June 12, 2025 • 56 mins
Sarah Harralson interviews founder of SoundHeart Music, Mike Silvestri, about his AI booking software that allows musicians to book gigs on autopilot.
Find more about SoundHeart Music here:
https://www.soundheartmusic.com/
https://www.instagram.com/soundheartmusic/
Mention the Mind Your Music Business podcast to receive a free set up with SoundHeart Music.
Check out Indie Royalties for royalty registration services for musicians:
https://indieroyalties.com/
Find more about SoundHeart Music here:
https://www.soundheartmusic.com/
https://www.instagram.com/soundheartmusic/
Mention the Mind Your Music Business podcast to receive a free set up with SoundHeart Music.
Check out Indie Royalties for royalty registration services for musicians:
https://indieroyalties.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi everyone, Thank you so much for tuning into the
fourth season of Mind Your Music Business. Today's topic is
really interesting because we are talking about booking and booking
shows but actually doing it through AI, which is amazing
if you are already your own booking agent. So here
(00:28):
with me to talk about this today is the founder
of Soundheart Music, Mike Silvestri. Mike is an independent, full
time artist who performs over two hundred and fifty times
a year and he's booked over two thousand and more
shows for himself and other artists. So this AI booking
software he has developed has enabled him to generate six
(00:52):
figures and touring revenue over the years. I'm really excited
to dive into this topic today. So Mike, thank you
so much for on the show today.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
How are you, I'm great. Thanks for having me, Sarah.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
This is our first podcast that we've done, so I
guess I'm still like learning the ropes on how to
exactually go about doing a podcast as we go. Thanks
for having me, and congrats on you say your third season.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Huh yeah, third season of the podcast. So I've just
been interviewing people from all different facets of the industry.
So I'm just excited to pick your brain today about
booking gigs through AI, because I think it's really relevant
and something that people need. Yeah, and so you and
(01:46):
I connected when we co wrote virtually a few years ago.
And then I was coming out to San Diego earlier
this year for a conference we were both attending. My
publisher wanted me to book an extra gig while I
was out there, but we were coming up on the
conference quickly, and she recommended that I have you book
(02:06):
us a gig through your booking software. And I was like, wait,
I know, Mike, so the funny connection, small world, and
I had no idea you could book a gig through AI.
So I'm glad we got reconnected and you booked us
a show right outside of San Diego, and we split
(02:27):
this set.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
My husband played Cone for us.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
And then you were able to give me the backstory
on your software then, but could you please tell our
listeners how you created this AI booking software and how
it works. And I think for those of you who
are listening and wondering, it's definitely much more advanced than
just trying to, you know, get booking contacts from Chad GBT.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, In fact, It's funny that you say that because
a lot of people, you know, you're always going to
get haters on Instagram, even if you're like like kissing
babies and giving millions of dollars to Africas, everyone's gonna
have haters.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So yeah, yeah, we've.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Had people who will comment like, oh, you could just
do this on chat GPT, and then of course that
prompted me to make some content based around that. So
I actually did a shootout with my software versus chat GPT,
and chat GPT literally just gives you like like you
could go ahead and do it, like I'm not even lying,
(03:32):
Like you could type in chat gypt like whatever prompt
you want to give it to try to get gigs,
and all it's going to give you is like the
major concert type ticketed shows in your general area, and
that's it.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Like here's the name and here's the location.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
No contact information, no like information about the venue.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
It won't even come Google search, right.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, yeah, it's just like a base say Google search.
You know, that's what chat shebt gives you. But yeah,
for us, we're we're people. Actually I don't even I
didn't even call us this, but some of our clients
have been going to call us the the Google of
venue I guess finding or venue information. And then the
(04:19):
coolest thing about it it was like it will actually
contact all of those people on autopilot for you.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
And you know, like the annoying thing.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
I mean, there's a lot of good things, but I
guess I would say, honestly, we're in the best time
ever in the world to be a music creator. But
the annoying thing about it is we got to wear
a million hats, so you know, at the end of
the day, we're musicians. Like we started this crazy career
path because we wanted to make music, Like literally, that's
(04:51):
the only thing that we wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Well, I think it's funny because so many of us
as creatives were fearful of AI right now out taking
over our jobs and music. But I love that you're
using AI like as an aid for your career to
you know, maintain it and keep going.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
So were you just at a place where.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
You were spending too much time booking gigs and you know,
maybe this thought just popped in your brain, like, well,
what if I could just do this on autopilot?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, so I kind of have to give a little
bit of a backstory, and this is going to sound
a little weird. I actually have to thank COVID for it.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
So I moved. I'm in Los Angeles now.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I'm originally born and raised Chicago Land Area, and I've
been a full time musician. Well I've been out here
for seven years now, I'm into my seventh year. But
before that, I was a full time musician for like
three years in Chicago Land Area. And you know, like
I'm not famous, I have fans, but like I can
(05:58):
really only sell tickets in Chicago Go. So I pretty
much have made my money by like playing like restaurants
and bars and like guaranteed type gigs where you don't
need to like have a draw or and you get
paid even if like I've played gigs five hundred, seven
hundred bucks and there's not one, like there's literally no
one even out there, and like sure, like it's annoying
(06:21):
to play literally to an empty room, but the good
news is you're still getting paid anyway, So that's always
But kind of going into the story, so I knew
I was going to move to Los Angeles. I had
seven months, and I toured out there in May just
(06:41):
to kind of see if it was a good fit,
and it was, so come June and I was gonna
move there, not like Halloween of October. So that's like
all of June, July, August, September, and then all of October.
So I had five months because I was like, I
don't want to go and be a bartender or something
when I'm already a full time musician. Yeah, so for
(07:01):
five months, that five month period, I I spent forty
hours a week for five months straight, like no exaggeration,
doing everything manually, like aggregating data, making spreadsheets, emailing people.
I even paid my step brother fifteen dollars an hour
(07:24):
to help me with this stuff. And I even one
day I was like making tons of phone calls every day.
One day I made eight hundred phone calls in one day,
Like I'm not even kidding it was. It was torture.
I think I did calls for like twelve hours straight.
So but yeah, it happened. So come October Halloween, I
(07:48):
officially moved to California full time and I was indeed
a full time musician day one, So it works, right,
But what happened for four or five months after over
twenty nineteen COVID hit of course, and I had thirty
gigs get canceled. Yeah, so yeah, the forty hours a
(08:11):
week for five months, that it's crazy math. That's like
a stupid amount of time. All of that effort just
went down the hole. And and then when we came
out of COVID, I was like, all right, I can't
even use all of the data that I had before
(08:31):
because half of the places went out of business from COVID.
Half of the places stopped doing music because of COVID, Right,
you know, another percentage of new places popped up that
started offering music that I didn't even you know that
I didn't even know about, just because they're brand new.
And I was like, dang, Like I can't even afford
(08:54):
to spend forty hours a week for.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Five months straight.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
I don't have that much time, Like I got a
like my income is zero dollars right now because COVID
like took it all the way back down. And so
I was like, I had there has to be a
better way to do this. I can't spend all that time,
Like I can't. I needed to take like two to
four weeks, not not five months for forty hours. So
(09:20):
I like thought long and hard about it, and I
kind of created like a Frankenstein of a bunch of
different processes and a bunch of different like softwares.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
And then eventually that is what.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Became like the ideas of all those processes and all
those different softwares that I fring Instein together. That's essentially
oh and by the way, So I did it, and
then within a month, like thirty days, I was back
up to where I was before. So I did, and
I keep in mind I was only spending like thirty
minutes a week for thirty days, yeah, as opposed to
(09:58):
forty hours a week for five months. So basically all
of those systems and all of those softwares that I
bring Instein together, I took that kind of like greater
concept and then essentially hired a bunch of developers to
create what is now software or sorry Soundheart Music AKAAR
(10:21):
software that is our very own We're not like an affiliate.
It's our very own software called Robotic Booking Agent, which
is like the AI music Booking Agent. So now you know,
that's what I've been using for myself just now still
be a full time musician.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
I'm still a full time musician.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Now for in just California for seven years now, so
like almost ten years total, and then now we have
over two hundred clients that are actively using it and
getting booked, and we've even turned like all great majority
of them into full time musicians and actually allowed and
enabled their dreams to come true. So for me, that's
(11:01):
like probably one of the most like heartwarming like.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Soul like.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Something that like I'm never you know how like you'll
do things in life and your soul is just like
going like yeah, like I feel great, Like there's nothing
better than having someone like contact you and saying like
you're the reason why I'm a full time musician now.
I never thought that would be something that just makes
my heart strings like pull more than anything.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Right, Yeah, And it's amazing software. I've been using it
myself and before, you know, when I needed a show
in a specific location, just to add a show or
stop along the way, I would just you know, use
Google for live music searches and just take forever filtering
out which venues I thought would be most suitable for
(11:49):
me to play, and then even just copying and pasting
you know, emails would take forever. So I've been using
this as a great aid, I booked a couple of
paying gigs to your software so far. I mentioned that
I was just playing in Ohio and I needed to
stop along the way. So I just pulled a list
(12:12):
of venues in Kentucky like live music, hotel, speak easy brewery, winery,
just all those key words, generated a list, filtered out
maybe that what didn't apply to me, and then send
those emails on autopilot. And you know, you'll send out
to one hundred venues, but you just need one to
(12:34):
respond when you're looking for one show in a certain area.
So it's been such a great time saver, and uh yeah,
I'm just excited to.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Keep using it.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I don't think people the venues necessarily know that you're
using AI to even generate these email campaigns. You know,
some people I've had respond and they say, oh, how
have you heard of us? Or you know, I'll just say, oh,
Google search or friend Mike played here one time.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
You know, you don't have to tell them it's AI.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
And I don't know if they'll they'll care or not,
but it's it's just a great way to get more
paying gigs.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
And yeah, you know we try to make it and
a lot you know, we get a lot of people
in our Instagram is kind of our main way that
we market ourselves and actually talk with our clients and
potential clients. Sound hard music, but yeah, some people will say, like,
I would never trust AI to send the emails for us.
