Surround Yourself With Legitimate Professionals (Good People) :: Producer's 20/20 Vision

Hey guys, how are you today? I wanted to save this one, um, for closer to the end because it's kind of a deep one and it's one that I can't really teach you. I can only alert you to it and kind of put it in your head so that you look for it. Um, but it's come up in my DMs a lot lately, so I'm gonna handle it now. So as you move forward in your career, and this is any type of career, but I'm speaking really in the music business. And this really affects more than just producers, but since this is my Producer 2020 Vision Series, I'm really talking to you guys. So as you start gaining success and you start to have the perception that you're making money, it doesn't mean that you're actually making money yet. It's just the perception that you're going to in you can, you're going to attract a lot of people to you. And I kind of put them in 3 different groups. I mean, there's a lot of different types of people that you're going to attract, but for the sake of this exact video, um, there's 3 different types of people that you're going to attract. You're going to attract legitimate people that have your best interest at heart and really want to see you succeed. You're going to attract sharks and snakes that do not have your best interest at heart and really see you as an opportunity, and they're going to want to profit from you. And then the third type is you're going to attract people that see your potential and want to help you, but they don't have the skill set to help you, but they think that they do. And because they're well-meaning and well-intentioned doesn't mean shit can't go horribly wrong. It absolutely can. So I'm gonna put them in the same category as the snakes and the sharks, not because they're evil people, because they are well-meaning. It's because they can't do for you what needs to be done. So it's going to be up to you to figure out who's who. And sometimes all of these people kind of look alike. It's— it becomes very difficult to tell who's for you and who's just there to pimp you, because usually people that are opportunists have come up in life learning to be extremely charismatic. They are great salespeople. They talk a good game. Some of them even have decent reputations in the music business. But if you dig deep enough and you go hard enough, you're going to find out who's who. And the best thing that you can do when you're looking at bringing people into your inner circle, into your team, is to have other great people on your team that can look out for you and help spot the scumbags. And if you've got a really great entertainment attorney and you've got a really great accountant or business manager and even a great manager on your team, they should be able to ascertain who is for you and who is just trying to hit a lick off of you. That— and when I'm saying this, I'm not saying that making money with you is bad. I'm saying that pimping you out is horrendous. I'm saying that somebody who wants to make the lion's share of the money from your talent is not a good person to have in your circle. Somebody that can offer genuine services and genuine opportunities for you so that they can get paid a percentage of the money that you make, that's a wonderful thing. But somebody who is there because they're trying to control you or manipulate you or make the lion's share of the money is not a good thing. Also, having somebody with a terrible reputation around you is not a good thing, because there are many legitimate and powerful people in this industry that when they see that you're surrounding yourself with people that aren't good people, they will want nothing to do with you. They will not want to work with you. They will not want to be in the same circle with you. All we have in this industry is our reputation and our good name. So if somebody has already damaged their reputation or damaged their good name, people that are legitimate will not want to be around that. We all work too hard to fuck up our shit by being associated with somebody that's not legitimate or on the up and up. So all this to say, this is not a skill that I can teach you. I can't teach you how to figure out who's for you and who's really not. I cannot publish a list of people that are on fuck shit in this industry, but what I can do is tell you that many, many, many, many people are. So you have to just use your best judgment. A lot of people call it using their third eye, but use your best judgment to see who's for you and who's not. And if somebody is pressuring you to sign paperwork, meaning a contract or any kind of agreement where you're tied to them for a period of time, please make sure you have an entertainment attorney look over that. And if you don't have the money to hire an entertainment attorney, the person that is giving you the contract, if they are legitimate should be happy to pay for your lawyer for you, because people that are genuine want you to be properly represented when you're doing a deal with them. The money will be recoupable. Whatever they spend or give you to pay an attorney, that's recoupable. You're going to have to pay them back off the top. But the point is, you need to have somebody on your side that has experience and a good reputation standing up for you during a time when you may not know what you're getting into, or you may not know how something you're signing could possibly go, or you do not know because you haven't done this before and you haven't seen the outcome or the consequence. So you just need to have people on your side that are fighting for you. Do not let somebody who's trying to pressure you into signing a contract choose an attorney for you. Do not do that. Choose your own attorney. Get some references. Do research. Google people that you're dealing with. Go deeper than the first 5 or 10 pages on Google. And I am not joking. I mean, just spend hours and hours and hours going deep into Google to find out what people are saying about the person that you're about to do business with. And try to find people that they've worked with and ask those people, you know, what were your experiences? That doesn't mean meaning that somebody that's had a bad experience with somebody is going to try to hurt you. But people that are scumbags in this industry, more than likely you aren't the first one that they got. So just do the research, ask around, try to get in the inner circles. If you can't find anybody, shit, at least email me. My email address is linked to my Instagram. I'm easy to find. You can Google Wendy Day email address and find me. You can go to any one my videos on YouTube and scroll all the way down and find my email address and ask me, hey, have you ever heard of so-and-so? I haven't heard of everybody, but I'm willing to tell you what I know. Okay guys, be careful out there. This is very much a shark-infested industry, and you can lose a lot of money and a lot of time and your dream got— by getting in bed with somebody that's not right. Okay guys, bye.