April 20, 2022 • 26 mins
Curtis returns in this deep dive to talk about the finances needed to record at a studio, best practices for up-and-coming artists and how studios get paid by the artist. He shares his personal thoughts on what he thinks is the best asset for any artist.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. On today's deep dive,
we are joined by Curtis Daniel, the Third. Hey, Curtis,
(00:22):
welcome back to the podcast. So excited to have you
here again. Thanks for having me. Is honored to be
here all right. In case you missed our previous episode
with Curtis, Curtis Daniel is the co founder and CEO
of Patchwork Studios. He shared his story about developing Patchwork
Studios and spoke about some of his favorite and most
memorable studio sessions. So Curtis, welcome back to the show.
(00:45):
Thanks for having me. All right, Curtis, there are several
inspiring entrepreneurs that want to become the next big name
studio executive, so really glad to have you on the
podcast today. And we're gonna deep dive into some of
the nuts and bolts of how you've created did such
a successful studio over the years. So let's go back
to the beginning stages. In our last episode, you talked
(01:06):
about some of the pitfalls in terms of like getting
a space, having a lease, et cetera. What are some
tips that you can offer to anyone who wants to
start their own recording studio. Now, I think the biggest thing,
um uh, you know, I talk in terms of business,
even if it's not a studio, but um, I think
(01:26):
a lot of people seem like that. They I think
people have the misconception that your personal credit doesn't matter
when you open it up a business. And even though
that we're you know, we're a corporation and we have
several ll c s, everything get reduced down to the
lowest common denominator, which was which was your credit. And
so your credit is going to affect, you know, your
(01:48):
access to capital. And even if you can't get alone
and you've got a high interest rate, it's gonna put
a lot of pressure on you as a new business.
And when you know, we had been in here and
and we were refinancing the deal, and I remember one
of the deal breakers was when I kept asking them
for like a line of credit. You know, I'm like,
you're giving us, you know, millions of dollars and I
(02:10):
want a hundred and fifty thousand on a lot of credit.
And the and the bank kept saying why and I said, man,
there are fortunate five hundred companies like four and Delta
American Express, and none of them operate without a line
of credit because without it, if you have slow pay
or a down term, man, you end up getting foreclosed
on and out of business when all you needed was
(02:32):
like a bridge loan. So I would tell people to
to focus on yourself and make sure personally you're financially
solid mania credit score and stuff like that. And then
if you are gonna have to borrow money from an institution, um,
don't just get enough money to open your business. Get
enough money to uh TO to to support slow times
(02:55):
and cash flow so that you can stay available to
receive your blessings down the line. And that's kind of
like the foundation. It's kind of like if you start bad, man,
you you you rush in the open already behind. Yeah,
you're under pressure, and then you're not gonna perform because
instead of worrying about your customers and your product, you're
worried about generating enough money to get that bank off
(03:16):
your back. So, yeah, get enough money, get enough money
to open, and get enough money to sustain yourself if
you hit a rough patch. You talked about that in
sort of our last episode, how it's hard to navigate,
especially in this industry. You know, people want to come in,
they want to record, but they don't want to pay
you until you get paid. And so this idea of
being really intentional with you know, having a little bit
(03:39):
of access to credit and capital and making sure you
have money to bridge those long days. How do you
have any thoughts on how you've been able to collect
from artists because artists, you know, their money flow is
tight sometimes too. Yeah. So for us, you know, we
were end uh you know when we first we were
really good, and so we we get a lot of
(04:00):
people that want to work here, and then you know,
our price point kind of kind of prices us out
of a certain amount of reff raff per se. And
so for us, a lot of times, a lot of
business we're doing we're not even doing it with the artists.
We're doing it with the labels or the administrators at
the labels. So there's an admin person that's in the
office that can see this artist's whole budget. You know,
(04:23):
they can see the production budget, the video budget, the
every budget that they have, and so you know, typically
we may get a phone call from an artists, a
manager or an artists as an artist wants to work,
and then we need to make an estimate and get
approval from the record label, and the record label will
issue us a p O, which is a purchase order.
(04:44):
So basically, you know, they have a budget and they're like, okay,
well you know justin Timberlake is gonna be a patchwork
for seven days. Um, it's dollars a day and that's
fourteen thousand dollars. They don't pull that fourteen thousand dollars
out of the budget and set it to the s
and then when we send our bill in we kind
of guaranteed to get paid. So that's how we deal
(05:05):
with labels, um with independent artists. When they call, you
can call up here to book a session. We'll put
it on hold, but it won't be confirmed until you
pay a deposit, which is of your total, and then
before you start working, you have to pay the balance off. Now,
what I will say is the record labels don't care,
like you know. They they take the attitude that they'll
(05:27):
pay you if they need you again. So we were
we've we've been threatened many times because we have a
collection agency and I don't care. If you're the biggest
record label on earth, you don't. When you don't, yeah,
when you don't pay me, I'll send them to collections.
And so we've been threatened. They try settlements and we
don't take them. And so what it ends up doing
(05:50):
is it's kind of like you can either get taken
advantage of a whole bunch of times, or you can
teach them that you're not gonna get taken advantage of
one good time and then pay you. Like they know
they know to pay us, because I'd be like, man, well,
you know, I really don't care about you being the
client if you don't pay, And they'll threaten and be like, hey,
I'm gonna tell all the other artists that you took
(06:11):
us the collections. And I said, well, I'm gonna tell
all other artists that you don't. Yeah, so you know,
a bad client. We don't care about them, you know
what I mean. If they're a bad client, then man,
we by the time we sent them the collections, we've
called you, we've emailed you, we've established that we've done
the work. You just you just being a jerk about it.