(13:43):
But here's the thing, Like we actually started off as
a coaching company and then we pivoted to a software company.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
So there's a lot of like DNA.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
I guess you could call it about the way we
like run our company.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
And yeah, so a.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Lot of like I feel like a lot of the
DNA of the coaching aspect of it was kind of
like hotwired into the software company.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
So you know, we'll use AI.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Perhaps we won't even use AI for the actual email
content of like the emails that go out, like what
the words are and all the verbiage. You can use
AI if you like, But I personally tell all my
clients like, let me know when you're done, and I'll
look it over. And you know, I consider myself an
(14:34):
email marketing expert like Guru in fact, and I personally
look over if the client wants me to, each and
every one of the emails that will be going out
to make sure that it doesn't look artificial, and to
make sure that their unique style and voice is kind
of broadcasted through that email as well.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
And to go off of that, when someone is creating
an email template to auto send out to venues, do
you think they should sign it like from themselves the
emails coming from them or do you think venues or
are more likely to respond if it looks like it's
coming from a manager or booking agent talking about the
(15:16):
artist and third person.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah, that's a good question. I don't think. You know,
I've kind of tested that, and.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I don't know. Honestly, I really don't know.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
I've been trying to figure that out myself, And as
odd as it sounds, I feel like I personally, based
on my unique experience, I feel like I've gotten the
best responses and stuff like that when it's it sounds
like it's like the Arctic artists pitching themselves. But I think, honestly,
(15:54):
the best way to answer that question is like the
authentic about it, Like, yeah, if you don't actually have
of a manager, or you don't actually have a real
like if you're making up this imaginary character in persona,
I feel like I've done that actually myself, and I
feel like that never translates well. So I feel like
(16:14):
just being honest whatever that means for you, I think
that's just the best way to do it, honestly.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Yeah, I've done most of them, you know, signing it
off as my publisher and you know, I just let
her know. I think if you are using a manager's name,
get their permission first, and if the venue wants to
negotiate over the phone, just to ask your manager or
publisher if they can call the venue and take the
(16:41):
negotiation from there. But yeah, I think it's important to
be authentic and not fake.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
The only thing I will say in not regards to
that is kind of like a negotiation tactic that I
kind of figured out through all the years, which is,
if you have your minimums in mind, like dollar amounts
or like take it like even like the amount of
money that you're charging per ticket or literally whatever you
(17:09):
you know that you need, and you don't have a
manager or like an authority over you, what I'll do
like say, I like say, like let's just pretend I
want I want to charge five hundred bucks for this venue,
and they're like, oh, the best we could do is
three hundred. So then I'll go and say I would
love to do it for three hundred, but my my
(17:32):
manager is requiring me only to take gigs that pay
five hundred to six hundred dollars. Yeah, and you don't
have even have to lie. You can like literally what
I did was I went up to my brother, like
my actual brother, and I was like, hey, you're my manager,
all right, And he's like, all right, and you only
let me charge.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
You know, five hundred to six hundred or whatever it is.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
And he's like, I'm like all right, and he's like
all right, So you're technically not lying, right. But the
good thing about there's actually a lot of a lot
of like gems just in that single statement that I
made one is it takes it's kind of like good cop,
bad cop. So it takes like you don't look like
(18:15):
you're the like quote unquote bad person, and it takes
like the pressure off of you to negotiate because you're.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Not saying, like I want this much money.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
It's like I would love to do that, but my
manager and only only requires me to do this, So
it's kind of like good cop, Bad cop. And then
I highly recommend that negotiation strategy as well as giving
them a range is huge. I would always, always, always
recommend giving a range.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
When you're talking money.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
The lower the lower number of the range is what
your minimum is and what will make you happy, and
then the upper number is what will make you very
very happy. And then usually either they're going to go
for your lower amount, which of course is cool because
that's your minimum slash what will make you happy.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Sometimes they'll want to meet you in the middle. And
I've even personally had venues.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
That will offer to go for your top your top number,
no issues, They're like happy. Usually the people that offer
you the top number of your range are like happy
to do it right.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And sometimes those venues just say like, does this number
work for you without even asking your budget first. So
sometimes they really like to help out the artists, which
is good.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
It's true, and this is especially true if they are.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
The ones that are reaching.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Out to you and they want you like you uniquely
as opposed to like you reaching out to them like
as like a cold potential venue. So yeah, if someone's
reaching out to you and they want like specifically Sarah Harrelson,
just know that you have a lot of negotiating power,
and you could probably add you can probably add a
(19:57):
little more dollar amounts to whatever for your.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah, yeah, definitely highlight you know, top venues you played
in everything when you're negotiating and everything. And I'm sure
some people are wondering, well, why can't I just use
this money to pay a booking agent, pay them ten
percent to you know, get me gigs, and you could,
but one they might not get as many gigs for you.
(20:24):
They don't you know, can't pick up as many venues
as the software. There's definitely not a problem with getting
a booking agent. But for instance, recently, there was a
booking agent that recently poked me a show and that
show was lower pay and not as great of an
(20:44):
experience as I had with the gig that I booked
on your software. So you know, it can be hit
or miss with that. But I think it's just being
smart with your time or money, what kind of venues
you're trying to book, what you're looking at booking. You
can even use a booking manager and maybe use like
the software in between to pick up extra gigs.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
I guess, in fact, I would highly recommend doing that.
That's exactly what I do personally, Like I said, I
am a full time musician currently, so.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
That's what I do. Like, I'm not even gonna lie.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
I use my software, but I also have like four
different booking agents working for me. And keep in mind
I said four, So it's kind of like the important
thing to note here for all the listeners. Really it's
so important, like in general, but I guess even just
talking about the gig, like even talking about the one
bucket of live performance, it's important to diversify the gigs
(21:44):
that you're getting and also where they're coming from. You know,
it's really important. And then there's a couple more things
I want to touch with the booking agents based on
my personal experience, and I'm sure I could speak with
for everyone else. I don't know about you, but you're
not If your dream and your goal is to be
a full time musician, you're probably never gonna achieve that
(22:06):
with a booking agent. View that stuff as like supplementary income.
And then keep in mind, they have a whole roster
of artists, right, so especially if you're new to the roster,
they're probably going to prioritize other artists that they've been
working with for a while, or people that in their
(22:27):
eyes are just better than you. So they might promise
you of the world and then only give you maybe
like one date a month. They're also taking fees, and
then a lot of the times there's gonna God forbid,
there might end up being some drama or some like
political bs that happens, and then just because of the
(22:48):
political bs, they cut.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Ties with you, or you cut ties with them, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Yeah, you never know.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
And then keep in mind too, because people don't really
think about this. If you're working with a booking agent,
you're building their business for them. Yeah, Like you're not
doing anything for yourself except putting a little bit of
money in your pocket. You're not building your business at all.
They own whatever venue that is, That is their book
of business and their relationship. In fact, you that's their
(23:19):
relationship so much if that booking agent found out that
you're talking to their client, you would get fired.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah, they have.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
You can even have a relationship with that venue, right.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
You could go like when you go to the venue
of the booking agent's not there and make a relationship
with the contact there. But you know, the booking agent's
probably going to book other artists there again.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Exactly exactly, and like I don't want to try to
segue into what my software does, but where the difference
lies and why like just having an AI not even
our software, but just having like an AI booking agent,
and we're really the only ones that do it. By
the way AI booking agent is, there's no political drama.
(24:05):
And here's the best thing, in my opinion, all of
the gigs, especially if you're targeting your local area where
you live, all the gigs and all the business that
this AI booking agent gets for you and builds for you,
and all the relationships it gets for you.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Are yours to keep.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
They're not ours, Like you're in.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Nashville, right, Sarah, I am, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
So if you get like a bunch of gigs like
through the software, you, as Sarah Harrelson, can like reach
out to those people and say, hey, you guys want
to book me here every month or every week? And
then all you need is I call the Sweet sixteen.
All you need is twelve to sixteen unique venue is
booking you every month and you're a full time musician,
(24:49):
and you know you don't kind of pay commissions.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
All of that.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
I call it a book of business that it's built
ugh for you. Is is yours and you own it
and you're to do whatever you want with it.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I was trying to add some shows in Florida this June,
and when I was booking it through your software, the
venue owner called me and he was like, I own
three other venues in Florida that all have live music,
and I do the booking for all of them, so
let me know if you're want to play a multiple ones.
So sometimes you can find like really good contacts and
(25:27):
gold mines through this software. So yeah, it's definitely great
to develop relationships on your own.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
I just had this client from Reno literally yesterday. We
were talking and I was like, hey, how's it going
because I noticed like his campaigns kind of just like stopped.
And I was like, hey, is everything okay? And he
was like yeah, man, Actually what happened was, I, uh.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
I got this gig to the software.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
I showed up and he said this country band was
playing after me, like I was the opener or something.
And then the country guy was like the band He's like, hey,
we need a guitar player. And I really liked your
guitar playing, and he was like, we're gonna do We're
gonna go on tour. This is what it pays, according
to him, extremely lucrative and so now he's like touring
(26:16):
with them like full time as their guitar players.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Yeah, you know what opportunity O'll bring you.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Yeah, And he's like, I'm not. He's like, I turned
off the campaigns with the software. He's like because honestly,
these like guitar playing gigs are so lucrative and I'm
like totally happy doing them. And I'm like, wow, that's amazing.
Like even me as the founder of the software, the
software still continues to like surprise me like every day
on just what opportunities and potential it has.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
You know, yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
So what are all of the venues or gigs you
can book through the software? I've for example, I ran
list for bars with live music, hotels, country clubs, breweries, wineries,
and fest although some of the festivals I kind of
have to look up like when their festival is like
when I generate that list, so it's kind of important
(27:07):
to figure out what time of year their festival is.
Is there anything else people should be looking for when
running campaigns.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah, great question.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
So in fact, all my clients I actually give them
a list of like I guess you could call it
like best practices, and I'll read them off to you.
They're not limited to this, but this is what I
personally found that works the best.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Well, first, I have to preface all that with this.
So we're the only thing.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Out of like everything, not just like AI booking agents,
like like literally indie like out of like Indie, out
of the Indie on the move, out of like Sonic Viz,
out of like every single thing that's been around, even
for decades. So all of those places kind of give
you proper concert halls selling tickets and da da da
da da, and not every one of them are famous,
(28:01):
some of them us and I might not even want
to do original music. So yes, of course our software
will find those venues for you, of course, like that's
the easiest part. But what we do that no one
else does is we find places and I'm just gonna
name up all the keywords right now. Wineries with live music,
(28:21):
of scale, restaurants with live music, bar with live music,
brewery with live music, luxury resort with live music, country
clubs like golf clubs with live music, live music just
in general, bears festivals, farmers markets, casinos, which are great
for all of you country people. Country dance halls, libraries,
(28:43):
believe it or not, have music programming that actually pay
very well. Something that we're kind of testing. It's kind
of more of a testing, I'll have to say that
is radio stations. We do grab radio stations. However, I'll
be honest and say nothing as ever come to fruition yet.
