BRIAN HOOD: The business of audio, how to set your rates, overcoming imposter syndrome

Speaker 1 (00:00:01):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Focal Audio, the world's reference speaker For over 30 years, focal has been designing and manufacturing loudspeakers For the home speaker, drivers for cars, studio monitors, for recording studios and premium quality headphones, visit bocal.com for more information. And now your hosts, Joey Sturgis, Joe Wanasek and Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:00:30):

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast. Today we are being extra awesome because we were bringing you Mr. Brian Hood, which I feel like to our audience doesn't really deem much of an introduction. You probably already know a lot about this dude, but welcome Brian. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (00:00:48):

Thank you. Don't sound too excited though, Joey.

Speaker 2 (00:00:50):

I'm not at all. Actually, I just woke up. So that's the big problem here. But

Speaker 4 (00:00:55):

How about this? We are excited to have Brian Hood with us today, though our audience, you guys probably already know him. For those of you who don't already know him, he's known for working with bands such as Gideon Sworn in Crimson Armada, devil Wars Prada era, and his super awesome online mixing course from Shit to Gold. And his killer blog, which you'll have to give me the URL, so I don't mess it up, but it's got tons of really, really valuable business recording, business advice

Speaker 5 (00:01:34):

Six Figure Home Studio is the name of the blog, right? Yeah, the six figure home studio.com.

Speaker 2 (00:01:39):

I'm doing shots of espresso over here, by the way, so I'm just trying to

Speaker 5 (00:01:41):

Hell yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:01:42):

To catch up with you guys. I'm already on my third Red Bull, so hence the

Speaker 3 (00:01:47):

I'm drinking my lunch if it sounds weird. It is.

Speaker 2 (00:01:53):

Yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:01:53):

That sounds like what Joel does.

Speaker 3 (00:01:55):

Yeah. Saves time. Took two minutes to make and then I'll drink it in 30 seconds.

Speaker 6 (00:01:59):

You guys think it's me that does all that juice shit, but Ale is really like the vegan dude here. Not me.

Speaker 4 (00:02:06):

I'm not vegan. No, same

Speaker 6 (00:02:08):

Fucking thing.

Speaker 4 (00:02:10):

It's not though because oh man, we're going to go way off topic, but vegans have a point behind what they do. I don't.

Speaker 6 (00:02:18):

Ah, yeah, that's right. You don't let me know that you're vegan every time that you tell me that you're vegan.

Speaker 2 (00:02:24):

I'm not vegan. That's the difference. That's what the vegans do. So that's how you know he's not one.

Speaker 4 (00:02:32):

Yeah, I don't give a shit. I just don't eat meat, but I could not care less. I'll wear it. I'll wear meat and

Speaker 6 (00:02:42):

If you want to go in on a gallon of kale juice, we could, next time we get together,

Speaker 4 (00:02:46):

Let's do it. So Brian, we're actually really excited to have you on here because you're one of the other guys in our little world of online audio education. I guess lots of people have done it via YouTube and put out a lot of shitty info, but we pride ourselves on being one of the only people out there, especially in our genre that do it and that are actually helping people. And we've viewed you for a while as one of the only other people who's also doing it right. And so it's cool to have you on here and pick your brain a little bit about stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:03:30):

It's great to see you guys doing what you're doing because a lot of my students are also members of Neda Mix and listen to your podcast. And so it's cool to finally kind of connect with you guys. But the big thing is yes, there are some other people doing it. There are some people doing it in a really shitty way, focusing more on making money than providing value. And you guys are definitely more on the value side than the money side. This is why you're know the mix thing is so freaking stupid cheap. You would charge that stuff.

Speaker 4 (00:04:00):

It is inexpensive but cheap. Iss a bad word. We can,

Speaker 3 (00:04:05):

Sorry. It's a high value, low cost.

Speaker 4 (00:04:07):

Yeah. Yeah, it's inexpensive. Well, it's also a subscription, so we hope that people stick around for a year or two and some have.

Speaker 3 (00:04:18):

I'm sure they have. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:04:19):

We have some people who have been subscribed to the, it started as a podcast March, 2015, and then we had to nail the mix in November, and we have had dudes who have been subscribed since month one and are still with us. So in order to be able to pull that off, it has to be inexpensive. We can't be charging them the way that you would charge for a premium course because they won't stick around for two years. So we're going for long play with that.

Speaker 6 (00:04:46):

What's interesting about that too, I was just going to pile on here, is that the guys that have been with us and have put in the time, it's amazing how much progress they've made as opposed to the people that come in for a month, they watch it once and they think that suddenly because you've seen a course or somebody mix a song that overnight you're going to be great at it and they just piece out and then they're back three months later and they really haven't made any progress.

Speaker 3 (00:05:08):

Everyone wants a silver bullet and there's not one.

Speaker 2 (00:05:11):

I bet you've seen some growth obviously through what you've done, because what's really cool about from Shit to gold is that I noticed is you sort of walk through a really quick line from start to finish, kind of somebody that can come in, they've learned a little bit of this, they've learned a little bit of that, but they're all kind of frazzled and messed up because they've gotten things from so many different places and then you kind of connect it all together and I thought that was really cool about it.

Speaker 3 (00:05:43):

So I try to hold the hand from the beginning process to the end. But the key is, and I track this stat, I see anyone that sends me before and after people that are trying to simulate case study tracks from before they joined the course and after, the ones that send me the most improved tracks are the ones that maybe bought back in October, but have continually logged in over that time. They didn't just go through the course one time and expect to be incredible. They have continued to go through the material time after time after time, and if slowly evolved their sound into something that is much, much better than what they started with. So it's the consistency thing.

Speaker 4 (00:06:20):

I think it's important to note with courses, and I know that I've heard this said in courses and other things like Facebook ads courses or whatever, just other types of courses, it's always set up front that the course itself isn't going to do anything for you. It's what you do with the course. And we've noticed the same thing. We have some subscribers, like a guy named Robin who's been in since the very beginning. He attends every single live call we do has submitted to every single mixed competition. He does everything and has been doing it consistently and he's won our mixed competition like six times.

Speaker 3 (00:07:03):

That's awesome. The model student.

Speaker 4 (00:07:05):

Yeah, exactly. And he's developing his own sound and he's really one of our best students, but it's because he didn't just sign up for one month and think that he was going to become awesome. He's been taking a realistic approach, which means work and do more work and do more work and do more work.

Speaker 3 (00:07:25):

It's funny you say that. My first student is a guy named Buster Old Home or old, I dunno how you pronounce his last name. He's from Sweden, but

Speaker 4 (00:07:33):

I know him.

Speaker 3 (00:07:33):

Yeah, yeah. So he was my first student from Shit to Gold and now he's come a long way, but he is now mixed bands that I've worked with. He's actually done the new sworn in. So it's interesting to see a student kind of go from, from someone buying a course to someone that's working with higher end projects. And I don't want to use the word steel because we're all competing for some of the same bands, but I actually thought it was awesome to see him work with some bands that I've done before.

Speaker 4 (00:08:02):

Yeah, that's the biggest honor, right? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:08:04):

And he's also, if you looked, he joined July, 2015. I'm looking on his account right now, and last time he logged in was the middle of last month. So the consistency thing is the key for everyone all across the board, even this guy.