So it's not emotional. Well we'll send you the collections
(06:32):
and then and then don't call us. And I think
I want people to understand is this is a business.
You know, it might be something you're super passionate about
being in the recording industry, but it's a business. So
it's not just you and your homeboys. You're like, we
have a back office, we have a collections agency, we
have admins like. So for those of you out there
who are looking to get into this, it's a business
(06:53):
and you always have to structure your business to make
money and do the things that needs to do. So
I appreciate that. Let you said that. The sad part
is if you are a new studio they're looking for you,
you're gonna get You're gonna you're gonna be get all
the kind of not hot producers and artists that's gonna
(07:15):
come through and try to run through you because you're
gonna be so desperate to try to get a name,
to get a client base. And they I just see
it every time a new studio open, Oh, such and
such as over here, such and such as over here,
and I already know they ain't getting paid because you know,
eventually the studio people will call me and ask how
to deal with the situation. And I feel bad for
(07:35):
them because that's their dream and that's their business that
you got these people that's just running through them. They
don't know anything about how the pos work, how to
collect money upfront and all this stuff or whatever, and
they dang sure they don't have a collection agency. So
these people you dealing with artists who ain't even giving
you your real name. I mean, all you know is
this is producer, little little whoever. And then you don't
(07:58):
have any information that who comes in records tell you
he's gonna bring you your money and then he's gone,
you know what I mean. And that's where messed up
a lot of these studios. Man, they get ran through
by by a bunch of people, but ghosts in the industry. Well,
you know what I'd be like, they're not working here
for a reason, right, And it ain't And it ain't
because we're not doing our job. They're not working here
(08:20):
probably because they can't pay their bills. And it's a
reason why they come into your studio now, because they're
trying to hustle you. So interesting, because I feel like
network and networking and who you know plays a big
role in being successful. In the recording industry, what do
you say to like the early artists or sorry, the
(08:40):
early studio companies that are trying to launch, Like, are
there really great ways that have proven out to how
you know, so that they can build their reputation, build
a business and not fall into the pitfalls of like, hey,
I worked with these ghosts artists that came in because
I think it's it's a hard balance. Yeah, I mean
it's really about you know, when we when we got started. Um,
(09:00):
I went around this twenty six years and I promise
you I've never named this person. I'm still not gonna
name them. But I went to a studio and I
was trying to figure out how do you do your raids,
how do you charge, how do you pay people? And
that lady was so means she would not tell me anything,
and so it forced me to read and learn how
(09:21):
to do it on our own. And so it kind
of scarred me to the point where I said, you know,
if we ever get in a position where people are
looking at us like we're the leader, I'm gonna change that.
I'm going to share the information. And I personally feel
like if we have more than one great studio in Atlanta.
Then it makes us better. So all these studios that
(09:42):
that come behind us, most of the time, they'll come
in and I'll sit with them. They'll ask can they
bring their architects in and look at our studio. I'll
let them see them. I'll show them our plans. I'll
tell them who we used to do, certain things, where
we got equipment from, who did financing, who doesn't. I'm
I'm give them a session report and be like, you
need one of these. I'm gonna tell them what they
(10:04):
gotta do in the in voices. So it's really to
the point where it's almost kind of like, you know,
pride comes before the fall. So if you are opening
up a new studio and you have some questions and
you want to know something, they'd ask. But if if, if,
if you're taken the approach that hey, I'm gonna try
to beat patchwork or I'm gonna try to crush them,
(10:24):
and I'm gonna be in competition with them, then you're
probably gonna bump your head if I feel like you're
making your own karma at that point. And I think
you know, probably one of the things that has made
you so successful in this is that people gravitate to that.
They see that you're out here trying to help other people.
You've created educational classes, masterclasses on how to be successful
(10:44):
and not only like lifts you up, and then you know,
what is it? The rising tile raises all boats. Yeah.
I felt like it really was more evident during like
when this pandemic hid, because you know, we had a
lot of people who who wouldn't give independent and artists
and producers the time of day, big artists and big labels,
and then when all that show money shutting down, next thing,
(11:06):
you know, you see your biggest artist online talking about
I'll review your music. And I always tell people customers
are more intelligent than that. They know that you've been
about that bs all these few years, and you you
can go back and be like, well if I trace
patchwork back to they've been sharing information and then been
(11:27):
doing the same thing. So throughout the pandemic, we we
just became more authentic because it was more fakes out there.
And I thought it was a blessing because people realized
that certain people was only doing stuff. As soon as
this stuff ended and turned back around them, people have
probably changed their phone number and never talked to you again,
it was only doing it because you know they got
(11:48):
their toad smashed, you know what I mean, And it
wasn't authentic, and um, you know when you you can't
fool people like that for twenty six years if it's
not real. So you know, we've been consistent and it's
paid off over the long haul. Okay, So in running
the studio, what are some of the most critical hires
or team members that you have on your team? On ours?
(12:10):
Is mine? The first thing was because I was the
manager and when we first started, I wasn't in the
music industry, and I thought that the artist was the
most important person. And then I thought that the producer was.
And and after we did our first couple of sessions,
because back in the days we were on tape, we
were on analog a real I quickly realized that the
m v P is the engineer. The artist his job,
(12:34):
and the producer couldn't do his job without the engineer.
And I was one of the things that we brought
to the industry is that we were pretty much the
first studio to hire staff engineers and not make them
independent contractors. And what that did for our engineers is
they started getting w two's, they was getting benefits, they
was able to get their cars and their houses, and
so we attracted the best engineers. That when artists wanted
(12:57):
to work with the best engineers, they told the artists
we only worked that patchwork. So are critical our whole business.