With that, it's something I'm kind of experimenting with colleges
(29:06):
and universities.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
And then finally, music.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Venues, which are your proper like one hundred seat theaters
or like concert halls all the way up to like
sofi stadium like proper arenas and stadiums. Additionally, you know,
piano bars, dance clubs, nightclubs, clubs with DJs. So this
works for like hip hop artists rappers who are playing
more like a nightclub setting, as well as DJs obviously
(29:32):
who also play a nightclub setting.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Yeah yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah, and it's not limited to those keywords that either.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
So for the most part, when you get that list,
you can you know, just kind of filter out maybe
what contacts don't have emails or which ones don't really
apply to you. And then I guess with festivals, you
just need to check their website to see when their
festival is, so you're not reaching out at a weird time.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would recommend that. And as well
as you know, if you're like, if it grabs like
Greek fest for you, but you play like blues music,
you know, typically like, yeah, the heritage type festivals have
that type of you know that heritage's unique music usually
performed a live so definitely look into that. They might
(30:22):
just be looking for like Greek music or something, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Okay, cool, And so let's say I have a venue
that wants to go ahead and lock down a date
with me book the gig. Do you recommend that the
artist sends the venue some sort of contract for the
gig or should it just be like email confirmation?
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Great question, so great questions.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
So yeah, so you know, historically and kind of like
knee jerk reaction, everyone knows if that if that is
a requirement of any sort to sound like an official content,
whether that's like a sign, what is it like one
of those like dot com websites where you can like
sign a contract.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
Through yeah, like DocuSign.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Yeah, so either that or just like sending like sending
like a PDF or something, you.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Know, whatever way you do it.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
However, I actually spoke with my lawyer and this is
what I'm doing now, and we have these templates for
all of our clients. And what I actually reconmn to
my clients because it's really freaking easy.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Is I give them this.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
I literally have it as a note like the Apples
notes default app I have it just sitting there and
it says in big letters like I'm a I'm as
in Mike's Celvestie music invoice.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
And then it's literally just looks like an email.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
And honestly, I'd be happy to like send this to
your listeners somehow, like for just for free.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
So yeah, if you have a link I can get
in the liner notes totally.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yeah, I'll go ahead and do that for you guys. Absolutely.
So I spoke my lawyer and he said that.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Doing this is like lawfully binding and would hold up
in the court of laws. So yeah, you just send
an email like literally copy and paste into the email
and I'll kind of read the beginning of it, it's
like ms, I'm in voice, as in Mike Cledustrian music invoice, Hi,
awesome and looking forward to it. This particular email will
serve as your invoice and contract confirming this as a
(32:31):
lawfully binding contract for the terms and conditions below. Uh
da da da da, And then you just like put
everything that you would put in a normal contract. You
could even go ahead and say like, please confirm back.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
I probably would recommend that, just.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Make sure they do confirm back, because if they don't
want done by, there's kind of like a loophole there, right. Yeah,
So yeah, if they confirm back to that email and say, hey,
it looks all good, that that actually would serve directly
as an an invoice slash lawfully abiding contract that would technically.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Have some authority over it for sure. Great.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
So yeah, so you don't in the worst case scenario,
you get to the venue and they're like, oh, we
double booked or we're not having live music.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
They still have to pay you that.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
So I go ahead and show them the email and
I'm like and I've even had people say, oh, well,
this isn't like a contract that I signed, and I'm like, well,
it actually is because if you read the email and
you also like replied confirming to it and technically would
serve as that and also within that invoice, I actually
(33:44):
took the verbiage from a doctor's you know how doctors
have like a cancelation thing or whatever. I took the
verbiage from there, and then towards the bottom of it says,
acceptance of this contract will strictly enforce the canceling policy.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
If a cancelation is.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Made under forty eight hours, then the party will be
subject to a cancelation fee of one hundred percent cost
per violation of each date. So you can like change
those numbers to whatever you want. But yeah, no, I've literally,
like not theories, not philosophies. I've had this. I've literally
been paid like five hundred plus dollars on double bookings
(34:27):
using my emailing method with this.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Like email contract.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
I guess you could call it where it's like actually
embedded directly into the body.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Of the email.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Yeah, okay, so it's working. It's not a theory or
a philosophy. This is like a real working thing, right.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Yeah. I think that's such an important safe all to have,
especially if you're traveling a long way for the gig,
so important to have that contract.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
In fact, I used to be kind of like lazy
about it, but just because it's kind of a.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Right to write up a contract and noah da da
da dah.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
But now with like the email and embedding thing, I
literally just copy and paste right into the body of
the email, like the words, and it's so easy.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
For that reason, I just do it for every single
one of my bookings.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Now, we are interrupting the Mind Your Music Business podcast
briefly to talk about indie royalties. If you're a performer
playing gigs across the country at various venues, do you
know that you can register your performances with your performing
(35:36):
rights organization to collect royalties on those performances. If you're
not already, get in touch with indie royalties dot com
to talk about how you can register these performances and
ensure that you are collecting all of the royalties you
are owed as a musician and a songwriter. Once again,
(36:00):
please reach out to indie royalties dot com to help
you collect all of the royalties that you are owed. Yeah,
and I think you know for the most part venues,
we'll think you're more professional by doing that.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
It's true, it's true.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
And like, at the very least, like you're probably not
gonna like sue someone and bring them to the cords
and da da da da da, but at the very
least it shows them that, yeah, like you said you're professional,
and two that you mean business. And three I don't
want to say this because it has kind of a
negative connotation to it, but it's kind of like a
scare tactic as well.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, So if someone's listening right now, and artists is
listening and they're like, I'm really interested in signing up
so I can book more gigs, what's the pricing on
your software? And if they don't have time to run
the campaigns themselves, can they be like, hey, Mike, I
want help with a founder setup.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Absolutely, So currently our pricing, we actually increased our prices
and we're probably going to increase them aguin.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Pretty soon.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
So currently how our pricing works is it's kind of
like a gym membership.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Is where I kind of got the idea.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
So you can either do a six month commitment, which
is like a six month membership, or a one year commitment,
and we used to do half of that for the
same price. But you know, literally all I care about
is getting people results, and I kind of discovered that
(37:43):
like six months is a good sweet spot to get
people results, and then especially twelve months is great because
you know, in like eight if you like bought today
and then you ran all the searches eight months from now,
ten months from now, there's going to be new places
that are doing music right, so you can if you
(38:04):
get the yearly plan, you could run the software again
in eight to ten months and then grab all those
new places and then hit them again before your membership
expires or you know, to resubscribe. But to answer your question, basically,
the lowest pricing.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
We have is our buy and now pay later.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Option using a firm or Klarna, and the lowest pricing
plan is with that is twenty seven dollars a month
if you hopefully you know Klarna or a firm works
for you, and that's for the six months, So twenty
seven dollars a month for the six month membership, or
(38:45):
if you want the year long plan, it's forty four
dollars a month and that gets either one year membership.
But if you wanted to flat out, if you don't
like having a monthly payment plan, you could flat out
purchase as a one time fee the six month commitment
(39:08):
for two ninety nine straight up, and that basically comes
out to like fifty bucks a month. Or if you,
like I said, if you want to go ahead and
run the software in eight to ten months after you
first get it. Obviously you know that won't happen for
the six month commitment unless you reinvest. So if you
(39:31):
do the year long commitment, it's four ninety nine as
a one time fee for the year, So it actually
would save you one hundred dollars as opposed to doing
two six month commitments, if that makes sense. Yeah, and
that comes out to like thirty three bucks a month.
And I realized, yeah, and I realized for some people
(39:51):
they might be like, oh my god, three hundred dollars,
five hundred dollars, that's so much money. But that's like
literally the cost of one Like that's how much you're
getting paid for a one gig at least.
Speaker 4 (39:59):
Right Yep.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
People are like, oh, I don't want to pay another subscription,
But if you're paying a booking agent ten percent of
every gig, in the long run, you're saving money on
your booking software because like, oh, let's say you have
two four hundred dollars gigs in a month, Well, that's
eighty dollars out the door when you do a booking
agent when you could be spending that on the software.
(40:20):
So I think it is definitely more lucrative for.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
The artists, right, And the name of the game really
is to like use their software to get your foot
in the door to all these new places, and then
when you're at the gig, really crush it, really just
do amazing and then sell them on the fact that
you like, like you could say, usually kind of my
line is like after the gig, like hopefully the booking
(40:46):
persons still there, going up to them and be like, hey,
how did you use an open ended question, like hey,
how did you feel about how did you feel about
how everything once tonight?
Speaker 2 (40:55):
And of course they'll usually say, oh, I think I
went amazing. And then you could say like.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Ah, and use that. Don't like what I'm about to say,
use this even if you're not going to use their software,
because this line is gold, So yeah, how did you
feel about everything? And then they will respond, oh, one amazing,
and then you respond, ah, I had such a great
time here too.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Would it be the end of the world?
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Would it be crazy if I just played here as
little as one time per month every month? How would
that sound to you? Another open ended question? And then
usually they're going to say, because the way you just
framed it, you made it seem like would it be
like this crazy thing to ask? And it's like, come on,
one time a month, that's peanuts. So usually they'll be like, oh, yeah, yeah,
(41:42):
I think we could work something out like that, and
then uh, you know, that's the name of the game,
like because otherwise you're just chasing like an endless hamster
wheel a finding gig after a gig after a gig. So,
like I said that, I call it the sweet sixteen.
If you're able to get twelve to sixteen gigs with
(42:04):
our software, and not only that, persuade them to book
you just one time a month, you're playing twelve to
sixteen gigs a month now, and if like, let's just
use small numbers here, So like let's just say even
after tips and everything, you're making three hundred bucks, and
let's just use twelve gigs a month. Let's just use
(42:24):
really conservative numbers. Assum making three hundred bucks after tip.
Let's just pretend you're one person just for the sake
of ease, three hundred bucks times twelve gigs a month,
you're making thirty six hundred dollars a month times twelve months,
you're making forty three thousand dollars a year. Now, So
you can see when you break down the math, like
you can see why this is. And not only are
(42:47):
you just gigging, you just built a whole Like you
just built a whole new side of your business for yourself.
