Why it's hard for a Music Producer or Audio Engineer to get other Producers and Engineers as cli
I am approached by upcoming, as well as very experienced and established, music producers/engineers on almost a daily basis and 9 times out of 10 the question is askedÂ
"How do I get a producer or engineer to pay me to work on their material?". They have tried everything from annoying them to death with "hey check out my latest mix" to working for free and everything in between. It's obvious THAT DOESN'T WORK but seems obviously not obvious to so many people. I've been in the music business a long time and I started out with the same obstacles and questions you may have. I learned the hard way.Â
It's my hope and mission that YOU don't have to learn the hard way. You probably Google nonstop forums,groups and other places you can "promote" your producing or mixing services. So, you've probably joined a million Facebook groups, Reddit subs and music sites. It's likely you don't even know all of them you've joined.Â
Your purpose is probably two-fold; One, to promote yourself. Two; to learn some stuff. Both of these reasons are valid and there is nothing wrong with either. However, neither one will get you a client. I hear the Negative Nancy saying Promotion is everything. You gotta grind 'till you shine. So, I ask, How's that working out for ya? I thought so. It's not.Â
That's because promotion has to be done in a very specific way to work. People are not on Facebook, Instagram or other forums to see your spam.Â
Look at me! LOOK AT ME! I DO THIS! I DO THAT! IM AMAZING AND CUTE AND....... SHUT THE HECK UP! It's very ineffective and incredibly time consuming. First of all, what if you did get several clients by doing that all the time...... You will be too busy to keep doing it to get more clients. There are only so many hours in your life to accomplish your goals so you need to master effective and time efficient promotional strategies. Secondly, for a fellow music producer/engineer to hire you to mix or do production for them they would have to admit that you have something to bring to the material better than they can. That probably won't happen. Music guys are very competitive. They may think to themselves, "I will lose clients if they find out someone else helped me". Music guys are very protective of their material. They may think to themselves, "He/She may bite off of my production (steal my ideas)". Mostly, neither of these things are true. Super Producer, the ever controversial Kanye West produced a song on himself. He released the song internationally. It sold a lot, the clubs played it and it charted. However a few days later he decided he was unhappy with how it sounded. He then hired his "competition" another MEGA SUPER PRODUCER Timbaland to work on it. Not only did he do that but he put the video up online of him and Timbaland in the studio and of him HUMBLY (we all know he ain't that humble) asking Timbo to improve his song. You may be saying, "Ok, ok, I get it. What the heck do I do instead"? 1: Join all of those groups. 2: Learn everything you can to polish your craft. 3. Help other people by answering any questions you can and offering any tips you think will help them. 4. Be active but DON'T POST your WORK unless asked to in an individual post. 5. Respond VERY QUICKLY to messages or questions you receive and show genuine interest in the person and what they do. If you do these 5 things you will see results. Actually, it will probably blow your mind at your progress. Leave a comment if you like this post or if you hate it. Either way it's all good! I'm also happy to try to answer any questions you have. Subscribe to this Blog for tons more songwriting, music production and music biz content to come!
