music business » Darryl Gregory Music

MSi9W – Week 8.1 ~ REAL! LIVE! NETWORKING!!!

Aug 252010

If I could stay in my studio and compose all day I would. If I could go out and gig when I wanted and be compensated fairly for it, I would. If I never had to “sell” or “brand” myself I would be content with just doing my thing. If I never had to “network” I’d be a happy musician. If I could live in a dream… well there’s the rub. Networking is the pin prick to my bubble-dream of the perfect artistic life.

As I stated in the previous blog post, going through this course is like going through therapy. This has been all about me facing my fears and moving past them in order to get my music heard and appreciated. It’s like I have this beautiful thing for you to see, but you can’t see it because I’m afraid to tell you about it. Because I have told myself – “I don’t network…”

Networking and talking about what I do has never been easy for me. Insecurity, fear of rejection, an unfounded feeling of inferiority have lead me to avoid promoting my music in the past. It has only been recently that I’ve adopted a paradigm shift and an attitude readjustment so that I view my music as a product and a business as well as an artistic expression.

In chapter 8, Ariel gives practical advise on the why’s and how’s of networking and how to approach people in networking/social situations. The advice is simple:

Be a Listener
Know What to Ask For
Be a Gatherer
Have a Plan ~ Be Prepared
Follow Up

They work. I’ve tried them. They’re easy. They work.
Let me share some recent examples.

Open Mic
I went to an Open Mic in Cleveland where I knew absolutely no one. I had just played a show to a packed room of fans two nights previous to this and now I was going to play for total strangers. I went there with one goal in mind and that was to get 3 email addresses from a crowd of strangers and to play a few tunes (that’s two really…).

I succeeded in getting 2 email addresses and the name of the person that books the coffeehouse where I played. 75% plus a bonus, not bad.

I got one email address while I sat with a couple as I waited to play. They had just happened to be there to get a coffee and hear some live music. I started the chat by asking them what style of music they liked since we were hearing a bunch of different styles. I told them I got compared to Hiatt and Springsteen a lot and because they seemed interested I asked them to be on my email list. I also gave them a CD because they were a cool couple. I got the other email address after I played my 2 songs from someone who came up to me and told me they liked my music.

Both came as a result of my listening to the other person: what type of music they liked, what they thought of my music, what they were doing at the open mic and how they liked the coffee. I then asked them if I could add them to my email list because they were, in my opinion, the type of people I wanted on my list and because we had struck up a sort of relationship. They both said yes.

Serendipitous Gig
My wife and I were visiting my sister-in-law at her office while in Ohio recently. She’s a counselor at a community college in Ohio and as we were leaving I asked my sister-in-law if she knew the director of student affairs (plan). She surprised me when she not only said yes, but then said – Let’s go meet her, she’s just down the hall. As I walked down the hall to meet this woman I began creating a goal or two – 1) get a paying gig; 2) get a business card and a date to talk later.

My sister-in-law introduced me as her brother-in-law the musician and her sister as her sister the motivational speaker. This got some laughs, and I was asked what style of music I played and my wife talked a little about her credentials, but then the conversation turned serious. The DSA asked both my wife and I to participate in the school’s beginning of the year convocation. When is it we asked? The day after TOMORROW!!! We just needed to send her a bio, tax info and an invoice. AN INVOICE!?! Goal #1!

OK, that was a bit weird to just happen into a gig like that, but it wouldn’t have happened at all if I hadn’t been thinking about networking even when I was just visiting my sister-in-law. I think this brings us to the moral of the story: Always Be In Networking Mode. Does that mean that I always have to be selling myself? Should I approach every conversation with a goal in mind? No, but it does mean that I should have my radar up for the possibilities that are hidden around the corner. You never know who you are talking to.

After the Community College gig I followed up with the DSA and she not only signed up on my newsletter list but she invited me back to play again as a featured performer.

Networking is something that I find I have to work at and it takes practice and strategies to get better just like my songwriting. The idea of having a goal before going into a networking situation makes it more manageable for me. If I achieve my goal, I can relax a bit, get a drink and sit down.

I have two gigs coming up this week that will place me in front of audiences that don’t know me. I have to come up with some goals, put my finger to my head and look beyond my fears of networking because there really isn’t anything to be afraid of.