And that's your your book of business that you can
keep forever and ever. And those relationships are yours for
over and over instead of just like begging and like
kissing the toes of these booking agents that you're kind
(43:08):
of like walking on egg shells with. Like I don't
know about me, but Sarah, like sometimes when you're working
with booking agents, don't you feel like you're kind of
walking on egg shells? You have to like be like
so polite and like you know, like kiss their feet.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
And like for sure, yeah to especially if I want
reoccurring gigs at the same place. You know, it's not
just about being nice to the venue, but being nice
to the middleman who's booking these shows, because they could
be booking other artists there. So it's definitely better if
you have that personal connection and contact with the venue yourself,
(43:45):
and if you can have a local gig once a month,
like instead of them having to worry about booking a
different artist on the twentieth of every month and just
have you, it's easier on them as well.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And to your point, I have a
lot of residencies right now. Or for example, for one example,
I'm like the second Friday of each month, guy, So
you can kind of sell them on that, like yeah, oh,
I could be your first Friday of each month, guy,
or like your third Saturday of each month, guy, or
(44:18):
like usually you don't want to say like when it comes,
because you know how some months have like a fifth week,
so when it comes to like yeah, so when it
comes to the later yeah, when it comes like the
later times in the month, you could say, like I'll
be your last like the last Saturday of each month.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (44:38):
Yeah, instead of a specific date.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Right right, Yeah, for the first two weeks, I would
only yeah, recommend it that way, but the third and
fourth plus weeks yes to be like the last or yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
Yeah, especially if there's holidays too.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yeah, exactly exactly. So yeah, I mean the name of
the game, like being.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
A full time musician is just getting that reoccurring income, booking,
getting those you know, those those consistent gigs every single month,
and a lot of I have to say a couple
more things real fast. A lot of people on social
media who are like selling courses or like whatever it
(45:17):
is that's kind of similar to this.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
They're kind of going from the frame of.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Like these crazy high private parties that are paying you
like three grand as a solo artist, and it's like
that's all good and stuff, but it's like and usually
they're using these testimonials, and they might be legitimate testimonials
of like, you know, Sarah played this gig by herself,
like this private party and she made three thousand dollars.
(45:42):
It's like, that's great, But what I want to know
is how much money are you making every single month
from the gigs and how much money do you make
for the whole year, Because sure, like a three thousand
dollars private parties nice, but if you're only going to
get one every single year.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah, it doesn't look so nice anymore.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, I seen those posts two, and I wonder if
they're using AI to book some of them.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Yeah. So it all these like private party like big
dollar signed people.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Kind of like like.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
Enchant you with these like and like like, I'm not
saying don't do that.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
It's it should always be a mix. And the most.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
Important thing, like, which is my third point that I'm
getting to hear, is you always want to diversify.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
So what we talked about earlier, like.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
I think it's important to have booking agents working for you,
but not only you should be also getting your own
book of business, whether you're using our software or not
to do that. And third, you should also be shooting
for private parties, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
And then fourth.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
The reason why I preach the Sweet sixteen, which of
course I was saying, is called the sixteen unique venues
booking every single month. You might be at thinking like, well,
why can't I play there every week when it be easy? Well,
based on my experience, if anything happened like say you're playing,
say you're making a full time income and you have
like four unique venues that are doing music every month
(47:11):
with you or every week and you just four two
of them go out of business or two of them
stop doing music, well bam, just like that, your income
instantly goes in half. So it's kind of just like
what they teach you at the stock market, right. It's
like just same with being a musician in every regard,
but when it comes to performing live, you want to
make sure that the places you're playing at are diversified. Yeah,
(47:35):
so that way, God forbid, if one of those venues
goes out of business or they stop doing music, or
you get replaced, or literally any bad thing that happens you,
you're still covered. It's like, all right, that only took
down a sixteenth or a twelfth of your income as
opposed to like half of your income and then you're screwed.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
Yeah. Well, not only that, but if you're playing at
the same venue weekly, it kind of limits your availability
to other venues that might want to pay you hire
or other opportunities.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
And usually most venues will be understanding.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
But you know, if you're playing down on Broadway in Nashville,
they're like, we want you here every week, or you know,
you're not playing here anymore, and there's been some musicians
fired from venues because you know, they had to take
a sick day. So I would just be aware of
limiting your opportunities playing at the same place every.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
Week per and and also you're kind of limiting your
fan base in that.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Regard, and corrects me if I'm wrong, But.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
Broadways mostly kind of like like tribute slash, like cover
music slash, like you could only really play a certain yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
So yeah, so that, you know, might be the kind
of place for you if you just want to play covers,
but you know, if you're wanting to play your originals too,
you need to be aware of that one.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
So I don't live in Nashville, but I've toured there
personally and visited there about like four or five times total.
And I've gone, of course, to Broadway, and I've seen
people like us who do covers and our original musicians,
and they might just do like myself, I do covers
just to kind of get by, and I kind of
consider playing covers like my day job quote unquote, But
(49:19):
my real passion and my real dream is to do
my original music full time. I just don't have that
many fans. I can't sell that many tickets yet. So
what I'm getting at here is if you're one of
those people and you're playing pretty much only on Broadway.
Because I've got I know those people, I could see
it in their eyes that they're also original music artists
and I have requested here's twenty dollars play an original song,
(49:43):
and they will like shake their heads and be like, no,
I'm not, I can't or for whatever reason, like I
can't do that.
Speaker 4 (49:49):
Yeah, maybe they're not alone.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
Yeah, And it's like, if you're an original artist and
you're not diversifying your gigs and you're only playing those
cover type gigs or like you're only playing on Broadway,
you're also limiting the types of fans and opportunities that
you're allowing yourself to have.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Yeah you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Yeah, absolutely, So I'm going to link this in the
liner notes of the podcast for listeners. But where can
people find sound Heart Music and message you? Is it
soundharmusic dot com.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Yeah, you could find our website soundharmusic dot com.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
But honestly, I kind of make.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
Everyone like qualify for software just to make sure. Like
I said, I'm a full time musician myself, so I
have an understand like, we're not just another like software
company that was creative by a bunch of like computer
nerds who like don't don't know, you know, like what
a g chord is or something. So like, the way
(50:51):
I built my company is through the eyes of a
full time musician, and for that reason, I want to
make sure that it's a good fit for you before
you decide to invest that money into your music career
to you know, I just want to.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
Make sure it will indeed work for you.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
So actually, what I would tell all your listeners to
do is go to our Instagram, and you don't even
have to follow us, but go to our Instagram sound
heart music like sound as in like a sound wave,
heart as in like a beating heart music.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
So sound to heart music.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
That's our Instagram, and feel free to peruse our posts.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
But yeah, just DM me.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
Mention that you were listening to the podcast, And I
think what I could.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
Do for your listeners is.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
So yeah, our software costs everything that I stated earlier,
but people will pay us an additional four hundred dollars
to get Like if you're super busy or you just
don't have time, they'll pay us an additional four hundred
dollars for us to get you a campaign set up
for you a to Z like we'll get We'll spend
all the time to grab all the venues that you're
(52:02):
looking for. You just tell us your location and what
you're looking for and what you do. We'll grab all
the leads for you. We'll write all the emails for you,
and then we'll actually launch the campaign. And what that
means is the software will be emailing all of those
people twenty four to seven around the clock. The aibooking
(52:23):
agent doesn't get sick, it doesn't have a husband or
a wife to have to spend time with our kids,
our dog to take out. So it's working every second
of every twenty four hours of every day of the
week for you. That's what will happen. So all you
got to do is sit back and just check out
your email. But for your listeners, I'm actually willing to
(52:44):
do this for free for you guys. If you mentioned
that you tuned in as a thank you for taking
the time to listen.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
So yeah, we'll do that.
Speaker 3 (52:53):
Four hundred dollars set up completely for free for your listeners.
Speaker 4 (52:57):
That's great, Okay.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
I will link all this info into liner notes for
my listeners. But again, if you're interested in getting on
board with Soundheart Music, uh just DM Mike tell them
you know you were listening to the Mind Your Music
Business podcast. You're interested in having a chat and interested
in the founder setup, and uh yeah, maybe we can
(53:21):
get some gigs booked for you guys.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
That'd be awesome. I love hearing like just when people
tell me they especially I think you said you got
your first gig in like literally what twelve hours after
you launched a campaign.
Speaker 4 (53:35):
I think so.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
Yeah, I've been pretty.
Speaker 4 (53:39):
Lucky so far.
Speaker 1 (53:39):
I haven't done too many campaigns, but there's like certain
cities where I needed an extra gig, and so far
I've been able to book like one gig in those
cities just by running a campaign. And you know, some
of them like they're sending one hundred or two hundred emails,
but you just need that one person to respond and
(54:00):
say that they're on board.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
Yeah, and you're a superstar, so I'm sure you know,
I'm sure that's why you're getting booked.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
Well, you know, it's so important and this will be
like another podcast to have you know, website music all
of that updated, so the venues know you're legit and everything.
Speaker 4 (54:21):
But just one other quick point I want to.
Speaker 1 (54:23):
Make you know, you may have venues coming back to
you and you know they want to give you like
half the pay, but you know, don't settle if it's
you know, something that's way past what, way below your
rate just because you need a gig. I think it's
important to know your value when setting price with venues.
Speaker 3 (54:42):
Yeah, I actually want to kind of branch off of
what you said, because that's an amazing point.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Like all that's doing if you do.
Speaker 3 (54:50):
That or want to play for free is like driving
down like the giging economy for professional musicians. I mean,
look at Broadway on Nashville for example. Yeah, everyone for
free just because it's too saturated, right, Yeah, and people
just like move to Nashville because they want to like
get going real quick, they want to be famous, so
theyre was saying yes to everything there, I'll play for free, right,
(55:12):
And I'm sure it wasn't always like that. I'm sure
the bars used to at least pay people at least something,
and I know the tips are good and that's kind
of how they justify it. But like, imagine if everyone
held their guns and their self worth and was like,
this is what I'm wore with. I believe that people
would be getting paid on Broadway.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
Absolutely, people were willing to pay for barely anything or free.