For these years, we've been known for our engineering. We
attract the best students from some of these schools because
we've got a good program that we can take them
from an intern to a Grammy nominated engineer. So the engineer,
and the only other position that we have besides engineer
(13:19):
is too is a front desk person and then there's
a manager. And so for us, since you couldn't get
a person to tell you that we were selling studio time,
we've been selling customer service since day one. So we
we tell the person at the front desk that you
you're the first point of contact when they call you
on the phone. Man, it irritates me if a receptionist
(13:40):
answer the phone and can't tell you how to get
there from the freeway, so you got to know how
to get there from every freeway indirections. It irritates me
when the receptionists can't email you something and can't get
you to a manager. So all of those things were
basically telling them, Man, you the first point of contact.
When somebody up enough nerve to call us, they called
(14:02):
you first. When they walked in the building, you greeted them,
you know what I mean. That's the curious before you
even get there. Absolutely, and then just a great manager.
So the manager is the is the you know, the
backbone that kind of keeps everything together from paperwork to
the admin to the scheduling and all of that stuff.
So those are the three components. But you know, I
(14:25):
think that the biggest mistake that I hear people make
is when they think that when they just want to
be an investor, and I'd be like, man, you can't
even own a Chick fil A less this owner operated.
People that think that they got money and they want
to start a studio and they're gonna hire somebody to
do it and and and it ain't gonna work. So
my philosophy always hear people say I wouldn't ask anybody
(14:47):
to do anything that I wouldn't do. My philosophy is,
I don't ask anybody to do anything that I haven't
already done. And I think that's so true. Like the
most successful entrepreneurs or business owners. They know their business
in such detail. They know what it takes to work
the front desk to the back office. To be a
sound engineer, like, you have to know your business inside
and out. I think that's the most crucial things because
(15:10):
if you don't, you don't know when somebody trying to
get over on you. I don't know how long it
takes the mix of song. You don't know how long
it takes, the book, the session. So literally, I think
it's important to go through all those different things because
one you don't know, and then too, how can you
train somebody to do it if you didn't already do it?
And those are the things that, like, I think that
(15:30):
make people unsuccessful because it's a ton of athletes that
started studios, a ton of artists and everything, and they
didn't work because they were just investors and invested in
something and not being involved in your businessman din't always work.
All right, just a couple more questions here and then
we'll let you go. But there's just so much information
that I want to know. So we talked about artists
(15:52):
that come to the studio and it's hard, you know,
they're early stage artists, they might not have a lot
of money to fund their projects. What are some of
the ways that artists can maybe use social media or
other things to get those initial lump stumps to fund
a project. So one of the things we've done, I
think it has been about fifteen years, we offer financing.
We partnered up with a finance it was ge Capital
(16:14):
at the time. I remember I was out walking and
I kept trying to think of the common denominators are
some of the most successful businesses, And I was trying
to think of businesses that have been around for hundreds
of years, and I was like, man, the oldest businesses
are these colleges and universities. And I kind of started
going down. It was like, what's the recurring thing? And
then I started thinking about cars, and I said, man,
(16:35):
all the businesses that are successful you can borrow money
to pay for their services. And I said, well, man,
we need to. There's there's no studio that offers financing.
We need to be able to let people borrow money
to pay for our services. And so um I remember
I contacted the people and they had to come out
and do a tour of the facility because it needed
(16:57):
to be a brick and mortar stuff that look our financials,
look at our history. And man, they called me back
and said you passed, and so we were able to
offer financing. And and you know we We've got two programs.
One of them, you spend as little as two hundred
and fifty dollars, they will give you six months same
as cash. You spend over five dred you got a year.
(17:18):
And so what I try to get people to do
is try to get them away from coming in here
trying to do a whole ten fourteen song mixtape. And
I'm like, that's just bad business to me. You should
take one song, put a cost value on it, know
how much it calls you to record it, mix it mastered,
do marketing, art workshooter video, and then you put that
(17:39):
one song out and you know, if it's your kid,
and your kid's responsibility is to get your money back.
And if you get your money back from this, I'm
not asking you to make me any money, but if
you get the money back, and I'll pay for a
second one, and then if you get that money back,
I'll do a third one. So I'll try to encourage
people to be like, man, I'm not in a hurry
to take your money. We've been here long time. Don't
(18:01):
come in here trying to do ten songs. You're gonna
learn so much from doing one song properly, the right way.
So let's record it properly. That's mix it properly, Let's
master it properly. Let's code it properly. That's let's distributed
and register it properly. Now you don't have to go
out and keep trying to learn what a real songs
(18:23):
sounds like by listening to you know, uh dr dre
record or compared it to Michael Jackson. You can take
your own record and take it everywhere you go. And
if you go to a place to record and you
play your record back that you recorded here and it
doesn't sound like that, you know that's wrong. If you
go somewhere to get you get your record mixed and
(18:43):
you compare it, or you take the record that was
mixed and mastered here to a studio and when you
play it and it don't sound right, it's nothing wrong
with the it's nothing wrong with the recording. That'll tell
you something wrong with the room. You shouldn't work there.
So I think really interesting, like there's a lot of
gems here, Like you've got some subtle wisdom that I
hope people are picking up on number one, like don't
(19:06):
rush out and think that you can do fourteen songs
all at once, because you're gonna get a deal. And
if I buy more hours, like build one, build one, hit,
understand the process, know what goes into it, take that
and sell it and see how you do and then
come back get a return on your investment. I love
that because I think oftentimes people think I'm going to
book a studio, I'm gonna do it for two days
(19:28):
and I'm gonna knock everything out, Like there's there's a
lot of nuances there, especially for new artists. So I
hope they really understood what you're saying. One thing is
that people really have to hear is whenever I'll do
a business or anything, you will never hear me talking
about trying to make money. You will only hear me
talk about trying to recoup my expenses. So I think
(19:49):
a lot of people you're judging yourself for you being
too hard on yourself when you're trying to make money.
