How can you earn money
as a musician? (In more
ways than you know!)
Michelle’s Story
How I am reaching more appreciative students than I ever
imagined, and adding thousands of dollars to my income
•
I have been a professional clarinetist and teacher
for over 30 years (I was lucky enough to start
subbing with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra at
the age of 17)
•
I have earned my living exclusively through musical
endeavours (performing and teaching) for at least
15 years
•
I am lucky enough to have great free-lance
opportunities
Pretty good, but there are limits to this…
•
My schedule was totally full, and crazy…
•
Although I earned a decent income, I live in one of
the most expensive cities in the world (2nd to Hong
Kong)
•
Once I had a family, I needed more than “just
enough” to get by, and my regular teaching hours
(after school & weekends) happen to take place
when my own family is looking for “Mom attention”.
Time for something new
•
More time with my family
•
Contributing MORE of my
talents to the world
•
More (a lot more) money
to support my family, and
other good causes
Dream Big
Set Goals
Take Action
What I have done:
•
Initially, dreamed about writing a best-seller that
Oprah would like, and teaching kick-butt business
seminars in some subject (?) that would make me
piles of money
•
Studied copious material from online business
coaches on how to create an online business
•
Continually read that I should teach “what I know
best”
My Doubts:
•
“Who would pay to learn about clarinet (at least more
than $20)?”
•
“How would I ever find people who would buy things?”
•
“How do those people who sell things online create
videos, workbooks and things that can be
downloaded automatically, and securely?”
•
“Am I disciplined enough to create my own business
with very little start-up resources?”
My System
(which is based upon the model of most
internet based “expert” businesses)
•
Notice and record my “teaching gems” - the things I teach
over and over again that address really common problems
•
Create a short YouTube video for each problem, and make
the title and description simple, and easy for viewers with
that problem to find
•
Invite YouTube viewers to join my free Clarinet Community
(my email list) to get my newsletter
•
Send out a newsletter every 2-3 weeks with a YouTube
video, and recommendations for cool clarinet stuff
•
Build trust with my audience - have them see me as
a trusted expert, and feel as though they know me
personally
•
Meanwhile, while I am building my audience,
create programs to sell to them for those that want
greater value than the free stuff
•
I created my first 10 lesson course and put it up for
sale in December of 2012 (sells for $197 or 10 X
$25 payments)
620,718 views, 6585 subscribers in
2 years, 9 months - March 2015
The Evolution of my Youtube Channel
Date
Total Views
Total Subscribers
Dec. 2012
(6 months)
20,705
162
June 2013
(1 year)
110,814
1,091
June 2014
(2 years)
360,993
3,792
March 2015
Now
629,157
6,496
2012
(2 weeks)
2013
$2,400
$17,000
Course
launches
Dec. 17th
2014
2015
(projected)
2016
(projected)
$23,000
$60,000+
$85,000+
iTunes ebook New course
launches in launches in
spring
spring
Podcast
launches in
summer
2 ongoing
courses
Podcast ad
revenue
Big course
will sell in
smaller units
What are the unexpected
benefits of this venture?
•
I am meeting some very interesting people in the
music field (such as this guest lecture)
•
My expertise is helping literally thousands of
people a year, world-wide
•
Every week I get several emails from grateful
clarinetists who appreciate the help
•
I earn money while playing a great concert, or
hiking, or hanging out with my family, automatically
Dear Michelle,
A sample letter from Jan. 2013
I wanted to take the time to thank you. I was born and raised in Wallaceburg Ontario. Back in the day I had a small jazz
band with me on the clarinet. We played weekends at the local hotel. Honestly, we were pretty good. The crowd was
interested in big band, swing, and some jazz so that's what we provided. If the crowds were dancing we were doing the
right thing. The memories of the clarinet, the music, the feeling of performing have always been a strong and positive
memory for me.