Speaker 3 (55:37):
Yeah, so let's boycott not doing that.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
Yeah, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3 (55:43):
And then also use like I was talking about when
we first jumped on, use that good cop bad cop
thing like I would love to, but my manager only
allows me to take three hundred to four hunt you
know whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
Yeah, yeah, such great points. Definitely look up Soundheart Music,
check it out, give them a follow.
Speaker 4 (56:03):
Mike, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (56:06):
Thanks for having me, Sarah with my absolute pleasure
Hi everyone, Thank you so much for tuning into the
fourth season of Mind Your Music Business. Today's topic is
really interesting because we are talking about booking and booking
shows but actually doing it through AI, which is amazing
if you are already your own booking agent. So here
(00:28):
with me to talk about this today is the founder
of Soundheart Music, Mike Silvestri. Mike is an independent, full
time artist who performs over two hundred and fifty times
a year and he's booked over two thousand and more
shows for himself and other artists. So this AI booking
software he has developed has enabled him to generate six
(00:52):
figures and touring revenue over the years. I'm really excited
to dive into this topic today. So Mike, thank you
so much for on the show today.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
How are you, I'm great. Thanks for having me, Sarah.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
This is our first podcast that we've done, so I
guess I'm still like learning the ropes on how to
exactually go about doing a podcast as we go. Thanks
for having me, and congrats on you say your third season.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Huh yeah, third season of the podcast. So I've just
been interviewing people from all different facets of the industry.
So I'm just excited to pick your brain today about
booking gigs through AI, because I think it's really relevant
and something that people need. Yeah, and so you and
(01:46):
I connected when we co wrote virtually a few years ago.
And then I was coming out to San Diego earlier
this year for a conference we were both attending. My
publisher wanted me to book an extra gig while I
was out there, but we were coming up on the
conference quickly, and she recommended that I have you book
(02:06):
us a gig through your booking software. And I was like, wait,
I know, Mike, so the funny connection, small world, and
I had no idea you could book a gig through AI.
So I'm glad we got reconnected and you booked us
a show right outside of San Diego, and we split
(02:27):
this set.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
My husband played Cone for us.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
And then you were able to give me the backstory
on your software then, but could you please tell our
listeners how you created this AI booking software and how
it works. And I think for those of you who
are listening and wondering, it's definitely much more advanced than
just trying to, you know, get booking contacts from Chad GBT.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, In fact, It's funny that you say that because
a lot of people, you know, you're always going to
get haters on Instagram, even if you're like like kissing
babies and giving millions of dollars to Africas, everyone's gonna
have haters.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So yeah, yeah, we've.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Had people who will comment like, oh, you could just
do this on chat GPT, and then of course that
prompted me to make some content based around that. So
I actually did a shootout with my software versus chat GPT,
and chat GPT literally just gives you like like you
could go ahead and do it, like I'm not even lying,
(03:32):
Like you could type in chat gypt like whatever prompt
you want to give it to try to get gigs,
and all it's going to give you is like the
major concert type ticketed shows in your general area, and
that's it.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Like here's the name and here's the location.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
No contact information, no like information about the venue.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
It won't even come Google search, right.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, yeah, it's just like a base say Google search.
You know, that's what chat shebt gives you. But yeah,
for us, we're we're people. Actually I don't even I
didn't even call us this, but some of our clients
have been going to call us the the Google of
venue I guess finding or venue information. And then the
(04:19):
coolest thing about it it was like it will actually
contact all of those people on autopilot for you.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
And you know, like the annoying thing.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
I mean, there's a lot of good things, but I
guess I would say, honestly, we're in the best time
ever in the world to be a music creator. But
the annoying thing about it is we got to wear
a million hats, so you know, at the end of
the day, we're musicians. Like we started this crazy career
path because we wanted to make music, Like literally, that's
(04:51):
the only thing that we wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Well, I think it's funny because so many of us
as creatives were fearful of AI right now out taking
over our jobs and music. But I love that you're
using AI like as an aid for your career to
you know, maintain it and keep going.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
So were you just at a place where.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
You were spending too much time booking gigs and you know,
maybe this thought just popped in your brain, like, well,
what if I could just do this on autopilot?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, so I kind of have to give a little
bit of a backstory, and this is going to sound
a little weird. I actually have to thank COVID for it.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
So I moved. I'm in Los Angeles now.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I'm originally born and raised Chicago Land Area, and I've
been a full time musician. Well I've been out here
for seven years now, I'm into my seventh year. But
before that, I was a full time musician for like
three years in Chicago Land Area. And you know, like
I'm not famous, I have fans, but like I can
(05:58):
really only sell tickets in Chicago Go. So I pretty
much have made my money by like playing like restaurants
and bars and like guaranteed type gigs where you don't
need to like have a draw or and you get
paid even if like I've played gigs five hundred, seven
hundred bucks and there's not one, like there's literally no
one even out there, and like sure, like it's annoying
(06:21):
to play literally to an empty room, but the good
news is you're still getting paid anyway, So that's always
But kind of going into the story, so I knew
I was going to move to Los Angeles. I had
seven months, and I toured out there in May just
(06:41):
to kind of see if it was a good fit,
and it was, so come June and I was gonna
move there, not like Halloween of October. So that's like
all of June, July, August, September, and then all of October.
So I had five months because I was like, I
don't want to go and be a bartender or something
when I'm already a full time musician. Yeah, so for
(07:01):
five months, that five month period, I I spent forty
hours a week for five months straight, like no exaggeration,
doing everything manually, like aggregating data, making spreadsheets, emailing people.
I even paid my step brother fifteen dollars an hour
(07:24):
to help me with this stuff. And I even one
day I was like making tons of phone calls every day.
One day I made eight hundred phone calls in one day,
Like I'm not even kidding it was. It was torture.
I think I did calls for like twelve hours straight.
So but yeah, it happened. So come October Halloween, I
(07:48):
officially moved to California full time and I was indeed
a full time musician day one, So it works, right,
But what happened for four or five months after over
twenty nineteen COVID hit of course, and I had thirty
gigs get canceled. Yeah, so yeah, the forty hours a
(08:11):
week for five months, that it's crazy math. That's like
a stupid amount of time. All of that effort just
went down the hole. And and then when we came
out of COVID, I was like, all right, I can't
even use all of the data that I had before
(08:31):
because half of the places went out of business from COVID.
Half of the places stopped doing music because of COVID, Right,
you know, another percentage of new places popped up that
started offering music that I didn't even you know that
I didn't even know about, just because they're brand new.
And I was like, dang, Like I can't even afford
(08:54):
to spend forty hours a week for.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Five months straight.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
I don't have that much time, Like I got a
like my income is zero dollars right now because COVID
like took it all the way back down. And so
I was like, I had there has to be a
better way to do this. I can't spend all that time,
Like I can't. I needed to take like two to
four weeks, not not five months for forty hours. So
(09:20):
I like thought long and hard about it, and I
kind of created like a Frankenstein of a bunch of
different processes and a bunch of different like softwares.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
And then eventually that is what.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Became like the ideas of all those processes and all
those different softwares that I fring Instein together. That's essentially
oh and by the way, So I did it, and
then within a month, like thirty days, I was back
up to where I was before. So I did, and
I keep in mind I was only spending like thirty
minutes a week for thirty days, yeah, as opposed to
(09:58):
forty hours a week for five months. So basically all
of those systems and all of those softwares that I
bring Instein together, I took that kind of like greater
concept and then essentially hired a bunch of developers to
create what is now software or sorry Soundheart Music AKAAR
(10:21):
software that is our very own We're not like an affiliate.
It's our very own software called Robotic Booking Agent, which
is like the AI music Booking Agent. So now you know,
that's what I've been using for myself just now still
be a full time musician.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
I'm still a full time musician.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Now for in just California for seven years now, so
like almost ten years total, and then now we have
over two hundred clients that are actively using it and
getting booked, and we've even turned like all great majority
of them into full time musicians and actually allowed and
enabled their dreams to come true. So for me, that's
(11:01):
like probably one of the most like heartwarming like.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Soul like.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Something that like I'm never you know how like you'll
do things in life and your soul is just like
going like yeah, like I feel great, Like there's nothing
better than having someone like contact you and saying like
you're the reason why I'm a full time musician now.
I never thought that would be something that just makes
my heart strings like pull more than anything.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Right, Yeah, And it's amazing software. I've been using it
myself and before, you know, when I needed a show
in a specific location, just to add a show or
stop along the way, I would just you know, use
Google for live music searches and just take forever filtering
out which venues I thought would be most suitable for
(11:49):
me to play, and then even just copying and pasting
you know, emails would take forever. So I've been using
this as a great aid, I booked a couple of
paying gigs to your software so far. I mentioned that
I was just playing in Ohio and I needed to
stop along the way. So I just pulled a list
(12:12):
of venues in Kentucky like live music, hotel, speak easy brewery, winery,
just all those key words, generated a list, filtered out
maybe that what didn't apply to me, and then send
those emails on autopilot. And you know, you'll send out
to one hundred venues, but you just need one to
(12:34):
respond when you're looking for one show in a certain area.
So it's been such a great time saver, and uh yeah,
I'm just excited to.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Keep using it.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I don't think people the venues necessarily know that you're
using AI to even generate these email campaigns. You know,
some people I've had respond and they say, oh, how
have you heard of us? Or you know, I'll just say, oh,
Google search or friend Mike played here one time.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
You know, you don't have to tell them it's AI.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
And I don't know if they'll they'll care or not,
but it's it's just a great way to get more
paying gigs.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
And yeah, you know we try to make it and
a lot you know, we get a lot of people
in our Instagram is kind of our main way that
we market ourselves and actually talk with our clients and
potential clients. Sound hard music, but yeah, some people will say, like,
I would never trust AI to send the emails for us.