Rustbelt Mini Tour Day -1

Articles 1 Response »

Aug 112010

photo by Tain Gregory

I’m setting out on a little “tour” of sorts and I’m already in the hole. Well, I need to be clear about this and that before I say something so negative as “in-the-hole”.

I’ve never toured as a solo musician before and I was planning on doing a small 4 gig tour this summer that took me from Sandy Hook, CT to Cleveland, OH and back. I successfully booked the Cleveland show and anointed it my “anchor gig”. It was almost too easy to book it and the venues was located right in the middle of the community where I grew up so I knew I would have an easy time getting an audience. I then went on line to search for gigs along the I-80 corridor and to solicit house concerts from people in Ohio. Here is where I ran into a wall.

I found several appropriate venues along I-80, sent my EPK, followed up and got nothing. Well not exactly nothing. I had a very strange email exchange with a booker from Williamsport. He emailed me several times saying – I just found your email what exactly do you do? – I go this from him three times and I told him three times what I did. After the third time I never heard from him again.

I then got an email from a booker in Pittsburgh who was very apologetic about not seeing my emails earlier and offered me a gig on the way to Cleveland. This booking was a little late so I didn’t really get to do my media press as I did for Cleveland, but I’ve been tweeting. So I’m 2 for 4 and I still could get a house concert while I’m in Ohio, you never know.

I was being picky about where I went for these gigs. I didn’t want to go to far afield because I have my wife and son traveling with me. Yes, I’m on the road with my family in tow and I’m combining this with a visit to the family relations in Ohio. So is it a “tour”? Probably not in the traditional sense, but I am traveling and playing while I visit family. This is an experiment, a toe in the pond to test the water.

Getting back to my financial declaration: Why am I “in the hole”? Well since we’re all traveling together we are taking the 10 year old Subaru Outback that needed new rear brakes and four new tires. The bill? Brakes and tires = $700. I’m in the hole.

But my rationalization is that this needed to be done to the car anyway for the upcoming school commuting season. This is the car that my wife uses to take my son to school and back in the sun, rain and snow of hilly Connecticut. But if you think about it in terms of a working/traveling solo musician: I’m in the hole. That’s what scares me about touring. I think the romance of traveling to places where I haven’t played is alluring, but the reality of not making money to pay for the travel is sobering.

Please check back in as I blog from the road. We’ll be in Pittsburgh tomorrow where I will play at Howlers Coyote Cafe at 9 PM. Travel on Friday to Ohio. Perform in Middleburg Heights (a suburb of Cleveland) at Seekers Coffeehouse on Saturday.

MSi9W – Week 6 (2nd ed.) ~ Newsletter and Fan Communication

Music Success in 9 Weeks 1 Response »

Aug 052010

Week 5 (1st ed.) Week 6 (2nd ed.)

Week 5 has come around at just the right time! Newsletter time! Click here to check out this month’s issue and please sign up!

To begin I have to make a confession. Bless me Father for I have sinned – the SIN of SINS in marketing and direct mailing: I purged my email list. Yes… I did. I threw it in the trash, right-clicked on my mouse and it was gone. (OK you PR people, you can get up off the floor now…) Let me tell you why I did this and then you may judge me.

My wife and I moved to Connecticut after living in NYC for many years. While in the city, I had been “sort of playing out” as a solo singer-songwriter, playing a lot of trombone in small orchestras, I was active in a composer’s collective that wrote mostly for Indonesian Gamelan, I was writing for theater and I played bass as a sideman in a couple of rock bands. I was not Darryl Gregory the guy that plays “Hard-edged Country, with a soft heart” and I was not promoting myself as myself.

The names I collected for my list were occasional and varied. Some people liked my serious compositions and some liked my acoustic guitar playing and then some liked to come to the bars to see the band I was playing with. It was a mixed up list and when I trashed it I did so thinking that it couldn’t do anything for me. I wanted to start anew. I wanted a list with names of people that had come to see Darryl Gregory and then wanted to be connected to that entity.

A year ago I started on my songwriting and performing path with renewed energy and a more focused plan. The purging of my email list was just a reaction to my symptom of wanting to start all over.