You just need to You just need to, Like I
tell people, man, you can you can float in the
ocean forever and start a lode. You can celebrate twenty
six years if you break even. But if you go
out in the middle of the ocean and you swim
so hard that you get tired an hour, you're gonna drown.
(20:11):
So when you when you do a project and you're
so big on trying to make money, you use it
all of your energy, and you're gonna drown, and you
learn so much more in sports between the first and
the second game. Same in the music industry. You go
through doing a song, you're gonna overpay the producer, you
might overpay the whatever. But after you do your first record,
(20:32):
you're gonna learn the game and you'll get better, and
then it will give you an opportunity to kind of
test to see what your fans like. You're gonna go
out there and create fourteen songs. You might only like
three of them. Well, if you do like that type
of song, you could have made more records like that.
So that's a great point. It's it's like you y'all
have to look at this. This is a marathon, not
a sprint, and you learn. So if you're if you
(20:52):
slow it down, sometimes you can learn so much more.
And I think this is where social media has really
impacted what people can do with them music industry, because
it's almost like you're testing your audience. You do one
to three songs, Okay, they like this, they like this,
Then you can go back and like, you really have
to build for what your customer base also wants. I
understand that musicians are artists and they're like, I know
(21:14):
what I like, But if you're trying to recoup your expenses,
you gotta pay attention to who who your customers are. Man,
some people don't even have a target. They don't even
know how much money they're trying to get back. Like,
they don't have a goal, they don't even know. They
just they spend the money. They don't even know how
much they really spend. And then how can you make
a plan if you know that, hey man, my dad
(21:36):
spent on this song. All I gotta do is get
this back. It doesn't matter if you go do an
open mic, if you win a contest, you have a goal.
But when you when you don't have a goal or
a target, that's when we struggle. When when when it's
not clear, we struggle. And the one one other thing
I do want to say? This has come up a
lot in my consultations. Always asks artists and producers or people,
(21:59):
what do you think artist number one ascid is? And
we get answers from lyrics, the stage, presence to my personality,
And I'm trying to get people to realize that as
an artist, in my opinion, your your your your most
valuable asset is your fan base. You won't and if
you don't spend you get artists spending all of their
(22:20):
time writing Doe Rohyn's singing songs, performance and performing, but
they're never building up their fan base. So like I
tell the man, if I'm a promoter, and why don't
I want you to come perform at my club? But
when I pay you, nobody comes to see you. You
don't have any value to me, even though you can sing.
If I'm a brand and I want you to endorse
(22:40):
my product, and when you drink out of it and
nobody buys it, you don't have any value. And so
in our world, the person that's the Olympian, the number
one contender, doesn't get the flight Fluid Mayweather. It's the
dude they got five million social media followers, right, Yeah,
the the best artist doesn't get the deal. It's the
(23:01):
social media person. So these people on social media, they're
spending all of their time building up their fan base
and creating value, where these artists are spending all their
time working on their craft and and and I think
we're missing it. And so we get so many people
that come in and create a product and I'll be like, well, well,
you don't have a fan base that delivered the product too.
(23:23):
And so that's where I think that they're the biggest
gap that I'm seeing from the time that they leave
the studio. They think that they can go straight to
the stage or go straight to radio. But don't nobody
want to hear anything that they never heard before. They've
never heard it. And I think this is really interesting
and it shows just the sort of the way society
has moved because social media is your key now. So
(23:45):
some people think I don't need it. Some people, you know,
sort of live by and swear by it. But that's
really the outlets that people go do to sell their
music to create a fan base. Um. And I think
this whole idea of like these creator economies and how
you get paid for it is going to change dramatically
in the future, you know you're going to see people
being able to sell direct to their consumers. Understand how
(24:06):
the better understanding of who their consumers are, who their
top consumers are. Um So this is something that I
think people have to pay attention to. Yep. I'll be like,
man if if if a TV network came around and
gave you a free TV channel, would you take it?
Like while you'll have a YouTube page. Yeah yeah, yeah. Wow.
(24:26):
Well Curtis, thank you so much for coming to the
Money Moves Podcast today. We appreciate you and all the
wisdom that you've been parted on us. Can you let
our audience know where they can find you and reach
out to you on social media on YouTube, etcetera. Yeah,
it's it's either gonna be Patchwork Recording Studios and this
p A T C, H W, E r K or
(24:46):
Patchwork Studio. That's all our social media on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter,
to everything is on their Patchwork Studio or Patchwork Recording Studios.
And you know you can always reach us at four
or four eight seven, four nine eight zero. We keep
a manager here seven days a week from ten am
to ten pm, and then our website is a great
(25:08):
source of information. It's just patchwork dot com alright, you
guys heard it here. It's patch work with an E.
And thank you so much. You are truly an o
G in this industry, and it's so heartwarming to have
found someone who is so open about mentorships, sharing knowledge
and helping to really reach down and lift others up
so that they can achieve success all of these philosophies
(25:30):
that we so strongly espouse like Greenwood. So thank you
so much, Curtis. You've been enjoyed to have on the podcast.
All right, Money Movers. That's all the time we have
for today, but please make sure to follow Curtis on
all his social media handles, and if we helps you
make your money move, please make sure to let us
know by sending us alike, sharing the knowledge, and leaving
us a review on Apple Podcasts. Make sure to tune
(25:51):
in Monday through Friday and its subscribed to the Money
Moves podcast powered by Greenwood, so that you two can
have the keys to financial freedom. You so right, we deserve.
Thank you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience.