Speaker 2 (00:08:20):

Yeah, that's so cool. And I kind of wanted to mention here in case people didn't know, which I think is an interesting fact is that I actually recorded Brian's band a long time ago.

Speaker 3 (00:08:34):

I was wondering if you'd bring that up. I haven't seen you since then. That's the funny thing we've talked, but I haven't seen you since September, 2007

Speaker 2 (00:08:42):

Was my children, my bride record, and Adam d was mixing, so I got to work with Brian then, and then we kind of worked on a few other things. We did. What was the editing thing? I can't remember.

Speaker 3 (00:08:56):

No, that was the, okay. It's funny that he introed me as working with the devil Wish Prada, but I'm very, very transparent with the fact that all I did was edit drums on the zombie ep. That's all I did. That's what, that's right. I don't try to take full credit for that project. I don't even really use that band's name anywhere in my, I think it's on my w Wikipedia and that's about it.

Speaker 2 (00:09:15):

And then we did some stuff on the plea for purging album

Speaker 3 (00:09:19):

Depravity,

Speaker 2 (00:09:20):

And then

Speaker 3 (00:09:22):

No, it was a marriage between Heaven and Hell or something like that I think. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:09:26):

Oh, that's right. That's right. Sorry, not depravity. That was all done so many damn albums. So hard to remember.

Speaker 3 (00:09:33):

Do you guys ever get to where you'll talk to a band you recorded years ago and you don't even remember the person that was in the band? Or is that just me? I can't remember band members.

Speaker 2 (00:09:43):

No, it's not just

Speaker 4 (00:09:43):

You.

Speaker 3 (00:09:44):

Okay, good. That's my brain.

Speaker 2 (00:09:46):

It's hard. I mean, it's like if you think about it too, if you've done maybe 50 albums, you think about that extrapolated out to say it's 50 different bands, that's 250 people.

Speaker 3 (00:09:59):

Yeah. Yeah. I try to pretend I remember them sometimes I'm just like, yeah, hey man, how are you? I don't remember you.

Speaker 4 (00:10:07):

Well, just think about the guys in the band who don't really play much on the records.

Speaker 3 (00:10:12):

It's true. It's true. I always remember the one guy from the band, the guy who's like your point man, kind of like I was

Speaker 4 (00:10:18):

With

Speaker 3 (00:10:18):

Joey. I doubt Joey remembers many people in my band because they weren't even there half the time, right?

Speaker 4 (00:10:24):

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. A dude is just in the lounge for a month playing Xbox and other people are playing his parts for him. You probably won't remember him.

Speaker 3 (00:10:35):

No,

Speaker 6 (00:10:36):

That's the only guy

Speaker 3 (00:10:37):

I remember. Oh man.

Speaker 4 (00:10:39):

The only guy you like, Joel.

Speaker 3 (00:10:43):

I'm just being contrarian. That's usually the only one that hasn't pissed you off though.

Speaker 4 (00:10:49):

Yeah. Well sometimes those guys happen to be like a chef or something awesome like that. So they make up for the fact that they don't play by making life better for everyone sometimes. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:11:01):

So

Speaker 4 (00:11:02):

Let's talk about your blog a little bit. I'm curious as to why you started doing that and why the focus of studio business.

Speaker 3 (00:11:13):

That's a great question. I actually launched this blog, I want to say early spring 2014. It was more than two and a half years ago, and for the first two years I'd only posted eight articles on there. So I kind of maintained it during that time, but I originally launched it just because the recording industry specifically home studios are filled with a lot of the right brain type people, the creative types. And I've seen this just a pattern time after time after time, question after question from people that are some of the most basic questions on business in general, freelancing and positioning and marketing and branding and all the things that come together to make a business that's super, super simple if you're left-brained and more of an analytical type and just business savvy in general. But most home studio owners, specifically home studio owners don't have that side of their brain a lot of times. And so the website was built to try to get some of these core fundamental things to run a business ingrained into the right brain people in this home studio world.

Speaker 4 (00:12:16):

That's a very, I guess, honorable motive.

Speaker 3 (00:12:20):

Yeah. Yeah. The blog I've had, I mean two and a half years, I am in the hole, about 3000 bucks on it. I haven't sold a thing on it, so it's just a passion project right now.

Speaker 2 (00:12:29):

Yeah, I love the article. Well, this might be your first article, it might not, but my first exposure to your blog was the one about the truth behind taxes or whatever it was.

Speaker 3 (00:12:40):

Oh yeah, that's funny. That's one of your favorites because that was my least popular article, popular article of all time, and I knew it would be because no one cares about taxes, but they should,

Speaker 6 (00:12:51):

Unless

Speaker 3 (00:12:51):

You're

Speaker 6 (00:12:51):

Already serious once a year.

Speaker 3 (00:12:53):

Well, I've pulled my audience and I know that less than 5% of my readers make more than $10,000 a year. So when you have that kind of 90% of your audience is not making money or at least a full-time income doing this and they're not going to care about the tax side of things.

Speaker 2 (00:13:10):

Yeah, it's not a thought for them.

Speaker 3 (00:13:11):

When you get there, when you get over that hump and start doing this part-time or full-time, that article will come in handy for you because it can be a really, really scary thing to approach. And a lot of people don't pay taxes only because they don't know how to handle it and they think it's going to be a lot of work, but I just lay it out step by step the easiest way to do it. And I know there's some guys that even pay bookkeepers or accountants 500 a month or more to do this for them, and it's not that hard to do. I pay a CPA 500 a year to do my taxes, everything else I do. So it's a very cost effective way to do your taxes for a home studio. It's very true. As you grow, you'll need to do a little bit more than what I do in this. What I've had to do now is I've had to change things since my businesses have become a lot wider in variety, and I have a lot more streams of income than I had when I just ran the studio. But just as a studio, that is the perfect guide for how to do things as you start up.

Speaker 4 (00:14:05):

So speaking of all this studio business stuff, why don't we dive into some actual topics, some stuff that we had talked about talking about, and some of these that you came to the table with are things that we talk about on the podcast already and that we know from talking to our group, lots of people have problems with. These are kind of the eternal problems of running a studio, whether you're first starting out or already established for a while. So why don't we just jump right into it?

Speaker 3 (00:14:40):

Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (00:14:41):

And let's talk about determining your pricing. Let's just go right towards the hard part. I think a lot of people have a problem with this, and I know I certainly had a problem with it when I first started because I had an issue with charging for my services. And I think a lot of people who are in the arts or creative have to overcome that block. You feel weird about charging for something you love, and then it's like, how much do I charge? Lots of people err on the side of charging too little, they don't feel confident about their work or they feel like charging more is maybe highway robbery for instance, because it comes easily to them, for instance. There's all kinds of different reasons. And then finally there's the whole imposter syndrome is I'm new, I can't possibly charge as much as someone who's been in the game for 10 years. So there's all these different insecurities or questions, doubts, problems with how to set your prices, and I just think we should dive right into it.

Speaker 3 (00:15:53):

I love this topic, so I'm more than happy to talk about this.

Speaker 4 (00:15:56):

How did you first start setting your prices?

