

So people think, Oh, man, I'm missing out by not being there. So that's basically what you're talking about is making people have the expectation of how they're gonna feel If, for example, they go to a show and then they think, Oh, man, if they're shows that good, you know, I bet their their CDs really good, too, like I should buy that. And I think that's a really creative way to do it. And, you know, I don't think Infinite Signal is doing something that other bands haven't done before.

But I think they are doing something that every band should be doing absolutely. And, you know, shout out to those guys for doing something that's a little bit outside of the box because, you know, in the world of marketing it, what you learned today will be totally obsolete in a year because the digital age causes things to change so rapidly, and it's up to you to kind of stay ahead of the curve, which is really, really hard. And they literally in the last 15 years have created masters and doctorates in marketing.

And the worst part about it is you can go to school for years and years and years and learn something. And then within two years, all of that information is totally useless, because now people use a different medium for marketing or whatever you know. Now, Tic Tac is really, really big talk. It's so over my head, i e. I don't understand it either, but if you do, then use it because it's a free marketing platform and its massive right now. In one of the podcast that I listened, Thio, the guy had a guest speaker on, and he was talking about how powerful Tic Tac is, and he's just like I personally would never use it.

He's like, but I have friends who make six figures a year making Ticktock videos. Now that's incredible. And if that's something that you can use for your brand, then I encourage you to do it. Look into every avenue, find out the ones that air catered towards your natural affinity. The reason I'm so good at face to face sales is because I love people. I love people. I like helping people. I like being a part of people's lives. Everybody that I meet is my friend. My wife will tell you time and time again that I call everybody a friend too quickly.

But I also build really quality relationships with everybody really, really quickly as well. I enjoy people. I like hearing their stories. I like a good story. My mom used to read to me when I was a kid, so if you have cool music stories, I wanna hear them. That's how I end up doing sales. And if you can kind of figure out a way to do that online, then you're appealing to this giant market like you mentioned earlier. James, if you have a way to really let your personality shine through in your individual messages, and a lot of it's seen in just in, like how your profiles are, like people like to see personality, you know, they like to hear your jokes.

Like for me. I'm red headed, so I make Ginger jokes all the time. It makes me unthreatening, unassuming, and I'm not really making fun of myself. I'm not like, degrading myself. I don't think people should degrade themselves or anything like that, but it just shows them that I'm fun loving. I have a good sense of humor. I'm not going to come in and be offended at, you know, the drop of a pen or something like that. And so then people feel like they could be more themselves, because I have already come out of the gate being mawr of myself.

So when you can kind of figure out a way, really to bottle that, that's why I call it bottled enthusiasm. And that's actually that is not my term. Bottled enthusiasm is it's a long time sales technique, and it was actually, uh, I think the term may have been coined by I think his name is Jordan Benton or something like that. Anyways, if you've seen the movie The Wolf of Wall Street, it's the character that Leonardo DiCaprio is, uh is playing. But that guy is a real guy, and he is the best salesman with the least amount of morality that's like ever lived.

So don't be like him. But even horrible, horrible people can do something good. So if anybody is curious on any other sales tactics, I encourage you. He actually has some classes that he's taught because after he was arrested and incarcerated for a very long time, for all of his illicit activities, he actually got out of prison and started teaching people how to sell because he really is the best salesman that history has ever seen. And on that note of criminals who sell things they shouldn't. Billy McFarland and Fire Festival think about how they marketed that experience.

They didn't market it as a music festival. They marketed it as an experience. They basically said, like if you go here, your dreams were going to come true, and that's what people expected. And then they ate tomato on bread out of Styrofoam containers next to wild pigs. Yeah, wasn't that one of the things that they didn't actually end up having because it was like a different island or something? No, no, no. The wild pigs were everywhere. It was like over Yeah, oversaturation. Some of the pictures were hilarious.

It literally people like next to a collapse tent with, like, four or five wild hogs around them and wild hogs. They're not friendly creatures either. So the idea of being on a desert island with a bunch of wild swine seems horrid. Yeah, that does not seem fun at all. So I do want to quickly mention just a couple other small things as far as online marketing. What I will say is, a lot of powerful resource is exist online. You really want to utilize things like email lists.