If you want more or a recap of this episode,
please go to the bank Greenwood dot com and check
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(26:15):
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Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. On today's deep dive,
we are joined by Curtis Daniel, the Third. Hey, Curtis,
(00:22):
welcome back to the podcast. So excited to have you
here again. Thanks for having me. Is honored to be
here all right. In case you missed our previous episode
with Curtis, Curtis Daniel is the co founder and CEO
of Patchwork Studios. He shared his story about developing Patchwork
Studios and spoke about some of his favorite and most
memorable studio sessions. So Curtis, welcome back to the show.
(00:45):
Thanks for having me. All right, Curtis, there are several
inspiring entrepreneurs that want to become the next big name
studio executive, so really glad to have you on the
podcast today. And we're gonna deep dive into some of
the nuts and bolts of how you've created did such
a successful studio over the years. So let's go back
to the beginning stages. In our last episode, you talked
(01:06):
about some of the pitfalls in terms of like getting
a space, having a lease, et cetera. What are some
tips that you can offer to anyone who wants to
start their own recording studio. Now, I think the biggest thing,
um uh, you know, I talk in terms of business,
even if it's not a studio, but um, I think
(01:26):
a lot of people seem like that. They I think
people have the misconception that your personal credit doesn't matter
when you open it up a business. And even though
that we're you know, we're a corporation and we have
several ll c s, everything get reduced down to the
lowest common denominator, which was which was your credit. And
so your credit is going to affect, you know, your
(01:48):
access to capital. And even if you can't get alone
and you've got a high interest rate, it's gonna put
a lot of pressure on you as a new business.
And when you know, we had been in here and
and we were refinancing the deal, and I remember one
of the deal breakers was when I kept asking them
for like a line of credit. You know, I'm like,
you're giving us, you know, millions of dollars and I
(02:10):
want a hundred and fifty thousand on a lot of credit.
And the and the bank kept saying why and I said, man,
there are fortunate five hundred companies like four and Delta
American Express, and none of them operate without a line
of credit because without it, if you have slow pay
or a down term, man, you end up getting foreclosed
on and out of business when all you needed was
(02:32):
like a bridge loan. So I would tell people to
to focus on yourself and make sure personally you're financially
solid mania credit score and stuff like that. And then
if you are gonna have to borrow money from an institution, um,
don't just get enough money to open your business. Get
enough money to uh TO to to support slow times
(02:55):
and cash flow so that you can stay available to
receive your blessings down the line. And that's kind of
like the foundation. It's kind of like if you start bad, man,
you you you rush in the open already behind. Yeah,
you're under pressure, and then you're not gonna perform because
instead of worrying about your customers and your product, you're
worried about generating enough money to get that bank off
(03:16):
your back. So, yeah, get enough money, get enough money
to open, and get enough money to sustain yourself if
you hit a rough patch. You talked about that in
sort of our last episode, how it's hard to navigate,
especially in this industry. You know, people want to come in,
they want to record, but they don't want to pay
you until you get paid. And so this idea of
being really intentional with you know, having a little bit
(03:39):
of access to credit and capital and making sure you
have money to bridge those long days. How do you
have any thoughts on how you've been able to collect
from artists because artists, you know, their money flow is
tight sometimes too. Yeah. So for us, you know, we
were end uh you know when we first we were
really good, and so we we get a lot of
(04:00):
people that want to work here, and then you know,
our price point kind of kind of prices us out
of a certain amount of reff raff per se. And
so for us, a lot of times, a lot of
business we're doing we're not even doing it with the artists.
We're doing it with the labels or the administrators at
the labels. So there's an admin person that's in the
office that can see this artist's whole budget. You know,
(04:23):
they can see the production budget, the video budget, the
every budget that they have, and so you know, typically
we may get a phone call from an artists, a
manager or an artists as an artist wants to work,
and then we need to make an estimate and get
approval from the record label, and the record label will
issue us a p O, which is a purchase order.
(04:44):
So basically, you know, they have a budget and they're like, okay,
well you know justin Timberlake is gonna be a patchwork
for seven days. Um, it's dollars a day and that's
fourteen thousand dollars. They don't pull that fourteen thousand dollars
out of the budget and set it to the s
and then when we send our bill in we kind
of guaranteed to get paid. So that's how we deal
(05:05):
with labels, um with independent artists. When they call, you
can call up here to book a session. We'll put
it on hold, but it won't be confirmed until you
pay a deposit, which is of your total, and then
before you start working, you have to pay the balance off. Now,
what I will say is the record labels don't care,
like you know. They they take the attitude that they'll
(05:27):
pay you if they need you again. So we were
we've we've been threatened many times because we have a
collection agency and I don't care. If you're the biggest
record label on earth, you don't. When you don't, yeah,
when you don't pay me, I'll send them to collections.
And so we've been threatened. They try settlements and we
don't take them. And so what it ends up doing
(05:50):
is it's kind of like you can either get taken
advantage of a whole bunch of times, or you can
teach them that you're not gonna get taken advantage of
one good time and then pay you. Like they know
they know to pay us, because I'd be like, man, well,
you know, I really don't care about you being the
client if you don't pay, And they'll threaten and be like, hey,
I'm gonna tell all the other artists that you took
(06:11):
us the collections. And I said, well, I'm gonna tell
all other artists that you don't. Yeah, so you know,
a bad client. We don't care about them, you know
what I mean. If they're a bad client, then man,
we by the time we sent them the collections, we've
called you, we've emailed you, we've established that we've done
the work. You just you just being a jerk about it.
So it's not emotional. Well we'll send you the collections
(06:32):
and then and then don't call us. And I think
I want people to understand is this is a business.