Speaker 3 (00:15:59):

I mean, that's a long way from what you should do. When I first did was I actually charged per song for my first project and it was super cheap, 50 bucks a song. And I did this for two reasons. One because I didn't feel right charging for time because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. So I feel like it's a very fair way to start out just charging per song. But the key to that, first of all is, and I could go on for days about this one topic, but I'm going to try to stay on point for what you asked, but the key is to basically have a short portfolio of music just to show your first band. So what I did, I made three quick sample songs, like a rock thing, a hardcore thing, and a cover song for my own band.

(00:16:45):

And then I used that to talk to a few local bands. When I got a band to bite, I didn't want to do it for free because people just don't value free work that's proven. So I wanted to charge a small amount, 50 bucks a song. We did five songs, I got $250, and I knew that I would be learning a lot as I went. So I didn't care that I wasn't getting paid much. I think it came out to under $5 an hour, but I did know that what I learned would be huge. That's the biggest thing is when you're starting out, you just want to make sure you're learning as much as you can. I knew that I could spend as much time as I wanted without feeling guilty because I knew that I had to learn a lot. And three, I knew that they would value it because they were paying for it and they would be taking it seriously. I wouldn't be just recording some stupid local band that didn't take anything seriously and would thus be a terrible pain to work with, even for a beginner to work with. So that's how I started out, and I've changed a lot since then. At least the mindset behind how to charge. But I still focus a lot on the per project rate for mixing and the day rate for tracking.

Speaker 4 (00:17:44):

So you don't charge 50 bucks a song anymore?

Speaker 3 (00:17:46):

No,

Speaker 6 (00:17:47):

God, no. Mix revision 487. Here we go.

Speaker 2 (00:17:51):

When I started, my overhead was fixed. It was just 500 bucks a month because I was renting basically a garage from, oh man, that place. Yeah, you remember this?

Speaker 3 (00:18:02):

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:18:03):

Renting a garage from my friend Jeremy and his mom, and they were charging me 500 a month. So I was basically just trying to make overhead and then plus a little bit of profit. So I think I started out like a hundred dollars a song way back in the early days, and then probably just graduated up always charging a little bit per song or per album. There was definitely a period in there where I was charging a whole package deal. The band can sleep in their van or sleep on the couch in the garage and I'll give you, and we'll record and we'll do all the songs in the mixing, mastering everything, and you'll pay x amount. But the problem with that was didn't work long-term because the son of the mom had a band and he was also using the space to practice in. And normally I only had to give them a day or two to practice, but there was a period of time where they were starting to get more serious and they were like, okay, you don't have to pay rent anymore. We're just going to take the studio over for this month. And I was like, holy shit, I've had an album booked for six months. I can't cancel

Speaker 4 (00:19:10):

Just like that. They

Speaker 2 (00:19:11):

Just

Speaker 4 (00:19:12):

Boom, you can't use it.

Speaker 2 (00:19:13):

They didn't realize that what I was doing back there was a business. They thought I was just kind of charting a little bit of money and recording some people here and there. But then it avalanche to that point where it was like, yo labels are booking albums here and I am committed and I'm taking the money in advance and there's nothing I can do to get out of this. And that's when Craig stepped in and helped me buy a house and we switched everything over.

Speaker 6 (00:19:41):

I remember that. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:19:41):

I do too. I remember when you first moved to that little brick rancher house and was that still in Connorsville?

Speaker 2 (00:19:47):

Yeah, I still have that house actually. Nice. And that's when I changed the whole, the way I priced things. But yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:19:54):

So what did you change it to?

Speaker 2 (00:19:55):

So what I started to do then is I felt like I had established myself. I had a lot of people coming to me because they needed me. So then I was charging what I felt I was worth, and rather than making it a service-based business, I was charging it kind of for my brain, if that makes sense, or my artistic side. And I was just naming a number that I felt was worth it. So it would be like,

Speaker 3 (00:20:25):

Let me break in here so much to talk about in this little tiny story. I could go on for an hour about this story. But to start out, what people don't realize is the way you did it is genius because keeping your overhead as low as possible is the key to making it. When you're starting out, you had a $500 a month overhead, which is insane for any home studio. And you had an interesting deal, worked out with a neighbor that didn't work out, but it was enough to get you to that point in your career where you could take things seriously and step up your overhead level and still support it with the work you had coming in. I have an admission to make though. When we contacted you about recording our album, this is a funny story. We were technically unsigned at the time.

(00:21:10):

We were still talking to the label. So when I actually contacted you, I did this on purpose. I didn't mention anything about a label or a budget. I just contacted you to see what your rates were at the time, which I remember were $250 a song, and we got the commitment from you for price and everything. And then we had the label pay you afterwards, and I'm sure you would've probably tried to charge us more had you known there was a label involved. And I realized how big of a dick move that is now that I'm in this business. But I thought it was clever at the time. It

Speaker 2 (00:21:40):

Is clever. Yeah. I mean that doesn't bother me though because I feel like everything that I did throughout my career had a brick in the wall. All of it needed to be done in order to be where I am now. All of it helped. You guys were, I think you guys had the MySpace game on lock, and so that was my interest. I was like, these guys are huge on my space. Yeah, we do. I need to be in their top eight. One thing I left out in my story was actually, and you might find this interesting, Brian, is when I went from the garage to the house, my overhead actually didn't change very much. My overhead at the garage was 500 a month, and then when I went to the house, I believe it became 750 a month. So then maybe add on utilities, electric bill, internet, blah, blah, blah. By the time you get to the end, you're still at like 900 a month. So I was still killing it.

Speaker 3 (00:22:36):

That's great. Yeah, I know how much you were making at that time and it was substantial.

Speaker 1 (00:22:41):

But

Speaker 3 (00:22:41):

One thing is that came from your story is how when everyone starts up, this is true across the board, you basically have to price yourself as a commodity. And the only thing when you're a commodity, the only thing you can compete with is your price. So it's a race to the bottom when you're a commodity, what you did when you finally transitioned out of that studio or out of that garage, or by the time you had transitioned out of the garage, you had already differentiated yourself with your sound, with your producing, with the caliber of the artist you'd worked with and your reputation. So those differentiating factors were more than enough to allow you to price based on your value instead of based on the service. And I think that's a huge distinction. People don't realize.

Speaker 2 (00:23:19):

Exactly. Yeah. That was the point where I had realized that there wasn't another Joey Sturgis, at least at that time. So it was kind of like,

Speaker 3 (00:23:27):

Thank God,

Speaker 2 (00:23:28):

Yeah, these people want what I'm doing, so now I get to set the price rather than absolutely just trying to set it on what I'm doing.

Speaker 4 (00:23:38):

Let me point something out too. This is on topic and very important. Have you guys listening have been paying attention to the world of recording? Lots of big studios have been closing down for years now, and that's not going to stop happening. And lots of multimillion dollar rooms with amazing gear, amazing everything, consoles, tape machine, big ass live rooms, places where amazing classic records were recorded because at the end of the day, the market is showing that the value is not in the gear or in the room. It's really just in the person who's being hired to mix or produce. That's the only value. And so if that person's not there, essentially there's not enough value in the actual location itself or the gear to keep it afloat. So I just think that that's important to note. A big time producer who's got a lot of value to their name can be working out of their home studio and make a killing even on number one records. And it can sustain that for an entire career these days because the values in the person. So I really do think that it just needs to be said that establishing your own value is your own brand, is the way of the future.