(13:43):
But here's the thing, Like we actually started off as
a coaching company and then we pivoted to a software company.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
So there's a lot of like DNA.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
I guess you could call it about the way we
like run our company.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
And yeah, so a.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Lot of like I feel like a lot of the
DNA of the coaching aspect of it was kind of
like hotwired into the software company.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
So you know, we'll use AI.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Perhaps we won't even use AI for the actual email
content of like the emails that go out, like what
the words are and all the verbiage. You can use
AI if you like, But I personally tell all my
clients like, let me know when you're done, and I'll
look it over. And you know, I consider myself an
(14:34):
email marketing expert like Guru in fact, and I personally
look over if the client wants me to, each and
every one of the emails that will be going out
to make sure that it doesn't look artificial, and to
make sure that their unique style and voice is kind
of broadcasted through that email as well.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
And to go off of that, when someone is creating
an email template to auto send out to venues, do
you think they should sign it like from themselves the
emails coming from them or do you think venues or
are more likely to respond if it looks like it's
coming from a manager or booking agent talking about the
(15:16):
artist and third person.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah, that's a good question. I don't think. You know,
I've kind of tested that, and.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I don't know. Honestly, I really don't know.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
I've been trying to figure that out myself, And as
odd as it sounds, I feel like I personally, based
on my unique experience, I feel like I've gotten the
best responses and stuff like that when it's it sounds
like it's like the Arctic artists pitching themselves. But I think, honestly,
(15:54):
the best way to answer that question is like the
authentic about it, Like, yeah, if you don't actually have
of a manager, or you don't actually have a real
like if you're making up this imaginary character in persona,
I feel like I've done that actually myself, and I
feel like that never translates well. So I feel like
(16:14):
just being honest whatever that means for you, I think
that's just the best way to do it, honestly.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Yeah, I've done most of them, you know, signing it
off as my publisher and you know, I just let
her know. I think if you are using a manager's name,
get their permission first, and if the venue wants to
negotiate over the phone, just to ask your manager or
publisher if they can call the venue and take the
(16:41):
negotiation from there. But yeah, I think it's important to
be authentic and not fake.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
The only thing I will say in not regards to
that is kind of like a negotiation tactic that I
kind of figured out through all the years, which is,
if you have your minimums in mind, like dollar amounts
or like take it like even like the amount of
money that you're charging per ticket or literally whatever you
(17:09):
you know that you need, and you don't have a
manager or like an authority over you, what I'll do
like say, I like say, like let's just pretend I
want I want to charge five hundred bucks for this venue,
and they're like, oh, the best we could do is
three hundred. So then I'll go and say I would
love to do it for three hundred, but my my
(17:32):
manager is requiring me only to take gigs that pay
five hundred to six hundred dollars. Yeah, and you don't
have even have to lie. You can like literally what
I did was I went up to my brother, like
my actual brother, and I was like, hey, you're my manager,
all right, And he's like, all right, and you only
let me charge.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
You know, five hundred to six hundred or whatever it is.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
And he's like, I'm like all right, and he's like
all right, So you're technically not lying, right. But the
good thing about there's actually a lot of a lot
of like gems just in that single statement that I
made one is it takes it's kind of like good cop,
bad cop. So it takes like you don't look like
(18:15):
you're the like quote unquote bad person, and it takes
like the pressure off of you to negotiate because you're.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Not saying, like I want this much money.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
It's like I would love to do that, but my
manager and only only requires me to do this, So
it's kind of like good cop, Bad cop. And then
I highly recommend that negotiation strategy as well as giving
them a range is huge. I would always, always, always
recommend giving a range.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
When you're talking money.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
The lower the lower number of the range is what
your minimum is and what will make you happy, and
then the upper number is what will make you very
very happy. And then usually either they're going to go
for your lower amount, which of course is cool because
that's your minimum slash what will make you happy.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Sometimes they'll want to meet you in the middle. And
I've even personally had venues.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
That will offer to go for your top your top number,
no issues, They're like happy. Usually the people that offer
you the top number of your range are like happy
to do it right.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And sometimes those venues just say like, does this number
work for you without even asking your budget first. So
sometimes they really like to help out the artists, which
is good.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
It's true, and this is especially true if they are.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
The ones that are reaching.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Out to you and they want you like you uniquely
as opposed to like you reaching out to them like
as like a cold potential venue. So yeah, if someone's
reaching out to you and they want like specifically Sarah Harrelson,
just know that you have a lot of negotiating power,
and you could probably add you can probably add a
(19:57):
little more dollar amounts to whatever for your.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah, yeah, definitely highlight you know, top venues you played
in everything when you're negotiating and everything. And I'm sure
some people are wondering, well, why can't I just use
this money to pay a booking agent, pay them ten
percent to you know, get me gigs, and you could,
but one they might not get as many gigs for you.
(20:24):
They don't you know, can't pick up as many venues
as the software. There's definitely not a problem with getting
a booking agent. But for instance, recently, there was a
booking agent that recently poked me a show and that
show was lower pay and not as great of an
(20:44):
experience as I had with the gig that I booked
on your software. So you know, it can be hit
or miss with that. But I think it's just being
smart with your time or money, what kind of venues
you're trying to book, what you're looking at booking. You
can even use a booking manager and maybe use like
the software in between to pick up extra gigs.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
I guess, in fact, I would highly recommend doing that.
That's exactly what I do personally, Like I said, I
am a full time musician currently, so.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
That's what I do. Like, I'm not even gonna lie.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
I use my software, but I also have like four
different booking agents working for me. And keep in mind
I said four, So it's kind of like the important
thing to note here for all the listeners. Really it's
so important, like in general, but I guess even just
talking about the gig, like even talking about the one
bucket of live performance, it's important to diversify the gigs
(21:44):
that you're getting and also where they're coming from. You know,
it's really important. And then there's a couple more things
I want to touch with the booking agents based on
my personal experience, and I'm sure I could speak with
for everyone else. I don't know about you, but you're
not If your dream and your goal is to be
a full time musician, you're probably never gonna achieve that
(22:06):
with a booking agent. View that stuff as like supplementary income.
And then keep in mind, they have a whole roster
of artists, right, so especially if you're new to the roster,
they're probably going to prioritize other artists that they've been
working with for a while, or people that in their
(22:27):
eyes are just better than you. So they might promise
you of the world and then only give you maybe
like one date a month. They're also taking fees, and
then a lot of the times there's gonna God forbid,
there might end up being some drama or some like
political bs that happens, and then just because of the
(22:48):
political bs, they cut.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Ties with you, or you cut ties with them, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Yeah, you never know.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
And then keep in mind too, because people don't really
think about this. If you're working with a booking agent,
you're building their business for them. Yeah, Like you're not
doing anything for yourself except putting a little bit of
money in your pocket. You're not building your business at all.
They own whatever venue that is, That is their book
of business and their relationship. In fact, you that's their
(23:19):
relationship so much if that booking agent found out that
you're talking to their client, you would get fired.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah, they have.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
You can even have a relationship with that venue, right.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
You could go like when you go to the venue
of the booking agent's not there and make a relationship
with the contact there. But you know, the booking agent's
probably going to book other artists there again.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Exactly exactly, and like I don't want to try to
segue into what my software does, but where the difference
lies and why like just having an AI not even
our software, but just having like an AI booking agent,
and we're really the only ones that do it. By
the way AI booking agent is, there's no political drama.
(24:05):
And here's the best thing, in my opinion, all of
the gigs, especially if you're targeting your local area where
you live, all the gigs and all the business that
this AI booking agent gets for you and builds for you,
and all the relationships it gets for you.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Are yours to keep.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
They're not ours, Like you're in.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Nashville, right, Sarah, I am, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
So if you get like a bunch of gigs like
through the software, you, as Sarah Harrelson, can like reach
out to those people and say, hey, you guys want
to book me here every month or every week? And
then all you need is I call the Sweet sixteen.
All you need is twelve to sixteen unique venue is
booking you every month and you're a full time musician,
(24:49):
and you know you don't kind of pay commissions.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
All of that.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
I call it a book of business that it's built
ugh for you. Is is yours and you own it
and you're to do whatever you want with it.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I was trying to add some shows in Florida this June,
and when I was booking it through your software, the
venue owner called me and he was like, I own
three other venues in Florida that all have live music,
and I do the booking for all of them, so
let me know if you're want to play a multiple ones.
So sometimes you can find like really good contacts and
(25:27):
gold mines through this software. So yeah, it's definitely great
to develop relationships on your own.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
I just had this client from Reno literally yesterday. We
were talking and I was like, hey, how's it going
because I noticed like his campaigns kind of just like stopped.
And I was like, hey, is everything okay? And he
was like yeah, man, Actually what happened was, I, uh.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
I got this gig to the software.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
I showed up and he said this country band was
playing after me, like I was the opener or something.
And then the country guy was like the band He's like, hey,
we need a guitar player. And I really liked your
guitar playing, and he was like, we're gonna do We're
gonna go on tour. This is what it pays, according
to him, extremely lucrative and so now he's like touring
(26:16):
with them like full time as their guitar players.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Yeah, you know what opportunity O'll bring you.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Yeah, And he's like, I'm not. He's like, I turned
off the campaigns with the software. He's like because honestly,
these like guitar playing gigs are so lucrative and I'm
like totally happy doing them. And I'm like, wow, that's amazing.
Like even me as the founder of the software, the
software still continues to like surprise me like every day
on just what opportunities and potential it has.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
You know, yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
So what are all of the venues or gigs you
can book through the software? I've for example, I ran
list for bars with live music, hotels, country clubs, breweries, wineries,
and fest although some of the festivals I kind of
have to look up like when their festival is like
when I generate that list, so it's kind of important
(27:07):
to figure out what time of year their festival is.
Is there anything else people should be looking for when
running campaigns.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah, great question.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
So in fact, all my clients I actually give them
a list of like I guess you could call it
like best practices, and I'll read them off to you.
They're not limited to this, but this is what I
personally found that works the best.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Well, first, I have to preface all that with this.
So we're the only thing.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Out of like everything, not just like AI booking agents,
like like literally indie like out of like Indie, out
of the Indie on the move, out of like Sonic Viz,
out of like every single thing that's been around, even
for decades. So all of those places kind of give
you proper concert halls selling tickets and da da da
da da, and not every one of them are famous,
(28:01):
some of them us and I might not even want
to do original music. So yes, of course our software
will find those venues for you, of course, like that's
the easiest part. But what we do that no one
else does is we find places and I'm just gonna
name up all the keywords right now. Wineries with live music,
(28:21):
of scale, restaurants with live music, bar with live music,
brewery with live music, luxury resort with live music, country
clubs like golf clubs with live music, live music just
in general, bears festivals, farmers markets, casinos, which are great
for all of you country people. Country dance halls, libraries,
(28:43):
believe it or not, have music programming that actually pay
very well. Something that we're kind of testing. It's kind
of more of a testing, I'll have to say that
is radio stations. We do grab radio stations. However, I'll
be honest and say nothing as ever come to fruition yet.