In 1964 I came to the United States and was granted dual citizenship. This also meant that I had to serve in the military,
which I did. Sadly the clarinet was set aside but never the memories. While serving in the military I was exposed to a
chemical commonly known as "agent orange". There seem to be two directions that exposure to the chemical took. The
first was cancer in many forms but in particular lung cancer. The second was a curing of the lungs turning them into a
material closely resembling leather. I was diagnosed with second and at that time there was little knowledge about how
fast or slow the "End Stage COPD" would progress. Despite this I was able to build a full and rewarding life. Initially the
lung disease advanced very slowly, but once I reached 60 years old the disease started moving quickly. The disease
advanced to the point where death was eminent and I was placed on the transplant waiting list. On April 16, 2010 I was
called to My Transplant Ctr., Henry Ford Hospital where I received "the gift of life." With the transplant I regained the
freedom that I once had. Double lung transplants are not very successful in life expectancy is less than five years. With
this information we evaluated our priorities as a family. We were grateful for the amazing lungs that were now inside me
from a 19-year-old female “Angel."
Guess what, it dawned on us that maybe, just maybe I could once again play the clarinet. With a lot of hope and a lot of
fear I boldly walked into the music store and bought a brand-new clarinet. My wife was thrilled, I was nervous, and a new
clarinet had no idea what was going to happen to it.
Thanks to your website and your training videos I am once again "playing my clarinet." I took the time to "refresh" my
knowledge and learn new things, all of which your training videos did and more. Thank you for your dedication to music,
to teaching, and to the clarinet.
My Selmer with a Vandoren M13 mouthpeice is now filling the house, once again with music and more importantly
memories.
From one Canadian to another Canadian; Thank You. - Gary
1. “Time For
Money” Model
•
•
•
•
Performances
Teaching groups or oneon-one
Composition commissions
Online webinar or webinar
series for many people (all
paying a fee to
participate)
2. Time Upfront for $ Again,
and Again, (and Again)
Time Upfront for $ Again,
and Again, (and Again)
•
Royalties (recordings, compositions, publications)
These are USUALLY pretty small $ amounts for your
time investment, especially through a publisher.
•
Self-published items for sale (better % of profit per
item sold)
• books (Amazon CreateSpace/Kindle)
• downloadable compositions, or ebooks
• DVD courses/lessons with printed worksheets
• musical app, or gadget
• Online
course - This is a series of lessons
designed by you that can be automatically
accessed by an audience world-wide, and
content is delivered automatically, while you
do other things. This can include video
lessons, slide show with voice over, audio
files, downloadable ebooks and
worksheets. (Price point $50 - $297)
• Subscription/Membership
Website - For
a monthly fee, participants can access your
videos, training, monthly webinars, etc. This
is profitable if you have many members, but
sometimes retaining long-term members is
tricky. You need to put in new content every
month. (Price anywhere from $10 - $50/mo)
How You Can Do This:
1. Acknowledge your expertise
2. List the problems that you can solve for people
3. Create some giveaways that solve these problems
to start attracting your audience
4. Nurture your relationship with your “fans”
5. Create, launch and sell your products
1. Acknowledge your
expertise
•
What are your strengths?
•
What have people really appreciated that you have
done before?
•
Ask five people who are friends, family and
professional colleagues (or clients/students) what
contributions you have made to their lives
•
What are you good at?
2. List the problems that you can
solve for people
•
If you teach, keep a piece of paper handy and jot
down any pointers that you say often, or systems
that you teach that are really effective
•
What instrument, software, specialized knowledge
(ex. musical theory), performance skills, do you
know better than most people?
•
Think of one of the most appreciative people that
you have helped, and write down what you did for
them. Would others appreciate this same advice?
3. Create some giveaways that solve these
problems to start attracting your audience
•
“How-to” videos on Youtube, Vimeo, Facebook, and
other public sites
•
Downloadable ebook/report - especially targeted at
one problem (ex. “The three most important things
to know to play high notes well on …”)
•
Free book on iTunes, or very inexpensive book on
Amazon Kindle
All of these things lead your audience to your “opt-in” list
Email Hosts
•
You want to use a 3rd party email service. They
deliver better through spam filters, and, think big,
you may have thousands of people on your list.