Speaker 3 (00:25:02):

I actually know a guy here in Nashville, his name's Seth Mosley is a friend of mine. He's in the CCM world, which is funny, the contemporary Christian music world. And this guy has multiple gold records to his name. He has multiple Grammys, multiple Dove awards. He has worked with some huge artists in that scene and he still works above his garage in his house. And I think that's amazing to me. It is a well built out room. He has put a little bit of money into that, but when you compare the overhead for him compared to someone that has a dedicated commercial space, it shows how much things are changing in the recording world. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that if you look at the trend across the board, and this isn't really as true in the metal scene because metal is metal and hardcore is hardcore, and we're still going to have full bands, drums and everything. But if you look at Spotify's top 50 playlist every single month, it's almost always about 90 to 95% program music. There's no real instruments in it. And so when you have that kind of trend in music, all these studios doing this are in general are small guys working out of their homes with low overhead and huge studios cannot compete with that. And that is one of the big reasons why some of these larger studios are struggling right now.

Speaker 4 (00:26:18):

Yeah. Well there used to be a time period I think in the early two thousands where it would be kind of cool to take your favorite metal producer and go to a big ass studio and then pay both them and the studio, but that's kind of going by the wayside as

Speaker 3 (00:26:40):

Well. There's still the option. I see this all the time people, and I think some of you guys do this sometimes at least you record out of your home or maybe a small commercial space that's cheap, and then you'll just rent out a bigger studio in town for drum tracking because that's really one of the few things, at least in our kind of music that benefits from a large nice sounding room is just, and you book that for a couple days, a lot of you guys out there have some sort of contact or wait to get in the studio and can get even a buddy rate in some cases. But doing that is so much more cost effective than building out a big room in your home or big commercial space and having that overhead constantly having to pay that.

Speaker 6 (00:27:15):

Absolutely. That's what I,

Speaker 3 (00:27:16):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:27:17):

That's the way to go. So I guess, so that's said, if we all agree that keeping your overhead super low is essential to starting out, then what's the next step for someone first starting to set their prices? Where do they find, how do they gauge it? What's too much or too little?

Speaker 3 (00:27:38):

For me, it was when I started raising my prices, it was all based off, it's just simple supply and demand. If you are correctly differentiating yourself in the market and you have bands coming to you and returning to you, that's a big factor on how satisfied bands are when they return to you for their next album and their next EP or their next single. But what your schedule is set up, if you're booked out three months in advance, it's time to raise prices I feel like, or at least experiment with raising prices. And so what I would do is my schedule would book up two to three months in advance, and then any quote request I got from there on would be 10, 20, 30% higher for a project than what I would typically do. And that doing it in small increments like that as my schedule was full, allowed me to experiment and have more confidence in raising prices.

(00:28:22):

Because if I'm continually booking at these higher prices, that's now my new threshold. I will not go below that until my schedule thins out. And I just kept doing that for years and kept my schedule full. And if there was ever a lull where things were slow, I would bring my prices back down. But that would rarely happen. And I don't know if you guys experienced this, but occasionally you'll have a stretch of two or three months where it gets slow in the studio, but of course it's much better to have those two or three months to recover and not drastically lower your prices. But overall, keep your prices up because I found that I can work and make the same amount of money working half the time, doing half the work and enjoying my days more than to be booked up back to back at half the price and be busting my ass 80 hours a week for the same pay as I could if I just doubled my pricing. So it's not all trying to keep your schedule full, but I feel like a lot of it is just making sure that if your schedule is full, that you are raising your prices consistently until that's not the case.

Speaker 4 (00:29:15):

And then I guess conversely, the person who doesn't have a full schedule and is just starting out, if they can't seem to get anyone booked, then maybe they just need to drop their prices altogether.

Speaker 3 (00:29:26):

Yes and no. Okay. So that's when you're the commodity. If you were just a race to the bottom of your prices and you're worried about your competition in town charging less or someone going to someone else, then you are failing somewhere. Your mixes either suck, your attitude sucks, possibly your people skills may suck, your positioning may suck. And positioning is a whole multitude of things. It could be the look of your website, which I'll plug a little free thing I did here. It's called a recording studio website.com, and that's literally just a free course I made to walk people through how to build a website for your studio.

Speaker 4 (00:30:06):

I checked it out and I vouch for it. It's badass.

Speaker 3 (00:30:08):

Yeah. So it's just a step-by-step walkthrough. There's no reason when you have that resource to have a bad website now. So website's a huge one. If you can't take good photographs of your studio, then just don't do any photos of your studio at all. It's better. I don't think that a crappy iPhone shot of your shitty mix rig in your bedroom is going to bring any clients in, but that's my opinion. But if you want to do that, just make sure you get a more professional photo of your shitty mix rig and if you clean up your place and try to decorate a little bit, but positioning is further than that. Positioning is partly based on your price. And well, I guess the reaction to the price is as good reflection of your positioning. If people will react negatively to the price you throw them, you are not positioned correctly in the market.

Speaker 2 (00:30:58):

I have a question about positioning actually, because I'm wondering, do you think people should have blinders on? And what I mean by that is should they ignore everyone around them when they set their price? Or do you think the opposite? Should they be looking at all of their competitors and trying to put themselves somewhere on the ladder?

Speaker 3 (00:31:20):

That's a great question. In my town when I started up, there were the traditional studios, but there were literally no home studios that I was competing with. And the closest one was in Birmingham, my pricing. I don't even know what his pricing was at the time. So I guess I kind of went in with the blinders on. And even at a higher price, if you're above your competition, you may land a project here and there, but you're still going to probably struggle. So I would say it's probably good to know where your competitors are, but at the same time, don't just copy what they do because they're probably bad at it too in most cases, unless they're already well established. But I dunno, there's resources like my recording studio website thing for website building. There's resources like my blog to teach you some of the other positioning factors that really matter, like the free ebook, if you sign up for my mailing list, you get a free ebook called Keys to a Six Figure Home Studio. That book is like 90% positioning. That is such a huge factor I see is people looking like absolute amateurs. And nine times out of 10, their mixes are amateur too. So that's a huge part. But some people, even with great mixes, can't get work because they're bad at getting themselves out there in a high value position.

Speaker 4 (00:32:31):

Well, I think a lot of people are under the mistaken assumption that they did all the work to get good at audio, so people should just show up.

Speaker 3 (00:32:42):

So this is another thing I see here in Nashville. A good way to look at this is in other industries. So Nashville, we have a huge studio musician world where you have session musicians or you have musicians that are hired on, hired on for tours and stuff. So just touring artists, I don't know what the term is for that session, musicians and just, I guess freelance musicians. Anyways, time after time though, it's not the best person that gets the job. Nine times out of 10, it is the most well connected person and they're well connected because they're the most likable. So if you have a friend and he's good enough to do the job and you have another guy who you don't know and is kind of a dick, you're going to hire your friend every single time. So I think a lot of it comes down to people skills and knowing a lot of the people in your scene, because if you're not tied into the local scene of whatever genre you're trying to work, it's going to be really hard to convince anyone to come to you as a nobody, especially if you don't have good people skills.