If you have people come up to emerge table, ask him if they have an email list. This way, when you put out a new product, you can directly email it to them, and you just have that many more opportunities of a potential sale. So, like it's all about identifying small areas and then increasing that to a mass scale and trying to catch is much of the runoff as possible. Email lists are very helpful for this. There's actually online services that will send out mass emails for free for you, where you basically just get in and type up a template.

And it's like, Oh, we have a new product. I'm gonna answer it this image here and I'm gonna send it out. Thio all 250 of my contacts. Okay, well, maybe only like 10% of them will see it. That's 25 maybe only 10% of that will buy. That's 2. 5 shirts that you just sold at 25 bucks a pop. Cool, you just made $50. And those little tiny victories, they add up. If you're releasing a new product every two months, you know, then by the time you get to the end of the year, you've made an extra $300 and it seems small.

It's like a snowball. You start at the top of the hill, your snowball small, and you push it down the hill, and by the bottom, you have a snowball big enough to build a snowman. It's all about that long game. It's all about using tools that are very powerful to help you market yourself for free. We are all in open resource to you guys, so we encourage. If you guys have any questions about products and services that you can use, please message us in the group. We would love to talk with you about it.

We really want to have unopened source resource for everybody to help everyone succeed. Because, as I've said before, a rising tide raises all ships we all need to succeed together. Well, all need to band together in order to make things work for all of us. Absolutely 100%. And if anyone listening isn't in our group yet, it's free. Just it's a Facebook group, so as long as John Facebook, you can join it. And if you go to band, I've dot rocks slash group. That's a quick link directly to our Facebook group, where you can join us and you can ask questions and help other people.

If they have questions, you can share your experience along with us. We never have an environment of what we say goes like if somebody asks a question, anyone is welcome to answer it, and we will give our opinions on it. But other people are absolutely welcome to share their ideas and thoughts as well as faras mailing list platforms. Go Ah, lot of people use mail chimp, which is a decent platform. Personally, I do not like it because it's not nearly as fully featured as other platforms like Mailer Light or Active Campaign.

Active campaign is definitely the best, in my opinion, but it's also pricey. Miller Lite is what we used to use for Bandhive, and they do even have a free tier that you can sign up for. Miller Lite allows you to have. I believe it's up to 1000 subscribers for free. And if you have more than 1000 subscribers, that's gonna pay for itself like absolutely, there's no question about it. As long as you use it effectively, it will pay for itself. If you have 1000 people on your mailing list, then you're making money and hopefully you understand the power of email marketing.

Hopefully, you've already got that system set up enrolling for you. And if you have 1000 people, I really, really hope that you are already using one of these services because the idea of going through and sending out 1000 emails sounds horrible or even one giant chain. Email. 2000 people Sounds horrible. This is a way that you can send, you know, one message to everyone individually on their own threads. Everybody can get it on different platforms. That being said, I'm just gonna close it off with this. Sales should not be seen as How can I sell this to that person?

Sales should be seen as How can I enrich this person's life? And then, when you start to take that perspective of it, you start to think Maura about the customer and less about the money that you will make. And when you think about the customer that opens up the opportunity for farm or than just a $5 or $10 CD sale that opens up for more than just a one time T shirt purchase. I still buy merch from my friend's bands from years ago, and that's because I have great relationships.

Identify how you're going to build a relationship with somebody, build a relationship with that person, and then you'll be able to make sales for or forever because they love you and people that love you will support you. Well, that does it for another episode of the podcast. Now you probably heard that I mentioned a band called Infinite Signal earlier in the episode, and I have some awesome news. Next week, Infinite Signal will be our guest on the Bandhive podcast. So that will be next Tuesday at 6 a.m.

On Episode 19 of this podcast. We really hope you check it out. They're a great band, and I want to thank Kelly and Eli for spending the time to sit down with us and chat about the release of their new e p. Love Me, Not which you can check out on all streaming platforms. And you can find out a lot more about their release plans for that album by tuning in next Tuesday. Again, that's anytime after 6 a.m. Eastern. And of course, we did mention our Facebook group a few times during this episode.

So if you head on over to Bandhive dot rocks slash group, you can join the community and ask whatever questions you like. Thanks again for listening. I hope you all have an awesome week and keep rocking. Now, the thing is, how do I want to start this episode? I feel like I should come up with a sales pitch, like as a joke and just make it sound really cheesy. And sales e and be like, That's not what you want to dio. Hi. I'm James by my product. Yeah.