But I didn’t throw everybody off the island. I kept close friends, a few true fans and some family on the list, but I that only added up to about 30 people. In the last 9-months I’ve grown the list to around 125. I know it will grow as I perform more and get better at collecting names, but I feel that I know what to do with those names once I get them because they signed up to be a part of the Darryl Gregory experience – I’m thinking like a business.

So now that I know who is on my list I can talk to them much more directly than before. The main way I communicate with this list is via my newsletter. I’ve put a lot of time into crafting my newsletter and I still feel like it’s a work in progress and I learn something each time I put it out. It goes out once a month whether I feel I have something to say or not, but usually I do (have something to say that is…).

The key to communication with fans, as I’ve learned from Ariel Hyatt and others, is to be a giver, not a getter. You should be a consistent bringer of news and tidbits about yourself and your services. You should also interact with the reader and ask them to do things for you and with you. This last bit is what I’m still working on and it was reinforced by reading Chapter 5 of MSi9W. After reading and re-reading Chapter 5, I decided to ask my readers help me out with my next CD project. I’ve invited them to following my blog postings about the CD process, listen and comment on song demos and help me decide which songs will go on the CD.

I always have my gig schedule and I start off with an introduction that I try to write as if I had that person sitting right in front of me. I always include a blurb about what I’m listening to on my iPod and I recycle my blog posts in my newsletter which is a great way to get readers to go back to my website. One huge piece of advice that I have for newsletter writing is to proofread and rewrite – yes I’m a teacher. I can’t believe all the mistakes I catch when I proof my writing.

One last thing about getting the emails out to your list: management software. I’ve tried several “list management” services to get the letter out and I’m still up in the air about them. Right now I’m using Constant Contact just because it is very easy to use and their templates were simple and direct. CC also has a good name collection system that allows me to give away my mp3’s via email. It’s drawback is the expense. There are cheaper management systems out there like ReverbNation, but they’re not as flexible nor do they have as many analytical tools as Constant Contact or Vertical Response or MailChimp. So you get what you pay for or don’t pay for. Here’s a good site to help you compare services www.email-marketing-options.com

Let me know what you think of this month’s newsletter and I’m off to Chapter 6.

MSi9W – Week 3.1 ~ optimizing your website

Music Success in 9 Weeks 2 Responses »

Jul 232010

Week 3 of Ariel’s challenge was deceptive. The challenge is all about optimizing your website and as I read through the chapter I was thinking to myself – I’ve already done this… Next chapter – But hold on a minute there, let’s really read the book and go over what is being said step by step without the ego getting in the way. I’m glad I did.

First of all, I do my own web design, so there is no one to blame but myself if anything is amiss. I just recently redesigned my site to bring it up to snuff with what is happening in the online world: interaction. The key components are conversations, relationships and engagement. I had a static html site that had music and picture and a bio PLUS I had a blog. Both of those entities were not serving their master (me) as they should have so I combined them into one site using WordPress and an amazingly customizable theme called Suffusion by Sayontan Sinha. Now my blog and html pages are in the same place and each drives the other. When people read my blog they check out my music and when they come to check out my music they read my blog. The other great thing about this set-up is that the site is not static – the content changes as I post new blog material. This attracts the search engine bots (SEO hoo ha) which in turn increases my web presence.

So as I stepped into Week 3 I didn’t think there was anything new to learn, but it was good to go back over the site and see if improvements could be made.

Step 1 – Add your pitch to your homepage
Well right off the bat I had something to do! I redid my header with the pitch and loaded it back up. Now it has “Hard-edged country – with a heart” smack dab in the middle! I also updated my Twitter page and Facebook fanpage with the pitch I worked on in week 2. I also added a music widget to my front page that stays with each page click as well as having a music/discography page. The problem with these is that they are Flash based and don’t show up on iPhones. Something to be tackled.

Step 2 – Site loads in less than 3.5 seconds
Yep – Thanks WordPress!

Step 3 – No Flash Intros
Been there, done that. I spent a lot of time with previous sites, learning Flash programming and in essence becoming an animator – not what I want to do. Flash does not allow Google to search your site, it loads slowly and doesn’t show up on iPhones.

Step 4 – Have a consistent look and feel throughout the Net
The cool thing about WordPress is that it takes care of CSS issues for you. Therefore your site looks consistent from page to page. I’m still working on the consistency from entity to entity. My Twitter page is not exactly like my website, but it has the same vibe. Facebook is what it is and it can’t be changed, but the content is consistent.

