001 – 3 Things That Aren’t Going to Grow Your Music Career in 2024

Many activities can help you GROW your music career in 2024 and beyond. But you need to identify what those things are. Otherwise, you’re bound to get lost in a goulash of tactics, techniques, and trends that will waste your time and cause you to miss out on real OPPORTUNITIES.

In this first episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David addresses three things that aren’t going to grow your music career in 2023, 2024, 2025, and beyond.

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Highlights:

• 00:17 – Avoid these distractions in 2023
• 01:20 – #1: Building sales funnels
• 02:45 – #2: Getting better at music production
• 04:43 – #3: Chasing social media trends

Transcript:

What’s up, Elite Players? Today I’m going to cover something that I think really does need to be addressed, and I want to say upfront that while I do believe in casting stones at my competition here and there, I’m not necessarily outing anyone in this episode. I’m not trying to tear anyone down. That’s not the intention.

I just want to be clear that some things are going to help you get towards the goals that you’re trying to create and have the life that you want to live through your creativity and music… And other things are going to prove pretty massive distractions.

So, here are three things that are not going to grow your music career in 2023, 2024, 2025, and probably even 2026, and this is not to say don’t do any of these things. But an inordinate focus on them, like focusing too much on them or only doing them probably is not going to elevate your music career. And I’ll explain how and why that is the case.

So, number one, building sales funnels. You can build sales funnels. I do think it’s a good idea to build sales funnels. The only problem with it is, that they take a lot of time. They take a lot of work. They take a lot of effort.

I’ve built probably six, seven, or eight of these suckers already. And what I’ve noticed is, you get better every time. The problem is people don’t stick with it. So, the first funnel they build sucks, and the second funnel is not that much better. And the third one gets them a couple of sales but doesn’t go beyond that. And so, it’s not something that you’re going to be good at overnight.

I’ve dedicated myself to studying and learning digital marketing and social media and advertising and YouTube and all this stuff, email marketing, and much, much more. So, what chance do you have? And I’m not saying that to say you have no skill and you’re no good at what you do, but even with help from AI, I’m highly skeptical that building a sales funnel is going to save your career.

Even with help from AI, I'm highly skeptical that building a sales funnel is going to save your career.
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It can support your career. And I believe in using it as a tool and everything is a tool when it comes right down to it. But is it going to save your music career? I don’t think so.

So, if all of your time and energy are going towards building a sales funnel right now, consider that there probably are higher priorities to tackle. That could be one of your priorities. Absolutely. Probably shouldn’t be your only priority.

Number two, getting better at music production. This is a funny one. We see YouTube ads all the time and it’s, you know, “MIDI chord packs, and here’s the latest guitar plugin, and here’s the plugin that makes all the synthesizers sound like juice” or whatever it might be.

And this stuff’s good. Like I said, everything’s a tool and it’s in how you use it, but music production in and of itself, like just becoming better at that may not have quite the effect that you think it will on your music career.

What I want you to do, just as a test, is ask your audience, right?

You’re making your music for them. Think about that. You’re making your music for them. So, ask them, “Do you like listening to our music? Do you think our production could be better? Does it grate on your ears?” And if the answer is predominantly no, then there’s a very good chance there’s nothing wrong with your current level of music production.

Now, I do recommend that just about every musician learn how to record themselves at a minimum and hopefully learn how to edit and mix themselves. That’s a much longer-term prospect to be fair, but you are going to save a lot of time and a lot of money if you learn how to do that stuff for yourself. And I think there’s tremendous value in that and all this other stuff could improve your efficiency, could improve your workflow.

You are going to save a lot of time and a lot of money if you learn how to produce music yourself.
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But it may not necessarily propel your music career to the next level. It probably won’t. Unless your audience has major complaints…

Getting an honest answer out of people nowadays is hard too. You don’t want to just get like surface level, “Yeah, it sounded good to me.” You want to dig a little deeper and say like, “Yeah, but tell me honestly, how does this sound?” And if the answer is still, “Yeah, it sounds great to me, no worries, man.” Then you’re probably not doing anything wrong.

Number three, and I see this one a lot too, and I get the sentiment, but chasing social media trends is probably not going to build your music career. We all got to use social media and there’s a greater emphasis on it than there ever was in the past.

But just because we need to utilize it. To promote ourselves, to share our work, to build our following, doesn’t necessarily mean trying to keep up with everything… Here’s the reality. There are more platforms than ever. There are more algorithm updates. And if you’re still trying to chase the latest algorithm tweak or algorithm hack, or if you’re constantly trying to keep up with what is trending on TikTok and what’s going to work on YouTube and what’s going to work on Instagram…

I get it, you can create reels and shorts as opposed to long-form videos. Yeah, that seems to be working for some people. But this whole notion that you’re somehow going to get a million views and suddenly your career takes off, this usually doesn’t happen until you’ve been super consistent in creating every single day, publishing every single day, a hundred of something, at least.

And then occasionally you find a winner in that. And if you don’t, you want to switch your approach, iterate, try something else, and then publish a hundred of something else, right?

But people aren’t going into it with that mindset, to begin with. They’re just like, “Here’s the latest trend, I should try it out,” and they post three times, get discouraged, give up, and never try again.

This is why chasing the latest social media trends, again, I get it, but you have to build something that you own and something that you control or else you don’t have a stake in the market whatsoever. You need a website; you need an email list. Nowadays, it’s even better if you can start collecting people’s physical addresses to be able to send them stuff as well.

You must build something that you own and control or you don't have a stake in the market.
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So, I wish you all the luck building your music career this year and beyond, but if you need my help, I’m always here for you.

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