You know, it might be something you're super passionate about
being in the recording industry, but it's a business. So
it's not just you and your homeboys. You're like, we
have a back office, we have a collections agency, we
have admins like. So for those of you out there
who are looking to get into this, it's a business
(06:53):
and you always have to structure your business to make
money and do the things that needs to do. So
I appreciate that. Let you said that. The sad part
is if you are a new studio they're looking for you,
you're gonna get You're gonna you're gonna be get all
the kind of not hot producers and artists that's gonna
(07:15):
come through and try to run through you because you're
gonna be so desperate to try to get a name,
to get a client base. And they I just see
it every time a new studio open, Oh, such and
such as over here, such and such as over here,
and I already know they ain't getting paid because you know,
eventually the studio people will call me and ask how
to deal with the situation. And I feel bad for
(07:35):
them because that's their dream and that's their business that
you got these people that's just running through them. They
don't know anything about how the pos work, how to
collect money upfront and all this stuff or whatever, and
they dang sure they don't have a collection agency. So
these people you dealing with artists who ain't even giving
you your real name. I mean, all you know is
this is producer, little little whoever. And then you don't
(07:58):
have any information that who comes in records tell you
he's gonna bring you your money and then he's gone,
you know what I mean. And that's where messed up
a lot of these studios. Man, they get ran through
by by a bunch of people, but ghosts in the industry. Well,
you know what I'd be like, they're not working here
for a reason, right, And it ain't And it ain't
because we're not doing our job. They're not working here
(08:20):
probably because they can't pay their bills. And it's a
reason why they come into your studio now, because they're
trying to hustle you. So interesting, because I feel like
network and networking and who you know plays a big
role in being successful. In the recording industry, what do
you say to like the early artists or sorry, the
(08:40):
early studio companies that are trying to launch, Like, are
there really great ways that have proven out to how
you know, so that they can build their reputation, build
a business and not fall into the pitfalls of like, hey,
I worked with these ghosts artists that came in because
I think it's it's a hard balance. Yeah, I mean
it's really about you know, when we when we got started. Um,
(09:00):
I went around this twenty six years and I promise
you I've never named this person. I'm still not gonna
name them. But I went to a studio and I
was trying to figure out how do you do your raids,
how do you charge, how do you pay people? And
that lady was so means she would not tell me anything,
and so it forced me to read and learn how
(09:21):
to do it on our own. And so it kind
of scarred me to the point where I said, you know,
if we ever get in a position where people are
looking at us like we're the leader, I'm gonna change that.
I'm going to share the information. And I personally feel
like if we have more than one great studio in Atlanta.
Then it makes us better. So all these studios that
(09:42):
that come behind us, most of the time, they'll come
in and I'll sit with them. They'll ask can they
bring their architects in and look at our studio. I'll
let them see them. I'll show them our plans. I'll
tell them who we used to do, certain things, where
we got equipment from, who did financing, who doesn't. I'm
I'm give them a session report and be like, you
need one of these. I'm gonna tell them what they
(10:04):
gotta do in the in voices. So it's really to
the point where it's almost kind of like, you know,
pride comes before the fall. So if you are opening
up a new studio and you have some questions and
you want to know something, they'd ask. But if if, if,
if you're taken the approach that hey, I'm gonna try
to beat patchwork or I'm gonna try to crush them,
(10:24):
and I'm gonna be in competition with them, then you're
probably gonna bump your head if I feel like you're
making your own karma at that point. And I think
you know, probably one of the things that has made
you so successful in this is that people gravitate to that.
They see that you're out here trying to help other people.
You've created educational classes, masterclasses on how to be successful
(10:44):
and not only like lifts you up, and then you know,
what is it? The rising tile raises all boats. Yeah.
I felt like it really was more evident during like
when this pandemic hid, because you know, we had a
lot of people who who wouldn't give independent and artists
and producers the time of day, big artists and big labels,
and then when all that show money shutting down, next thing,
(11:06):
you know, you see your biggest artist online talking about
I'll review your music. And I always tell people customers
are more intelligent than that. They know that you've been
about that bs all these few years, and you you
can go back and be like, well if I trace
patchwork back to they've been sharing information and then been
(11:27):
doing the same thing. So throughout the pandemic, we we
just became more authentic because it was more fakes out there.
And I thought it was a blessing because people realized
that certain people was only doing stuff. As soon as
this stuff ended and turned back around them, people have
probably changed their phone number and never talked to you again,
it was only doing it because you know they got
(11:48):
their toad smashed, you know what I mean, And it
wasn't authentic, and um, you know when you you can't
fool people like that for twenty six years if it's
not real. So you know, we've been consistent and it's
paid off over the long haul. Okay, So in running
the studio, what are some of the most critical hires
or team members that you have on your team? On ours?
(12:10):
Is mine? The first thing was because I was the
manager and when we first started, I wasn't in the
music industry, and I thought that the artist was the
most important person. And then I thought that the producer was.
And and after we did our first couple of sessions,
because back in the days we were on tape, we
were on analog a real I quickly realized that the
m v P is the engineer. The artist his job,
(12:34):
and the producer couldn't do his job without the engineer.
And I was one of the things that we brought
to the industry is that we were pretty much the
first studio to hire staff engineers and not make them
independent contractors. And what that did for our engineers is
they started getting w two's, they was getting benefits, they
was able to get their cars and their houses, and
so we attracted the best engineers. That when artists wanted
(12:57):
to work with the best engineers, they told the artists
we only worked that patchwork. So are critical our whole business.