•
I use aWeber, which is one of the most respected.
MailChimp is also a great one, and can be used
free of charge for quite a while until your list grows
too big (at which point, you can afford it).
4. Nurture your relationship with your
“fans”
•
Create content for them regularly - a newsletter,
blog, Facebook community, YouTube Channel,
Pinterest, Twitter (and other social media), podcast
(audio and/or video), interactive webinars
•
Start with the style that works best for you. Don’t
spread yourself too thin trying to do all of this at
once. Social media can eat up a lot of your time!
5. Create, launch and sell your
products
•
Think carefully about the perceived value of sale
items.
•
Books - $10 - $20
•
Online or DVD study course (videos and
worksheets) - $25 - $1000 (although in
music, the market is usually $100 - $300)
•
One-time Webinar - $25 - $100 per
participant (easy to have several at once)
Why my ebook
is FREE on
iTunes
•
•
•
about 20 people a week
download this, and are
invited into my mailing list
about half of those sign up
for the free videos, which
are actually part of Lesson
One, of my 10-week paid
course
About 5-10% of these
people buy the full course
at $200 each
Let’s do the math
•
•
•
If I sold the book for $10 (comparable to other
books on iTunes), I likely wouldn’t sell as many,
and therefore fewer people would go onto my list.
Let’s say I sell half as much (and I’m sure the
reality is much lower). 10 per week @$10 (iTunes
then takes 30%) I make $70.
When I sell it for free, more people download it,
(say, 20/week), join my list, and I sell my full course
where nobody gets a commission. On the
conservative side, I make $200 per week.
What is better? “Paid” or “Free”?
Create an on-line course
•
Design your lesson plan. Choose 8 - 10 lessons (or
one simple topic for a quick, lower price option)
•
Decide how it will be delivered. The best courses that
I’ve seen have video tutorials, downloadable audio
files, some sort of group forum (usually a closed
Facebook group), and downloadable worksheets.
•
Decide whether you want all of your content delivered
at once, or “dripped” over time. (ex: 10 lesson,
delivered weekly for 10 weeks)
•
Create your content - record videos, write
worksheets and handouts, create slideshows,
create a platform for it (some kind of membership
site)
•
Launch this to your email list of people who already
like, know and trust you
•
Decide whether to have an Evergreen launch
(always available), or launch only at certain times
Helpful Resources
Video Production
•
(My first course was filmed with my iMac, and my
Zoom recorder. I have better quality gear now, but it
worked since the content was what was most
important.)
•
A good mic is crucial. The AudioTechnica 3350
Lavalier is great for your voice (about $30)
•
Lighting - try and light yourself from the front and
sides
•
Great course to help you make and promote your
videos is Video Genesis (about $300)
•
Have your camera a bit higher than your face
•
When you speak to the camera, make it first-person.
Imagine that you are speaking to one of your most
appreciative customers
•
If you have two audio tracks (such as voice and
instrument), clap loudly three times at the start, and
whenever you make a mistake to easily see the spike
in your editing program
•
Edit with ScreenFlow for Mac, or Camtasia for
Windows (about $99) - I used iMovie for my first course
fiverr.com
•
A whole bunch of stuff that you can get for $5 (plus
an admin fee of 50 cents)
•
Graphics for ebook covers, Facebook banners,
website banners, video intros, logos, music
transcribing
Membership Software
•
There are many out there. Wishlist member,
which integrates with Wordpress websites is one
of the most highly recommended ($97 for one or
$297 for many)
•
I use Kajabi ($97/month) - super easy, and I don’t
have to worry about it. Kajabi Next, their new
program is also worth looking at.