Speaker 4 (00:33:42):

We talk to people all the time on this podcast about the people skills issue, and we've had lots of guests who have come up from the bottom and gone all the way to the top, and every single one of them without fail has talked about how people skills are just as important as your music skills. And so I just want to tell people that we understand that being in a creative field and especially a field where you might spend 12 hours a day looking at a screen in a dark room, you might have some social anxiety, you might not be the type who wants to go to bars and hang out with people you might not even drink. Who knows, you might not. It might not come naturally to you, is what I'm saying. And that's okay. It doesn't come naturally to me. And I'm guessing, Joey, I don't think it comes naturally to you either.

Speaker 6 (00:34:38):

Lemme tell you guys a story about this. Okay, this is so relevant because when I was in high school and middle school and I was younger and coming up, I was the most shyest, quietest kid probably in the entire school. I was not social in any way, shape or form, and I was wanting to go to those quiet depressive kids. And as I got older one day, I just realized it wasn't the rest of the world, it was me. So I just flipped the switch literally one day and I said, I'm going to go down to the street, I'm going to walk into a house party and I'm going to talk to people for the first time in my life. Something that absolutely terrified the shit out of me. And when I did it, it wasn't so bad. And then I realized I liked it, and then I started developing actual social skills and I completely, one aided my personality and have a period of about a month.

(00:35:23):

And it was just really making a mental effort to step outside of your comfort zone and not be such a fucking hermit and not being afraid of people and being willing to do stupid shit, say stupid things, embarrass yourself, piss people off, just like you got to figure it out. You know what I mean? You have to catch up on your social skills. So if you're like one of those kids, which a lot of you guys probably are, because recording dudes and musicians and those types, I think it's important that you have to make that jump at some point in your life. You can't blame it on somebody else and saying, oh, I don't have social skills. Well, you need to fucking learn how to do it, and you need to go out and you need to put the time into learning how to do it. You need to study it a little bit. And more importantly, you need to practice and grow the ball as necessary to go for it. So damn, if I can do it, you can do it. And I was literally the shyest, most introverted people, hating person you can possibly imagine

Speaker 4 (00:36:12):

When, well, it's true whole. A lot of people say, well, it's who you know with spite in their voice and you should, but who you know is very true. And rather than looking at that as it must be nice to have connections like in a spiteful way, look at that as a goal as accepted, yes, who plays a huge part in whether or not you're going to succeed in life, let alone the studio business just who is huge and accept it and make it a goal to get to know people who can have a positive effect on your life and whose life you hopefully can have a positive effect on. But accept it, embrace it, love it. And Joey, what were you about to say?

Speaker 2 (00:37:00):

Oh, I was going to say, what I've had to learn is there's different personality types in this business, especially when you're working with a lot of bands and vocalists sort have the front men personality. A lot of them do. They have to, otherwise they wouldn't succeed. So if you couldn't tell from my intro to this episode, I'm a very calm and laid back person and vocalists are very outgoing and kind of in your face. So I've had to learn how to work with that, and I knew that it's a little bit of a game that you have to play. Maybe that's a negative way to put it, but basically you've got to, I mean, the basic point is we're trying to say you've got to be a people person, but beyond that, you've got to work with other people's personalities. You've got to find where you can fit into their life to where they're going to think of you when they're thinking about certain topics or subjects. I like to figure out what the vocalist thinks is funny. For example, I was actually hanging out with Ronnie Radkey in Los Angeles a little bit ago, and I found out that he kind of likes, there's this cup that I found on the internet that says, you can't sit with us, and that cup perfectly explains Ronnie Radkey. So I like to find those little things where I'm like, oh yeah, he'll think that's funny and occasionally toss those things over and that does so much for your business. It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (00:38:33):

Oh, lemme go back to something Joel said was when he just kind of flipped a switch in his head and went to that party, even though he was terrified to do it. One thing that I talk about all the time with people is when you have that twist in your stomach when something comes up that you don't want to do, that is almost always a great sign that you fucking need to go do it right now.

Speaker 4 (00:38:53):

Definitely approach that girl, go to that party.

Speaker 3 (00:38:56):

Oh yeah, dude, especially with, there's a lot of parallels between relationships and a recording studio. I could go into that, but it's a fun thing to compare sometimes.

Speaker 4 (00:39:06):

Well, relationships in life, that's true. They aren't separate in my opinion. I think that developing your social skills and being able to know more people, get along with more people, have people view you in a higher regard overall, that gives you a lot more confidence. There's a thing that happens that once you have all that going, you'll feel better about yourself and it'll be a lot easier to set a price that you're actually comfortable with because you'll know your value and people will know your value and you'll be able to communicate your value to those people a lot better. The

Speaker 3 (00:39:47):

Self-confidence thing is huge with pricing, because you talked about earlier the imposter syndrome. I've noticed a lot of people struggle with that. I actually recently surveyed my blog audience, what was their major problem? And a lot of the people struggle with confidence in pricing specifically. And so some of this is if you don't have confidence in first yourself, and then second the work you provide, you're going to always struggle with how to price yourself. Even if you become extraordinary at it, you're going to always struggle with it. And so I think it's an important part. This specific topic is important when it comes to pricing because you're not going to have the confidence to raise pricing and charge what your value is, not what the service is worth, but what the value is. There's a huge difference between the two, and it's a subtle distinction, but it's a huge distinction. And so if you can't get past the self-confidence thing, you're going to struggle with a lot of different aspects of the recording business. Well,

Speaker 6 (00:40:41):

I believe that even goes deeper. I don't want to jump too far off topic, but I just want to add that all the way down to the work you're doing When you're mixing, A lot of times what wins a mix off is not necessarily what the snare drum, it's mixing with confidence. When you walk in your mix and you're like, I'm going to fucking wreck this and I'm going to crush all everybody else that I'm going up against. Usually you win when you come in and you're overthinking it and you're like, oh, I got to go up against this guy and this guy, and they're really badass, and you psych yourself up, then you lose. So I mean, I think coming into a session, I know we're talking about pricing here, but I'm just saying you have to have confidence as a producer because when a band walks into your room or you're mixing their song or master and whatever you're doing, and they can feel that confidence working with you that you know that you're on top of your shit, it builds rapport with them right away and they trust you because they know that you care and they know that you know what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (00:41:29):

Bands can smell insecurity from a mile away. And if you have bands that are resisting what you're trying to put forth as far as ideas, if they're resisting you constantly, it probably, it could very well be an insecurity thing, and they can sense that. I feel like every band can sense any insecurities you're putting out. So if you're not confident in your interactions with a band, it's going to be a big struggle for you. With the communication side of things,

Speaker 2 (00:41:52):

When I do the contracts or when I'm talking to a band about pricing or the contract, whatever, I'm always going into it with a huge ego, but I'm not doing it in a negative way. And I think that's a really important distinction that we have to make here is leave your ego on the stage, but know that you do have a stage, right? There's a place for you to come up and put forth what you're bringing to the table. I mean, especially if you're getting clients the way I did, which is wait for people to come to you. I was waiting for, I didn't ever advertise. I didn't ever go after clients. People would just contact me. So in that regard, you have people that want to work with you, so you've already done the hard part. So now it's time to sort of take advantage of what you're good at.