For these years, we've been known for our engineering. We
attract the best students from some of these schools because
we've got a good program that we can take them
from an intern to a Grammy nominated engineer. So the engineer,
and the only other position that we have besides engineer
(13:19):
is too is a front desk person and then there's
a manager. And so for us, since you couldn't get
a person to tell you that we were selling studio time,
we've been selling customer service since day one. So we
we tell the person at the front desk that you
you're the first point of contact when they call you
on the phone. Man, it irritates me if a receptionist
(13:40):
answer the phone and can't tell you how to get
there from the freeway, so you got to know how
to get there from every freeway indirections. It irritates me
when the receptionists can't email you something and can't get
you to a manager. So all of those things were
basically telling them, Man, you the first point of contact.
When somebody up enough nerve to call us, they called
(14:02):
you first. When they walked in the building, you greeted them,
you know what I mean. That's the curious before you
even get there. Absolutely, and then just a great manager.
So the manager is the is the you know, the
backbone that kind of keeps everything together from paperwork to
the admin to the scheduling and all of that stuff.
So those are the three components. But you know, I
(14:25):
think that the biggest mistake that I hear people make
is when they think that when they just want to
be an investor, and I'd be like, man, you can't
even own a Chick fil A less this owner operated.
People that think that they got money and they want
to start a studio and they're gonna hire somebody to
do it and and and it ain't gonna work. So
my philosophy always hear people say I wouldn't ask anybody
(14:47):
to do anything that I wouldn't do. My philosophy is,
I don't ask anybody to do anything that I haven't
already done. And I think that's so true. Like the
most successful entrepreneurs or business owners. They know their business
in such detail. They know what it takes to work
the front desk to the back office. To be a
sound engineer, like, you have to know your business inside
and out. I think that's the most crucial things because
(15:10):
if you don't, you don't know when somebody trying to
get over on you. I don't know how long it
takes the mix of song. You don't know how long
it takes, the book, the session. So literally, I think
it's important to go through all those different things because
one you don't know, and then too, how can you
train somebody to do it if you didn't already do it?
And those are the things that, like, I think that
(15:30):
make people unsuccessful because it's a ton of athletes that
started studios, a ton of artists and everything, and they
didn't work because they were just investors and invested in
something and not being involved in your businessman din't always work.
All right, just a couple more questions here and then
we'll let you go. But there's just so much information
that I want to know. So we talked about artists
(15:52):
that come to the studio and it's hard, you know,
they're early stage artists, they might not have a lot
of money to fund their projects. What are some of
the ways that artists can maybe use social media or
other things to get those initial lump stumps to fund
a project. So one of the things we've done, I
think it has been about fifteen years, we offer financing.
We partnered up with a finance it was ge Capital
(16:14):
at the time. I remember I was out walking and
I kept trying to think of the common denominators are
some of the most successful businesses, And I was trying
to think of businesses that have been around for hundreds
of years, and I was like, man, the oldest businesses
are these colleges and universities. And I kind of started
going down. It was like, what's the recurring thing? And
then I started thinking about cars, and I said, man,
(16:35):
all the businesses that are successful you can borrow money
to pay for their services. And I said, well, man,
we need to. There's there's no studio that offers financing.
We need to be able to let people borrow money
to pay for our services. And so um I remember
I contacted the people and they had to come out
and do a tour of the facility because it needed
(16:57):
to be a brick and mortar stuff that look our financials,
look at our history. And man, they called me back
and said you passed, and so we were able to
offer financing. And and you know we We've got two programs.
One of them, you spend as little as two hundred
and fifty dollars, they will give you six months same
as cash. You spend over five dred you got a year.
(17:18):
And so what I try to get people to do
is try to get them away from coming in here
trying to do a whole ten fourteen song mixtape. And
I'm like, that's just bad business to me. You should
take one song, put a cost value on it, know
how much it calls you to record it, mix it mastered,
do marketing, art workshooter video, and then you put that
(17:39):
one song out and you know, if it's your kid,
and your kid's responsibility is to get your money back.
And if you get your money back from this, I'm
not asking you to make me any money, but if
you get the money back, and I'll pay for a
second one, and then if you get that money back,
I'll do a third one. So I'll try to encourage
people to be like, man, I'm not in a hurry
to take your money. We've been here long time. Don't
(18:01):
come in here trying to do ten songs. You're gonna
learn so much from doing one song properly, the right way.
So let's record it properly. That's mix it properly, Let's
master it properly. Let's code it properly. That's let's distributed
and register it properly. Now you don't have to go
out and keep trying to learn what a real songs
(18:23):
sounds like by listening to you know, uh dr dre
record or compared it to Michael Jackson. You can take
your own record and take it everywhere you go. And
if you go to a place to record and you
play your record back that you recorded here and it
doesn't sound like that, you know that's wrong. If you
go somewhere to get you get your record mixed and
(18:43):
you compare it, or you take the record that was
mixed and mastered here to a studio and when you
play it and it don't sound right, it's nothing wrong
with the it's nothing wrong with the recording. That'll tell
you something wrong with the room. You shouldn't work there.
So I think really interesting, like there's a lot of
gems here, Like you've got some subtle wisdom that I
hope people are picking up on number one, like don't
(19:06):
rush out and think that you can do fourteen songs
all at once, because you're gonna get a deal. And
if I buy more hours, like build one, build one, hit,
understand the process, know what goes into it, take that
and sell it and see how you do and then
come back get a return on your investment. I love
that because I think oftentimes people think I'm going to
book a studio, I'm gonna do it for two days
(19:28):
and I'm gonna knock everything out, Like there's there's a
lot of nuances there, especially for new artists. So I
hope they really understood what you're saying. One thing is
that people really have to hear is whenever I'll do
a business or anything, you will never hear me talking
about trying to make money. You will only hear me
talk about trying to recoup my expenses. So I think
(19:49):
a lot of people you're judging yourself for you being
too hard on yourself when you're trying to make money.