Education - learn more about
selling information online
•
Brendon Burchard - Millionaire Messenger and Experts
Academy - fabulous content, and great teacher who
teaches how to sell your expertise in many formats
•
Jeff Walker - Product Launch Formula
•
Lisa Sasevich - Speak to Sell - although she focuses on
public speaking, she really teaches you how to be proud
of your product, and sell without being “salesy”
•
David Siteman Garland - Create Awesome Online
Courses - a good step by step resource for learning how
to set up your online course
Launch your product
•
The current successful internet model is to give away
great content (some of your best) over the course of
about a week, and then open your product up for sale.
•
This is usually a set of instructional videos, timed a
couple of days apart, with FB comments below each one.
•
Sometimes a live webinar occurs once “the cart is open”
•
You can take advantage of this model to learn great
information about internet marketing when the experts
launch their courses.
Sell your product
•
Hooray! An easy way to get going is to use Paypal.
There are other merchant services out there, but
most people recognize and trust it worldwide, and
the only fees are commissions.
Continue to create more
products
•
Once you have fans who have bought your
products, they will buy more.
•
Be willing to commit to this process for at least 3
years.
Bonus Section, If time:
Why Youtube is such a great place to get the word out for any
business
How Facebook ads can be your most cost-effective way of
getting the word out there
YouTube
• People love watching videos, and currently,
Youtube is the 2nd largest search engine in
the world
• You can easily put your Youtube video on
any website, in fact, doing so increases your
search engine rankings
• You can record your video on your phone,
computer, or whatever you have available
YouTube
• People love watching videos, and currently,
Youtube is the 2nd largest search engine in
the world
• You can easily put your Youtube video on
any website, in fact, doing so increases your
search engine rankings
• You can record your video on your phone,
computer, or whatever you have available
How to find inspiration
for video topics
• start searching in Google and Youtube and
see what terms are automatically filled into
the search box
How to be found on
Youtube
• Choose a title for your video that really
addresses the needs of your ideal client
How to be found on
Youtube
• In your description, include as many words
and phrases as you can that describe your
services
• ex. clarinet lessons, how-to-play clarinet,
clarinet high notes, clarinet for beginners
How to be found on
Youtube
• Use tags in Youtube - similar to terms in
your description - Google scans these
How to be found on
Youtube
• Upload a transcript of your video (use
Fiverr.com for great transcriptions at a
cheap rate (I pay $5 for 10 minutes.)
How to be found on
Youtube
• Ask for viewer engagement - Google and
Youtube love to promote videos that have
comments, likes and shares
• Post a note within the video - “If you enjoy
this video, please click thumbs up below”
and ask people directly to leave their
comments and questions, and to share the
video information with friends
How to be found on
Youtube
• Ask for viewer engagement - Google and
Youtube love to promote videos that have
comments, likes and shares
• Post a note within the video - “If you enjoy
this video, please click thumbs up below”
and ask people directly to leave their
comments and questions, and to share the
video information with friends
Create Your Own
Website
• There are many ways to do this quickly and
relatively inexpensively
• GoDaddy offers one for about $6/month
• Check out Michael Hyatt’s video on how to
create a WordPress site in under an hour
($5/month to host)
Give before you sell!
• Let people get to know you and trust you
before you sell them anything
How you can create trust, and
establish yourself as an expert
• Give away great content and ask for
testimonials
When you sell, back it
up with a full moneyback guarantee (and
more if you really want
to stand out)
When you sell, back it
up with a full moneyback guarantee (and
more if you really want
to stand out)
Facebook Ads
• Target your ideal clients using the amazing
database within Facebook considering the
following:
• What they like
• Where they live
Target your location
• Set a country, neighbourhood or the world
Vancouver - 1,360,000
What would your
clients like?
• clarinet
• local schools
• local community bands
• wedding planners
• performers or groups
Vancouver - targeted audience - 7,800
Choose Optimize For Clicks
and set your daily limit
You can do it too!
Share your ideas with the world
Contribute in a very rewarding way, and
earn more money doing what you love
Please join my “musical entrepreneur” email list if you want
more information in the future