(00:42:41):

You're being hired for a skill that you have people want to work with you. And I also approach mixing in the same way. My mindset when I'm mixing is I'm the best mixer on the planet earth. I'm going to have the best snare sound that anyone's ever fucking heard, but I leave that behind in the mixing room, and as soon as the song leaves my computer and goes out into the world, I'm not going on Facebook and being like, fuck everyone, this is the best mix, blah, blah, blah. That's the worst thing you could ever do, but you have to think that way when you're performing the skill or doing the task. This

Speaker 3 (00:43:20):

Is so off topic, but it wasn't, David Beith caught doing that in a ultimate metal form thread

Speaker 2 (00:43:25):

About

Speaker 3 (00:43:26):

Where he signed under a fake name and was defending his mixes with vengeance until someone finally kind of called him out on it.

Speaker 2 (00:43:34):

Yeah, it's a bad spiral to get into because what I think a lot of people lose sight of is that none of that shit fucking matters. It's all about, I mean, if you walk into the president of a label's office, what matters at that moment? What is the thing that you've done in your life for them to pay attention to you or even care about what you have to say? And so that comes down to milestones. All the milestones that you've done in your career are the things they're going to stand out and make you who you are and be the reason why people pay attention to what you've done. So all the bickering and stuff on Facebook can only have negative effects. I really don't think there's really much you can say in those situations that would become a milestone that someone important would even care about.

Speaker 4 (00:44:23):

So now these are all things though that apply when people are taking you seriously. But what about when you're first starting out and no one's taking you seriously? Let's also point out the scenario of the person who is overly confident before people take you seriously, and then you just think they're a chode. Like the people at Nam, I love that word, the people, Nam who come up to you with a million business cards and fuck sell. You, try to sell you on how awesome they are, and they're full of shit. You check them out on YouTube, they're mixes, and it's like, God, you suck. Stop talking.

Speaker 2 (00:45:00):

Yeah, I mean, here's the thing I think about that is I think the classiest and probably the most sexiest way to either find out about somebody or whatever is through when the work speaks for itself. You don't want to, I mean, you could advertise on Facebook and a lot of companies do, but it's different when you're talking about products. I think when it comes to collaborating and working on art together, I would rather want to know someone's name because of something they've done and just hearing about it or finding out about it through the art itself. I think that is the sexiest way for in this industry, for any of this stuff to happen. If

Speaker 3 (00:45:44):

You're looking at the recording studio world, I don't know about you guys. I assume it's relatively the same, but for me, 95%, actually a hundred percent of my work comes in from word of mouth. So it's from my work speaking for itself. But going back to the original question, which is what if you're starting out and you don't have that? Because every single album you put out, every single, every song, every band you work with, if you kill it, if you crush it, if you do a great job on it, that is a walking talking billboard for you. Every single band.

Speaker 2 (00:46:16):

That's exactly what I was saying.

Speaker 3 (00:46:17):

It is the best form of advertisement, but to get there, that's the key, is to get your foot in the door to speak. You have to have, well, I guess going back to the thing where you're overconfident, you have to have self-awareness to know where you really stand in the world, but you also have to be confident with that stance you take and price yourself so that if you are charging $50 a song, you don't want to stay there forever. But that's not a bad place to start. If you're just trying to get your foot in the door, you're going to learn a lot. You're going to build relationships, and if you kill it, you do an amazing job for that band. They're going to bring you more artists. So that first band I did brought me probably five or 10 more bands from that one $50 a song ep. And when you do that, it's just a snowball effect that slowly grows until you hit that avalanche point that Joey talked about earlier where it's just work pouring in and you're turning things down because they don't match your level. Now you are above those bands in a nice way, but really in the world, you have to have the self-awareness to know where you stand and the confidence to back that.

Speaker 4 (00:47:20):

Well, this goes back to people skills and social skills like we were talking about earlier, and it directly relates because one of the most important parts of having good people skills is the ability to read a situation and understand what what you're saying has on the people you're speaking with or communicating to. And this goes all the way up to being a performer. For instance, a great front man can read the audience and a great band will adjust the intensity of their set to go with the audience to connect with them better. So part of connecting with people has to do with you understanding where they're at. And so one of the best ways to not come off as just an overly arrogant piece of shit who can't back themselves up, can't back it up with actual product is to, like Brian said, self-awareness and awareness of the people around you and pay attention to how you're affecting the people around you. If you come off as super arrogant, people will give you signals back that you're turning them off that they don't want to talk to you anymore, and you need to pay attention to that stuff. So you

Speaker 3 (00:48:37):

Covered that in a comment on my studio's Facebook group, the six figure home studio community. I remember some

Speaker 4 (00:48:44):

Guy, oh yeah, I know what you're talking about,

Speaker 3 (00:48:46):

The guy talking about bands. I guess being standoffish with him and you kind of telling him, flipping it around on him and saying, it's probably a people skills thing. It's probably you're not reading the situation and you're probably offending the band and talking to them the wrong way and not picking up on the cues they're giving you.

Speaker 4 (00:49:01):

Yeah, that guy. Sometimes some of these comments, I don't know why they strike a nerve with me and I feel like I really need to get this through to people. Usually when they're like, I'm having this problem over and over and over. No one takes me seriously, and I've tried this. And you're like, well, what could you have done differently? It's like, I still don't know what to do. And then you try to offer a solution, and then their answer is, yeah, but I don't know what to do. And everything that you say they come back with, yeah, but I don't know what to do. It's kind of infuriating because it's like, dude, what you're doing right now is probably indicative of what you're doing that gets people not to listen to you, but you're not listening to what I'm saying. That's probably how you're approaching the bands that you're talking to.

(00:49:55):

I'm in this blog as people know who I am. I mean, this is Facebook group, they know who I am. I'm trying to help you. Do you know who I am? I'm trying to help you. Not that I'm like some big shit or something, but I play a role in these Facebook groups and he's not listening to me, so if he's not listening to me, he's probably definitely not listening to his clients. And so my guess is that the same behavior he was displaying to me is what was getting people not to listen to him. And so I feel like I need to get a little more intense with people like that to do what I guess Tony Robbins calls a pattern interrupt. Totally. Just break that state of mind that they're in and try to get them to get outside themselves a little and get a little perspective and realize, wait a second, maybe I have more control over the situation than I realize. Then it comes from me actually listening to what people are saying to me.

Speaker 6 (00:50:48):

Well, here's the thing. A lot of people, when you have a problem or something is outside of your life, you can't control all the external circumstances around you. So I feel like a successful person is going to go in and say, okay, I can't control all of these things, but maybe it's not all of these things that are creating the problem for me. Maybe it's me. So by putting the burden on yourself and saying, what can I do to change the situation or the way the situation is perceived or the way people react to the situation, that's really, I think, a great place to start. And it just goes back to the story I told where I was sitting down, I was depressed. I'm like, oh, people just don't like me. And I just realized that I wasn't being likable. I wasn't going out and being friendly. I was unapproachable. And I mean, you just got to work on that kind of mentality. I feel it's interesting,

Speaker 3 (00:51:34):