You just need to You just need to, Like I
tell people, man, you can you can float in the
ocean forever and start a lode. You can celebrate twenty
six years if you break even. But if you go
out in the middle of the ocean and you swim
so hard that you get tired an hour, you're gonna drown.
(20:11):
So when you when you do a project and you're
so big on trying to make money, you use it
all of your energy, and you're gonna drown, and you
learn so much more in sports between the first and
the second game. Same in the music industry. You go
through doing a song, you're gonna overpay the producer, you
might overpay the whatever. But after you do your first record,
(20:32):
you're gonna learn the game and you'll get better, and
then it will give you an opportunity to kind of
test to see what your fans like. You're gonna go
out there and create fourteen songs. You might only like
three of them. Well, if you do like that type
of song, you could have made more records like that.
So that's a great point. It's it's like you y'all
have to look at this. This is a marathon, not
a sprint, and you learn. So if you're if you
(20:52):
slow it down, sometimes you can learn so much more.
And I think this is where social media has really
impacted what people can do with them music industry, because
it's almost like you're testing your audience. You do one
to three songs, Okay, they like this, they like this,
Then you can go back and like, you really have
to build for what your customer base also wants. I
understand that musicians are artists and they're like, I know
(21:14):
what I like, But if you're trying to recoup your expenses,
you gotta pay attention to who who your customers are. Man,
some people don't even have a target. They don't even
know how much money they're trying to get back. Like,
they don't have a goal, they don't even know. They
just they spend the money. They don't even know how
much they really spend. And then how can you make
a plan if you know that, hey man, my dad
(21:36):
spent on this song. All I gotta do is get
this back. It doesn't matter if you go do an
open mic, if you win a contest, you have a goal.
But when you when you don't have a goal or
a target, that's when we struggle. When when when it's
not clear, we struggle. And the one one other thing
I do want to say? This has come up a
lot in my consultations. Always asks artists and producers or people,
(21:59):
what do you think artist number one ascid is? And
we get answers from lyrics, the stage, presence to my personality,
And I'm trying to get people to realize that as
an artist, in my opinion, your your your your most
valuable asset is your fan base. You won't and if
you don't spend you get artists spending all of their
(22:20):
time writing Doe Rohyn's singing songs, performance and performing, but
they're never building up their fan base. So like I
tell the man, if I'm a promoter, and why don't
I want you to come perform at my club? But
when I pay you, nobody comes to see you. You
don't have any value to me, even though you can sing.
If I'm a brand and I want you to endorse
(22:40):
my product, and when you drink out of it and
nobody buys it, you don't have any value. And so
in our world, the person that's the Olympian, the number
one contender, doesn't get the flight Fluid Mayweather. It's the
dude they got five million social media followers, right, Yeah,
the the best artist doesn't get the deal. It's the
(23:01):
social media person. So these people on social media, they're
spending all of their time building up their fan base
and creating value, where these artists are spending all their
time working on their craft and and and I think
we're missing it. And so we get so many people
that come in and create a product and I'll be like, well, well,
you don't have a fan base that delivered the product too.
(23:23):
And so that's where I think that they're the biggest
gap that I'm seeing from the time that they leave
the studio. They think that they can go straight to
the stage or go straight to radio. But don't nobody
want to hear anything that they never heard before. They've
never heard it. And I think this is really interesting
and it shows just the sort of the way society
has moved because social media is your key now. So
(23:45):
some people think I don't need it. Some people, you know,
sort of live by and swear by it. But that's
really the outlets that people go do to sell their
music to create a fan base. Um. And I think
this whole idea of like these creator economies and how
you get paid for it is going to change dramatically
in the future, you know you're going to see people
being able to sell direct to their consumers. Understand how
(24:06):
the better understanding of who their consumers are, who their
top consumers are. Um So this is something that I
think people have to pay attention to. Yep. I'll be like,
man if if if a TV network came around and
gave you a free TV channel, would you take it?
Like while you'll have a YouTube page. Yeah yeah, yeah. Wow.
(24:26):
Well Curtis, thank you so much for coming to the
Money Moves Podcast today. We appreciate you and all the
wisdom that you've been parted on us. Can you let
our audience know where they can find you and reach
out to you on social media on YouTube, etcetera. Yeah,
it's it's either gonna be Patchwork Recording Studios and this
p A T C, H W, E r K or
(24:46):
Patchwork Studio. That's all our social media on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter,
to everything is on their Patchwork Studio or Patchwork Recording Studios.
And you know you can always reach us at four
or four eight seven, four nine eight zero. We keep
a manager here seven days a week from ten am
to ten pm, and then our website is a great
(25:08):
source of information. It's just patchwork dot com alright, you
guys heard it here. It's patch work with an E.
And thank you so much. You are truly an o
G in this industry, and it's so heartwarming to have
found someone who is so open about mentorships, sharing knowledge
and helping to really reach down and lift others up
so that they can achieve success all of these philosophies
(25:30):
that we so strongly espouse like Greenwood. So thank you
so much, Curtis. You've been enjoyed to have on the podcast.
All right, Money Movers. That's all the time we have
for today, but please make sure to follow Curtis on
all his social media handles, and if we helps you
make your money move, please make sure to let us
know by sending us alike, sharing the knowledge, and leaving
us a review on Apple Podcasts. Make sure to tune
(25:51):
in Monday through Friday and its subscribed to the Money
Moves podcast powered by Greenwood, so that you two can
have the keys to financial freedom. You so right, we deserve.
Thank you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience.
If you want more or a recap of this episode,
please go to the bank Greenwood dot com and check
out the Money Moves podcast blog. Money Moves is an
(26:15):
I heart Radio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by
Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcasts on I heart Radio,
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.