With that, it's something I'm kind of experimenting with colleges
(29:06):
and universities.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
And then finally, music.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Venues, which are your proper like one hundred seat theaters
or like concert halls all the way up to like
sofi stadium like proper arenas and stadiums. Additionally, you know,
piano bars, dance clubs, nightclubs, clubs with DJs. So this
works for like hip hop artists rappers who are playing
more like a nightclub setting, as well as DJs obviously
(29:32):
who also play a nightclub setting.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Yeah yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah, and it's not limited to those keywords that either.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
So for the most part, when you get that list,
you can you know, just kind of filter out maybe
what contacts don't have emails or which ones don't really
apply to you. And then I guess with festivals, you
just need to check their website to see when their
festival is, so you're not reaching out at a weird time.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would recommend that. And as well
as you know, if you're like, if it grabs like
Greek fest for you, but you play like blues music,
you know, typically like, yeah, the heritage type festivals have
that type of you know that heritage's unique music usually
performed a live so definitely look into that. They might
(30:22):
just be looking for like Greek music or something, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Okay, cool, And so let's say I have a venue
that wants to go ahead and lock down a date
with me book the gig. Do you recommend that the
artist sends the venue some sort of contract for the
gig or should it just be like email confirmation?
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Great question, so great questions.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
So yeah, so you know, historically and kind of like
knee jerk reaction, everyone knows if that if that is
a requirement of any sort to sound like an official content,
whether that's like a sign, what is it like one
of those like dot com websites where you can like
sign a contract.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
Through yeah, like DocuSign.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Yeah, so either that or just like sending like sending
like a PDF or something, you.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Know, whatever way you do it.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
However, I actually spoke with my lawyer and this is
what I'm doing now, and we have these templates for
all of our clients. And what I actually reconmn to
my clients because it's really freaking easy.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Is I give them this.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
I literally have it as a note like the Apples
notes default app I have it just sitting there and
it says in big letters like I'm a I'm as
in Mike's Celvestie music invoice.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
And then it's literally just looks like an email.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
And honestly, I'd be happy to like send this to
your listeners somehow, like for just for free.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
So yeah, if you have a link I can get
in the liner notes totally.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yeah, I'll go ahead and do that for you guys. Absolutely.
So I spoke my lawyer and he said that.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Doing this is like lawfully binding and would hold up
in the court of laws. So yeah, you just send
an email like literally copy and paste into the email
and I'll kind of read the beginning of it, it's
like ms, I'm in voice, as in Mike Cledustrian music invoice, Hi,
awesome and looking forward to it. This particular email will
serve as your invoice and contract confirming this as a
(32:31):
lawfully binding contract for the terms and conditions below. Uh
da da da da, And then you just like put
everything that you would put in a normal contract. You
could even go ahead and say like, please confirm back.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
I probably would recommend that, just.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Make sure they do confirm back, because if they don't
want done by, there's kind of like a loophole there, right. Yeah,
So yeah, if they confirm back to that email and say, hey,
it looks all good, that that actually would serve directly
as an an invoice slash lawfully abiding contract that would technically.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Have some authority over it for sure. Great.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
So yeah, so you don't in the worst case scenario,
you get to the venue and they're like, oh, we
double booked or we're not having live music.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
They still have to pay you that.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
So I go ahead and show them the email and
I'm like and I've even had people say, oh, well,
this isn't like a contract that I signed, and I'm like, well,
it actually is because if you read the email and
you also like replied confirming to it and technically would
serve as that and also within that invoice, I actually
(33:44):
took the verbiage from a doctor's you know how doctors
have like a cancelation thing or whatever. I took the
verbiage from there, and then towards the bottom of it says,
acceptance of this contract will strictly enforce the canceling policy.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
If a cancelation is.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Made under forty eight hours, then the party will be
subject to a cancelation fee of one hundred percent cost
per violation of each date. So you can like change
those numbers to whatever you want. But yeah, no, I've literally,
like not theories, not philosophies. I've had this. I've literally
been paid like five hundred plus dollars on double bookings
(34:27):
using my emailing method with this.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Like email contract.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
I guess you could call it where it's like actually
embedded directly into the body.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Of the email.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Yeah, okay, so it's working. It's not a theory or
a philosophy. This is like a real working thing, right.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Yeah. I think that's such an important safe all to have,
especially if you're traveling a long way for the gig,
so important to have that contract.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
In fact, I used to be kind of like lazy
about it, but just because it's kind of a.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Right to write up a contract and noah da da
da dah.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
But now with like the email and embedding thing, I
literally just copy and paste right into the body of
the email, like the words, and it's so easy.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
For that reason, I just do it for every single
one of my bookings.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Now, we are interrupting the Mind Your Music Business podcast
briefly to talk about indie royalties. If you're a performer
playing gigs across the country at various venues, do you
know that you can register your performances with your performing
(35:36):
rights organization to collect royalties on those performances. If you're
not already, get in touch with indie royalties dot com
to talk about how you can register these performances and
ensure that you are collecting all of the royalties you
are owed as a musician and a songwriter. Once again,
(36:00):
please reach out to indie royalties dot com to help
you collect all of the royalties that you are owed. Yeah,
and I think you know for the most part venues,
we'll think you're more professional by doing that.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
It's true, it's true.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
And like, at the very least, like you're probably not
gonna like sue someone and bring them to the cords
and da da da da da, but at the very
least it shows them that, yeah, like you said you're professional,
and two that you mean business. And three I don't
want to say this because it has kind of a
negative connotation to it, but it's kind of like a
scare tactic as well.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, So if someone's listening right now, and artists is
listening and they're like, I'm really interested in signing up
so I can book more gigs, what's the pricing on
your software? And if they don't have time to run
the campaigns themselves, can they be like, hey, Mike, I
want help with a founder setup.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Absolutely, So currently our pricing, we actually increased our prices
and we're probably going to increase them aguin.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Pretty soon.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
So currently how our pricing works is it's kind of
like a gym membership.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Is where I kind of got the idea.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
So you can either do a six month commitment, which
is like a six month membership, or a one year commitment,
and we used to do half of that for the
same price. But you know, literally all I care about
is getting people results, and I kind of discovered that
(37:43):
like six months is a good sweet spot to get
people results, and then especially twelve months is great because
you know, in like eight if you like bought today
and then you ran all the searches eight months from now,
ten months from now, there's going to be new places
that are doing music right, so you can if you
(38:04):
get the yearly plan, you could run the software again
in eight to ten months and then grab all those
new places and then hit them again before your membership
expires or you know, to resubscribe. But to answer your question, basically,
the lowest pricing.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
We have is our buy and now pay later.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Option using a firm or Klarna, and the lowest pricing
plan is with that is twenty seven dollars a month
if you hopefully you know Klarna or a firm works
for you, and that's for the six months, So twenty
seven dollars a month for the six month membership, or
(38:45):
if you want the year long plan, it's forty four
dollars a month and that gets either one year membership.
But if you wanted to flat out, if you don't
like having a monthly payment plan, you could flat out
purchase as a one time fee the six month commitment
(39:08):
for two ninety nine straight up, and that basically comes
out to like fifty bucks a month. Or if you,
like I said, if you want to go ahead and
run the software in eight to ten months after you
first get it. Obviously you know that won't happen for
the six month commitment unless you reinvest. So if you
(39:31):
do the year long commitment, it's four ninety nine as
a one time fee for the year, So it actually
would save you one hundred dollars as opposed to doing
two six month commitments, if that makes sense. Yeah, and
that comes out to like thirty three bucks a month.
And I realized, yeah, and I realized for some people
(39:51):
they might be like, oh my god, three hundred dollars,
five hundred dollars, that's so much money. But that's like
literally the cost of one Like that's how much you're
getting paid for a one gig at least.
Speaker 4 (39:59):
Right Yep.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
People are like, oh, I don't want to pay another subscription,
But if you're paying a booking agent ten percent of
every gig, in the long run, you're saving money on
your booking software because like, oh, let's say you have
two four hundred dollars gigs in a month, Well, that's
eighty dollars out the door when you do a booking
agent when you could be spending that on the software.
(40:20):
So I think it is definitely more lucrative for.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
The artists, right, And the name of the game really
is to like use their software to get your foot
in the door to all these new places, and then
when you're at the gig, really crush it, really just
do amazing and then sell them on the fact that
you like, like you could say, usually kind of my
line is like after the gig, like hopefully the booking
(40:46):
persons still there, going up to them and be like, hey,
how did you use an open ended question, like hey,
how did you feel about how did you feel about
how everything once tonight?
Speaker 2 (40:55):
And of course they'll usually say, oh, I think I
went amazing. And then you could say like.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Ah, and use that. Don't like what I'm about to say,
use this even if you're not going to use their software,
because this line is gold, So yeah, how did you
feel about everything? And then they will respond, oh, one amazing,
and then you respond, ah, I had such a great
time here too.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Would it be the end of the world?
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Would it be crazy if I just played here as
little as one time per month every month? How would
that sound to you? Another open ended question? And then
usually they're going to say, because the way you just
framed it, you made it seem like would it be
like this crazy thing to ask? And it's like, come on,
one time a month, that's peanuts. So usually they'll be like, oh, yeah, yeah,
(41:42):
I think we could work something out like that, and
then uh, you know, that's the name of the game,
like because otherwise you're just chasing like an endless hamster
wheel a finding gig after a gig after a gig. So,
like I said that, I call it the sweet sixteen.
If you're able to get twelve to sixteen gigs with
(42:04):
our software, and not only that, persuade them to book
you just one time a month, you're playing twelve to
sixteen gigs a month now, and if like, let's just
use small numbers here, So like let's just say even
after tips and everything, you're making three hundred bucks, and
let's just use twelve gigs a month. Let's just use
(42:24):
really conservative numbers. Assum making three hundred bucks after tip.
Let's just pretend you're one person just for the sake
of ease, three hundred bucks times twelve gigs a month,
you're making thirty six hundred dollars a month times twelve months,
you're making forty three thousand dollars a year. Now, So
you can see when you break down the math, like
you can see why this is. And not only are
(42:47):
you just gigging, you just built a whole Like you
just built a whole new side of your business for yourself.