We're pretty far into this conversation so far, and I think we've touched on the actual skill of mixing maybe once, and it is partly because of my whole platform is based around the business side of things, but I think we've kind of shown a lot that most of what makes us successful, the four of us here, is not so much the mixing skills matter a lot. I know that, but a lot of it is what we've learned outside of the studio world. You mentioned Tony Robbins, a self-help guy. People may be turned off to that guy, but he knows what he's talking about and he has a lot of, he's fantastic. He has a lot of awesome content out there. Books and seminars and audios and courses. I think I'd be in interested to talk to you guys about what kinds of education do you guys do outside of the studio world? Do you read a lot, everything? Do you listen to podcasts? Yeah, of course. Everything, because I'm the same way. I feel like all of us are huge on self-education and one of my things is I listen to probably an audio book, a different audio book. Every week I try to be reading another book while I'm listening to the audio book. I take online courses of my own, not the ones I've made, but other people's courses. I've paid up to $2,000 for an online course to teach me a skill to use in my business. And

Speaker 6 (00:52:48):

So it's amazing you bring this up. I just had a long ass post about this yesterday on Facebook because that's awesome. I was just trolling out of the forums and I hate when somebody's offering some kind of informational course and then somebody's just like, oh, that's a fucking scam, that's a scam. And then on the next post, they're complaining about how they're unsuccessful, they're broke or they're not doing their dream and you're like, moron. If you would just sit down and actually listen to the fucking message instead of prejudging it, maybe you would learn something. Anytime I see somebody more successful than myself or have something that I don't want, I'm going to ask them and try to figure out and reverse engineer what they did because I want to be in their shoes. And I think that's something that's a massive commonality amongst all of us. I know Joey and Al and myself are all voracious readers, voracious chorus takers. I mean, I even listen to podcasts

Speaker 3 (00:53:36):

When I'm shopping

Speaker 6 (00:53:37):

So I can

Speaker 3 (00:53:38):

Maximize the time. So I said that the amount of there you go. If I'm working, I'll listen to music, but if I'm doing something mindless that I don't have to concentrate on, I am 100% of the time either listening to an educational podcast or a nonfiction audiobook. And that's just the way it

Speaker 6 (00:53:54):

Is.

Speaker 3 (00:53:54):

To touch on your point that you're talking about, the guy that was talking shit on the online courses or whatever, that's a dangerous mindset to be in. If you're like that, you need to check yourself because what I've seen more than anything else is the people that are like that. The people that are pessimistic and cynical about education or anyone that's charging for education, they're being passed up in life by the people who are actually taking use of that knowledge, making use of that knowledge and excelling their lives forward. Because anyone that just sits and bitches about anything is not getting ahead in life. They're just going to sit and bitch and wallow and sit in their misery. And then the guys that opportunity costs and then the guys that take things seriously, whether they pay or not, there's plenty of free resources out there or really cheap resources.

(00:54:37):

Books are incredible to educate yourself on a lot of different topics. Anything from social skills like the book, how to Win Friends and Influence People, it should be a prerequisite for anyone with a home studio. If you have not read that book, go fucking buy it right now and read it and that will improve your business. Probably 10, 20, 30, a hundred x on what you spend on that damn book. But to not take things seriously. Your education outside of when you graduate from school, which don't star me on college, taking that seriously, self-education is the reason you and I author. All four of us are sitting here now talking to a podcast that is listened to by thousands of people.

Speaker 4 (00:55:15):

Absolutely. The self-education thing, because I never did well in actual school, but I always valued my education super high. It was always super important to me. So since I can remember, I've always been consuming knowledge. I can't get enough, and it's not just about business. I want to know about history, I want to know all kinds of stuff, but it's kind of just like feed me more, feed me more, feed me more. It all impacts business in a very positive way. I have noticed that the guys that I know who are very, very cynical about this kind of stuff, like you said, they do get passed up a lot and that is true. I do see them on the sidelines a lot. There is the guys I know who are doing super cool things and moving forward in a futuristic way like this online stuff or guys that I know that are very entrepreneurially minded. They all share this insatiable appetite for knowledge.

Speaker 6 (00:56:29):

Is it any secret that we all get together and work together and natural? It's like a magnet. You know what I mean? When you meet somebody like that, you're like, oh, cool, that's like how I am. And then you're instant best friends for life. It's crazy. That's true. That's how we all ended up here doing this.

Speaker 3 (00:56:44):

It's because you are the average of your five closest friends. So do you want to hang around people that are going to suck you down and bitch a lot about nothing or are you going to be the person that is around people that are highly successful and that are pulling you up and everyone's scratching everyone else's back and everyone's helping everyone else be successful? Which of those two groups do you want to be a part of? I don't know about you, but I don't want to sit and watch Netflix all day every day. I want to be with a group of people that are out there doing cool shit.

Speaker 6 (00:57:09):

Well, McDonald's is hiring, so if any of you guys need a job, I got some applications.

Speaker 4 (00:57:13):

Well, on that topic real quick, I just need to say that I started pruning people out of my life at a very young age. Somewhere in my teens I started pruning out people that I felt had a negative influence on my progression. And that doesn't mean use people and cast them out when they're no longer needed, but I mean people who generally bitch too much or have a very negative vibe about them, I don't need that on me. I don't need them sucking the life out of me and I don't need their negativity impacting me because the world will give you enough negativity. Life will give you enough. You don't need extra.

Speaker 3 (00:57:59):

Nope.

Speaker 4 (00:58:00):

And if you surround yourself with positive people who inspire you, who you consider better than you or smarter than you, you'll rise up to meet them. And so I've just kind of always taken that attitude and I've been real hard ass about that, of trying to surround myself with inspiring people. And I mean, I may not be Mark Cuban or anything, but I've had a pretty successful life. And it comes in part from being around people who are successful and who I'm inspired by. I recommend that people do that with a vengeance

Speaker 6 (00:58:36):

And you stand out like a sore. Like I said earlier, I mean anytime you meet somebody that has those qualities, it's like a diamond because most people just don't care and they're totally apathetic and it's in a way it's frustrating and in another way it's depressing, but at the same way from a competitive sense, it's kind of exciting because you're like, cool, well, our team's got to compete with those people. But man, when you meet somebody that has that characteristic to them, it's like thinking from our point of view as business owners, you want that person on your team. You want to work with that person because that's what makes a great team that does really cool stuff. I mean, it's just a no brainer.

Speaker 3 (00:59:15):

I kind of want to challenge the listeners of this podcast. If you are struggling with what you're trying to accomplish, I guess with your studio or in your life in general, if you're really struggling with reaching your goals, I challenge you to look at the five people you spend most of your time with and really analyzing where they are in their life and whether they're bringing you up or whether they're dragging you down. Because if you wouldn't be happy in their place, meaning that you're going to eventually average out to be around their level, if you're not happy with where they are, it is not time to release them or fire them as friends, but it's time to look for people that are more like-minded and striving to be successful at the things they're working towards as opposed to people that are just going to bring you down because it's ultimately going to weigh heavily upon your shoulders if those are the kind of people you're hanging out with.

Speaker 6 (01:00:02):

Auditing your friends is something that's very important because I just had this conversation with one of our interns here last week. He is got a couple of friends that are kind of like, they're not going anywhere anytime soon. And we're like, you got to start hanging out with those. Stop hanging out with those dudes. They're not adding any value to your life. They may be good friends, they may be cool to go to the bar with, but in reality, what value are they creating for you? How are they challenging you to be great when they themselves are not self challenging themselves? If that makes sense.