Step 5 – Give Away an Exclusive, FREE mp3/video
What’s in it for me? (wiifm?) I try to look at my site from a fan’s perspective. what do I get for signing up to this guy’s list? After I sign up is there anything else to get for free? I have satisfied those questions with a capture box that gives 2 FREE unreleased songs for signing up and then I give away other freebies via my newsletter (week 5).

One thing that I am still grappling with is the ease of signing up. Right now I require a first and last name, email, city and zip. I want that info so I can target my emails, but is that asking too much of people? I personally wouldn’t mind giving it, but perhaps I should make it optional. What do you think?

Step 6 – Make it clear, set them at ease
The process of signing up for my list is clear. I use Constant Contact for my list management and after they sign up in the capture box it takes them to a splash page that asks for the required info and also to confirm their email address. Then they get a welcome letter with the link to the free tracks. It’s hard to tell what is too much for some people. How many clicks is too many before they abandon the process?

All the fans on my list know that they can unsubscribe at any time. Constant Contact is great about making that clear. It’s disturbing that I still see musicians (that I personally know) still using the old email paradigm: fill up the To space and hit send. I then see my email along with 75 other email addresses in the note about the next gig. In this day and age that’s just bad form.

Conclusion
It was helpful to go over this checklist while looking at my site. Since I design my sites I always ask fans, my wife, fellow musicians and anyone who will assist me to take a look at the site and give me feedback – like having a song critiqued – you need different eyes to look at the site.

Please let me know what you think! Leave a comment with your advice, critique or <praise>. Oh and please sign up for my newsletter at thee top of the page – you get 2 FREE tracks!

MSi9W – Week 2.1 ~ my 15 second pitch… strike one!

Music Success in 9 Weeks 2 Responses »

Jul 152010

When you’re trying to figure out who you sound like don’t ask yourself. Don’t rely on your own ear which is being filtered through your ego and your cranial bones. Ask your fans, your audience your wife your brother and even the guy who really dislikes your music. Ultimately it’s the people to whom you are playing that are the judges of what your music and voice remind them of and how they can make the connection. And it’s all about the connection.

At the beginning of the year I asked my mailing list, posted a question on Face Book and even emailed a few close friends to ask them who they thought I sounded like and who my songs reminded them of. Here’s the list I got:

Johnny Cash
Bruce Springsteen
Greg Brown
Steve Earle
John Mellencamp – (one I had never considered, but intrigued me)
Tom Petty (?!?)
Tom Waits (hmm…)
Fred Eaglesmith
The Jayhawks (sound-wise)
John Hiatt

Some of these choices I was aware of and some not so (like the Mellencamp suggestion). This list has come in handy not only in crafting my pitch, but also in the way I interact with my audience and how I use social media. When I play a in new area I will search Twitter for people who are listening to these artists and follow them. I’ve gotten a few (not a lot) people to come to gigs based on this information.

As for the pitch. I figured that my sound is an amalgam of these artists and there are some things they do that I do as well and you can “taste” that in my songs. So I thought about taste and recipe and cooking and I came up with this:

Take a little Mellencamp
Flavor with Springsteen and Earle
Throw in some Cash and a pinch of Hiatt
Cook it up over a hot flame
Sounds like Darryl Gregory
Tasty!

I like it and it’s catchy. I can say it to someone who asks what I sound like and I get a laugh and the beginning of a conversation. But as I was working on the second week of Ariel’s book I decided that I also needed something a bit more to the point and a bit more hook-y. My music leans towards the alt.country side of the dial and when I play with a full band it can be quite swampy. Yet… I have a bunch of songs that are just plain sweet. So I came up with this tag line:

Darryl Gregory
Hard edged country with a soft heart

So Ariel suggests that we commit to the pitch. We should put it on newsletters, Face Book, Twitter, press releases, in fact everything we create that comes in contact with a possible listener (check out the updated header on this blog). This is something that I will put into action and in fact this has inspired me to create a new business card. I already had one for my studio (Blue Cave Studios) but not one for me as a performer. I went to VistaPrint.com and put one together. Here it is:

I like being referred to as a raconteur – a story teller. I didn’t order a lot of these cards, so let me know what you think and if there are any tweaks you would suggest.

~Darryl

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