And that's your your book of business that you can
keep forever and ever. And those relationships are yours for
over and over instead of just like begging and like
kissing the toes of these booking agents that you're kind
(43:08):
of like walking on egg shells with. Like I don't
know about me, but Sarah, like sometimes when you're working
with booking agents, don't you feel like you're kind of
walking on egg shells? You have to like be like
so polite and like you know, like kiss their feet.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
And like for sure, yeah to especially if I want
reoccurring gigs at the same place. You know, it's not
just about being nice to the venue, but being nice
to the middleman who's booking these shows, because they could
be booking other artists there. So it's definitely better if
you have that personal connection and contact with the venue yourself,
(43:45):
and if you can have a local gig once a month,
like instead of them having to worry about booking a
different artist on the twentieth of every month and just
have you, it's easier on them as well.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And to your point, I have a
lot of residencies right now. Or for example, for one example,
I'm like the second Friday of each month, guy, So
you can kind of sell them on that, like yeah, oh,
I could be your first Friday of each month, guy,
or like your third Saturday of each month, guy, or
(44:18):
like usually you don't want to say like when it comes,
because you know how some months have like a fifth week,
so when it comes to like yeah, so when it
comes to the later yeah, when it comes like the
later times in the month, you could say, like I'll
be your last like the last Saturday of each month.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (44:38):
Yeah, instead of a specific date.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Right right, Yeah, for the first two weeks, I would
only yeah, recommend it that way, but the third and
fourth plus weeks yes to be like the last or yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
Yeah, especially if there's holidays too.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yeah, exactly exactly. So yeah, I mean the name of
the game, like being.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
A full time musician is just getting that reoccurring income, booking,
getting those you know, those those consistent gigs every single month,
and a lot of I have to say a couple
more things real fast. A lot of people on social
media who are like selling courses or like whatever it
(45:17):
is that's kind of similar to this.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
They're kind of going from the frame of.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Like these crazy high private parties that are paying you
like three grand as a solo artist, and it's like
that's all good and stuff, but it's like and usually
they're using these testimonials, and they might be legitimate testimonials
of like, you know, Sarah played this gig by herself,
like this private party and she made three thousand dollars.
(45:42):
It's like, that's great, But what I want to know
is how much money are you making every single month
from the gigs and how much money do you make
for the whole year, Because sure, like a three thousand
dollars private parties nice, but if you're only going to
get one every single year.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah, it doesn't look so nice anymore.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, I seen those posts two, and I wonder if
they're using AI to book some of them.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Yeah. So it all these like private party like big
dollar signed people.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Kind of like like.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
Enchant you with these like and like like, I'm not
saying don't do that.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
It's it should always be a mix. And the most.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
Important thing, like, which is my third point that I'm
getting to hear, is you always want to diversify.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
So what we talked about earlier, like.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
I think it's important to have booking agents working for you,
but not only you should be also getting your own
book of business, whether you're using our software or not
to do that. And third, you should also be shooting
for private parties, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
And then fourth.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
The reason why I preach the Sweet sixteen, which of
course I was saying, is called the sixteen unique venues
booking every single month. You might be at thinking like, well,
why can't I play there every week when it be easy? Well,
based on my experience, if anything happened like say you're playing,
say you're making a full time income and you have
like four unique venues that are doing music every month
(47:11):
with you or every week and you just four two
of them go out of business or two of them
stop doing music, well bam, just like that, your income
instantly goes in half. So it's kind of just like
what they teach you at the stock market, right. It's
like just same with being a musician in every regard,
but when it comes to performing live, you want to
make sure that the places you're playing at are diversified. Yeah,
(47:35):
so that way, God forbid, if one of those venues
goes out of business or they stop doing music, or
you get replaced, or literally any bad thing that happens you,
you're still covered. It's like, all right, that only took
down a sixteenth or a twelfth of your income as
opposed to like half of your income and then you're screwed.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
Yeah. Well, not only that, but if you're playing at
the same venue weekly, it kind of limits your availability
to other venues that might want to pay you hire
or other opportunities.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
And usually most venues will be understanding.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
But you know, if you're playing down on Broadway in Nashville,
they're like, we want you here every week, or you know,
you're not playing here anymore, and there's been some musicians
fired from venues because you know, they had to take
a sick day. So I would just be aware of
limiting your opportunities playing at the same place every.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
Week per and and also you're kind of limiting your
fan base in that.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Regard, and corrects me if I'm wrong, But.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
Broadways mostly kind of like like tribute slash, like cover
music slash, like you could only really play a certain yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
So yeah, so that, you know, might be the kind
of place for you if you just want to play covers,
but you know, if you're wanting to play your originals too,
you need to be aware of that one.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
So I don't live in Nashville, but I've toured there
personally and visited there about like four or five times total.
And I've gone, of course, to Broadway, and I've seen
people like us who do covers and our original musicians,
and they might just do like myself, I do covers
just to kind of get by, and I kind of
consider playing covers like my day job quote unquote, But
(49:19):
my real passion and my real dream is to do
my original music full time. I just don't have that
many fans. I can't sell that many tickets yet. So
what I'm getting at here is if you're one of
those people and you're playing pretty much only on Broadway.
Because I've got I know those people, I could see
it in their eyes that they're also original music artists
and I have requested here's twenty dollars play an original song,
(49:43):
and they will like shake their heads and be like, no,
I'm not, I can't or for whatever reason, like I
can't do that.
Speaker 4 (49:49):
Yeah, maybe they're not alone.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
Yeah, And it's like, if you're an original artist and
you're not diversifying your gigs and you're only playing those
cover type gigs or like you're only playing on Broadway,
you're also limiting the types of fans and opportunities that
you're allowing yourself to have.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Yeah you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Yeah, absolutely, So I'm going to link this in the
liner notes of the podcast for listeners. But where can
people find sound Heart Music and message you? Is it
soundharmusic dot com.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Yeah, you could find our website soundharmusic dot com.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
But honestly, I kind of make.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
Everyone like qualify for software just to make sure. Like
I said, I'm a full time musician myself, so I
have an understand like, we're not just another like software
company that was creative by a bunch of like computer
nerds who like don't don't know, you know, like what
a g chord is or something. So like, the way
(50:51):
I built my company is through the eyes of a
full time musician, and for that reason, I want to
make sure that it's a good fit for you before
you decide to invest that money into your music career
to you know, I just want to.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
Make sure it will indeed work for you.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
So actually, what I would tell all your listeners to
do is go to our Instagram, and you don't even
have to follow us, but go to our Instagram sound
heart music like sound as in like a sound wave,
heart as in like a beating heart music.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
So sound to heart music.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
That's our Instagram, and feel free to peruse our posts.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
But yeah, just DM me.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
Mention that you were listening to the podcast, And I
think what I could.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
Do for your listeners is.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
So yeah, our software costs everything that I stated earlier,
but people will pay us an additional four hundred dollars
to get Like if you're super busy or you just
don't have time, they'll pay us an additional four hundred
dollars for us to get you a campaign set up
for you a to Z like we'll get We'll spend
all the time to grab all the venues that you're
(52:02):
looking for. You just tell us your location and what
you're looking for and what you do. We'll grab all
the leads for you. We'll write all the emails for you,
and then we'll actually launch the campaign. And what that
means is the software will be emailing all of those
people twenty four to seven around the clock. The aibooking
(52:23):
agent doesn't get sick, it doesn't have a husband or
a wife to have to spend time with our kids,
our dog to take out. So it's working every second
of every twenty four hours of every day of the
week for you. That's what will happen. So all you
got to do is sit back and just check out
your email. But for your listeners, I'm actually willing to
(52:44):
do this for free for you guys. If you mentioned
that you tuned in as a thank you for taking
the time to listen.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
So yeah, we'll do that.
Speaker 3 (52:53):
Four hundred dollars set up completely for free for your listeners.
Speaker 4 (52:57):
That's great, Okay.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
I will link all this info into liner notes for
my listeners. But again, if you're interested in getting on
board with Soundheart Music, uh just DM Mike tell them
you know you were listening to the Mind Your Music
Business podcast. You're interested in having a chat and interested
in the founder setup, and uh yeah, maybe we can
(53:21):
get some gigs booked for you guys.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
That'd be awesome. I love hearing like just when people
tell me they especially I think you said you got
your first gig in like literally what twelve hours after
you launched a campaign.
Speaker 4 (53:35):
I think so.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
Yeah, I've been pretty.
Speaker 4 (53:39):
Lucky so far.
Speaker 1 (53:39):
I haven't done too many campaigns, but there's like certain
cities where I needed an extra gig, and so far
I've been able to book like one gig in those
cities just by running a campaign. And you know, some
of them like they're sending one hundred or two hundred emails,
but you just need that one person to respond and
(54:00):
say that they're on board.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
Yeah, and you're a superstar, so I'm sure you know,
I'm sure that's why you're getting booked.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
Well, you know, it's so important and this will be
like another podcast to have you know, website music all
of that updated, so the venues know you're legit and everything.
Speaker 4 (54:21):
But just one other quick point I want to.
Speaker 1 (54:23):
Make you know, you may have venues coming back to
you and you know they want to give you like
half the pay, but you know, don't settle if it's
you know, something that's way past what, way below your
rate just because you need a gig. I think it's
important to know your value when setting price with venues.
Speaker 3 (54:42):
Yeah, I actually want to kind of branch off of
what you said, because that's an amazing point.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Like all that's doing if you do.
Speaker 3 (54:50):
That or want to play for free is like driving
down like the giging economy for professional musicians. I mean,
look at Broadway on Nashville for example. Yeah, everyone for
free just because it's too saturated, right, Yeah, and people
just like move to Nashville because they want to like
get going real quick, they want to be famous, so
theyre was saying yes to everything there, I'll play for free, right,
(55:12):
And I'm sure it wasn't always like that. I'm sure
the bars used to at least pay people at least something,
and I know the tips are good and that's kind
of how they justify it. But like, imagine if everyone
held their guns and their self worth and was like,
this is what I'm wore with. I believe that people
would be getting paid on Broadway.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
Absolutely, people were willing to pay for barely anything or free.
Speaker 3 (55:37):
Yeah, so let's boycott not doing that.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
Yeah, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3 (55:43):
And then also use like I was talking about when
we first jumped on, use that good cop bad cop
thing like I would love to, but my manager only
allows me to take three hundred to four hunt you
know whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
Yeah, yeah, such great points. Definitely look up Soundheart Music,
check it out, give them a follow.
Speaker 4 (56:03):
Mike, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (56:06):
Thanks for having me, Sarah with my absolute pleasure
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