Speaker 4 (01:00:32):

Well, let me add one more thing onto Brian's challenge, which is, so say you take a look at the people around you and it are like, damn, these aren't the kinds of people I want to be around. I am not like this. I'm better than this, but how come the people I know aren't part of that group I want to be a part of? And it's like, well, maybe you're not there yet. Maybe you need to improve yourself so that people who are doing the things you want to do accept you into their circles. And how do you achieve that? Well, one thing you could do is to start consuming more knowledge more frequently and applying it to your life. That is the

Speaker 3 (01:01:13):

Amen to that.

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):

Yeah, so analyze whether or not you actually would fit into these groups and that we were talking about earlier comes into play. It doesn't mean that you should feel like an imposter whenever you're around someone more successful or coward at people that are more successful, but just take a long, hard honest look and say, if I was at the table with these four people that I admire, would I have, we're all out at dinner, would I have anything to add? And if the answer is no, then maybe you need to do some work on that. And just to get redundant here, or not to get redundant, but you can just start doing like what Brian said, consume a book a week. That is a great way to start. Find a course that offers what you're looking for, buy it and start consuming that and apply it and start looking for new friends.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):

I think most of all, you have to realize that if what you're doing now isn't getting you to where you want to be, a change is going to have to take place. And a lot of people will be like, okay, I'm going to read a book and it's going to change everything all around, but that's not the type of change we're talking about. We're talking like a literal change in your life, changing the way you think about books to the point where you want to read them because you need them. That's the kind of change I think that's required, especially when you're stuck in an infinite loop or a pattern that's either going downhill or just being stagnant. If you want to increase your profits or you want to be able to charge more, you want to get better at mixing whatever it is, it's going to require almost a change in your DNA. And that's the one thing I see a lot of people making a big mistake is they'll get all hyped up about listening to podcasts and they'll listen to a few episodes and then they stop or they'll buy one course and the course doesn't work right away and they give up. You have to really modify yourself.

Speaker 4 (01:03:28):

What else can I say to that? I agree. There

Speaker 6 (01:03:30):

It is. Completely. Yeah, that was it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):

Awesome.

Speaker 6 (01:03:34):

Half court shot end of the game.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):

I wanted to kind of wrap this up a little bit and I wanted to say something about the pricing. Go back to that. If you have to put it into a package, what I would say is if you're working for 50 bucks a song, make it sound like a hundred bucks a song or make it sound like a thousand bucks a song and keep doing that until you can increase your price because someone will be willing to pay you more once you get there. That's so true.

Speaker 4 (01:04:02):

Yeah, I completely agree over deliver. The more value that, I mean, value is one of these words that now that every single blogger ever, and I don't mean us because we're special, but every single blogger ever talks about value, delivering value, and it's become a cliche. It's almost like one of these just assumed phrases that people use and it's kind of lost a little bit of its meaning, but it's a cliche, but it's so true. At the end of the day, that's what it all comes down to. The more value you deliver to people, the more valuable they will view you and the better your life will be.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):

The way I've heard it put is that money is just a direct representation of how much value you provide in the world. Agree that. So if you're not making much money, you're probably not providing much value to anyone. Dude, that's powerful.

Speaker 6 (01:04:56):

I also look at it like this. If you want to talk about specific strategies for your clients, try to deliver three x value on what they're being paid. So when they leave your studio, they're not just getting a recording, they're getting mentoring, they're getting career advice, they're getting experience. Try to give your clients something way in excess of when they come in and what they hired you to do. I mean, it really pays off dividends in I think your long game and especially if you're getting return customers.

Speaker 3 (01:05:20):

Yeah, I had someone ask me this question. They said, I have bands coming in with really low budgets. What are some things I can do to speed up the process in the studio? And I was like, if you're not making much money in the studio, you need to do whatever you can to do the best possible work you can, which means spending three times the amount of time in the studio so you can start charging more. It's the completely opposite mindset. You're not trying to figure out where to cut quarters to make more money per hour. You're trying to figure out where to provide more value so you can charge more and not have these cheap ass bands come into your studio.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):

And the only place appropriate to really cut the corners, I feel like is on the overhead or

(01:05:59):

Get your expenses down. But don't do that on the work. Don't do it on the way you approach the work. At the end of the day, it is art and it is someone else's art. So I guess you could argue what we do is art as well. But music is a product, especially when it's in this industry. Now, anytime someone edits themself or even worries about releasing music, then they are doing it for profit. And so I would say the best thing you can do to stay in business like we've been saying over and over again, is just be valuable. It's huge. That goes for anything in business.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):

Also be attractive and don't be unattractive. That helps.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):

Not literally. But yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:06:50):

No, I'm being literal. Just be attractive. No, I'm joking. Shitty advice from Brian.

Speaker 4 (01:06:56):

So Brian, thank you so much for coming on.

Speaker 3 (01:07:00):

Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (01:07:01):

I know that this blog, this podcast could have probably gone on for about six more hours, so you're definitely a like-minded individual and it's been awesome having you on here. Thank you so much, and hopefully we can do this again sometime.

Speaker 3 (01:07:17):

Absolutely. I was more than happy to be on here

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):

For all the people who've stuck through the whole episode. Thank you guys for listening. By the way, Brian's going to show you and tell you about all the ways that you can find him and get more value from him because I know you've got a lot of stuff out there, so fire it off.

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):

So for the business side of recording studios or home studios specifically, I have a blog, which is the six figure home studio.com, which has a bunch of articles on there about different topics from tax to starting up to, I actually go over my income from one year income and expenses and taxes from one year. If you want to see kind of behind the scenes of the numbers behind a studio,

Speaker 4 (01:07:53):

That's a great blog article by the way. Love that one.

Speaker 3 (01:07:55):

Absolutely. And then I also have, if you want to just get the ebook for free and skip the blog, you can go to the six figure home studio.com/ebook. And then I also have, we were kind of touching on this specifically Joey's situation where you had super low overhead. I have A-P-D-F-I just made that goes along with another article I wrote called the PDF's called Lean Home Studio, and it's just talking about starting a studio up with the least amount of money possible. So if you want to get that, you can get it at the six figure home studio.com/the Lean Home studio. That's LEAN lean. And then if you want to know more about the mixing side of things for heavy music, if you're a nail the mix fan, you're probably like this, but it's from shit to gold.com. There's some free videos on there. And then I open a course up a few times a year for people that are interested in going deeper with that.

Speaker 4 (01:08:43):

Highly recommended.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):

And then also a recording studio website.com if you need a studio, a website for your studio. That is a huge part of positioning. So I recommend doing that as a free course if you are interested.

Speaker 2 (01:08:54):

So guys, dive into that stuff. It's going to help you out a lot, I'm sure, especially in this very saturated and very competitive market. We all have to take things to a new level. It's not just about being really good at recording anymore. So hopefully you guys will

Speaker 6 (01:09:10):

Do it now. Don't wait.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):

Exactly. Shut this podcast off. Stop listening to me talk and go fucking go to the website. All right. You will learn something. Thank you, Brian.

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):

We'll talk to you soon. Thanks for having me, guys. The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is brought to you by Focal Audio, the world's reference speaker. For over 30 years, focal has been designing and manufacturing loudspeakers for the home speaker, drivers for cars, studio monitors, for recording studios and premium quality headphones. Visit focal.com for more information to ask us questions, make suggestions and interact. Visit URM academy slash podcast and subscribe today.