What Is Your Budget? | Wendy Day

Hi guys, Wendy Day here. I'm gonna talk about budgets. I hate talking about money. Um, you know, most of you do this because you love what you do, as do I, but unfortunately this is one of those industries where you need to have money in order to market and promote yourself. Um, for me, there's a certain level where I need for my clients to have in terms of budget so that I can get a return on their investment. When people hire me, they're hiring me because they expect to monetize their music. And in order to monetize this and make your money back, meaning you're going to at least break even and then make a profit, there is a certain level of money that you need to have, and I'm going to discuss that in a minute. But, um, you need to reach a large amount of people when you're doing this yourself. You definitely need to have a budget. There's no way to do this for free, and I know how frustrating that is because a lot of you don't have money. Most artists are broke most artists don't have the business acumen that it takes to find an investor. So I'm gonna ask you guys to go out on a limb here and become pretty good at something that you may not be great at. Most artists just aren't good at raising money, so I'm gonna ask you guys to make a concentrated effort in order to find an investor, um, and I'm I'm also going to ask you to, um, bring people onto your team that can help you succeed, so that if you don't have, um, a background in marketing or sales or promotions, that you have people on your team that can help you. At the very least, I'm gonna ask you to watch these videos and other videos and spend some time learning how to market and promote yourself and how to succeed, um, at starting your own business, because that's basically what this is. As an artist, you're a brand. So the way that I do it, I suggest that you take a map and you draw a 3 to 6 hour driving radius around wherever you are. So I'm going to use Atlanta as an example because I'm based in Atlanta. So I'm gonna draw a circle around where I am, which means I'm gonna go as far up as probably Charlotte, even though it's a little bit— I think it's 5 hours from here— even though it's a little bit further than the 3-hour, which is kind of the minimum that I suggest that you, that you draw. So up to Charlotte, I'm gonna go down to Tallahassee, Jacksonville. That's about a 5-hour drive. I'm gonna go over to Mobile, Alabama. I'm gonna go over as far as Montgomery and Birmingham. They're a few hour drives, like 3 to 4 hour drive. And then I'm gonna go as far as the Atlantic Ocean. So I'm gonna hit Savannah, Charleston. That's kind of my 5-hour driving radius of where I am. And I'm gonna market and promote in every small, midsize, and large town in those areas. So I'm gonna make a list of what all those cities and towns are. I'm gonna add to my list Tallahassee, Pensacola, Mobile, Montgomery, Birmingham, Dothan. Um, I might go as far up as Huntsville. It really depends on what my budget is. I want to hit up as far as Charlotte, North Carolina, maybe Asheville, North Carolina, depending on the type of music that I make. I want to hit Greenville, South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina. Charleston, Savannah, Augusta, Albany, Columbus, Jacksonville, Tallahassee. So you see what I'm doing? I'm making— I'm, I'm sort of stringing together all of the areas that will have enough potential rap music fans that will support whatever type of music that my project is.. And now that I'm hitting those areas, I'm going to need to have music to hand out. We still hand out CDs in the South, so I know that it's going to cost me around $3,000 every time I press 10,000 CDs. I know I'm going to figure out how many CDs I'm going to give out in each area. I'm going to press download cards, which are like business cards that are going to have um, a list of my, um, Spotify account, my YouTube, my SoundCloud, my Apple Music, any place where people can go, all of my social media, my website, any place where people can go to get, um, a feel for who I am as an artist. I'm going to want some posters because I'm probably going to work college and, um, high school campuses. I'm going to want to hang some posters at nightclubs as well. I'm gonna want to autograph some posters as in hip-hop gear shops. I'm gonna want some postcards to hand out, cards that are a little bit smaller. I may want to put them on the counter at one of the retail establishments, like in a pool hall or a barber shop or at a DTLR store that sells, you know, fly sneakers and hip-hop gear. I may want to leave, um, some cards in a flea market for people to pick up. So I'm also going to have a few t-shirts because maybe I want to give out t-shirts. Maybe I'll give out like 20 in each market of all those cities and towns I just listed. So however many that was, let's say it was 20 that I just rattled off, I want to give out 20 to the top DJs and tastemakers in each area. So now I know I need 400 t-shirts. They're sold by the dozen, so I'm probably going to get, you know, whatever derivative that 12 divides into of that. And I'm probably just going to do it relatively cheaply because I'm going to spend maybe $5 a shirt. So now I know, you know, I need a budget of roughly however much that is. I'm going to price out my posters, my flyers, and you're going to figure out how many you're going to give out in each area and price that out. And you're going to put together, um, a budget for gas to travel through that area and hotel rooms. I'm going to stay at Red Roof Inns and Motel 6s because I don't want to spend more than $50 or $60 a night in any area. Um, in the bigger cities like Atlanta and Jacksonville, I'm probably going to have to stay a little bit outside of the downtown in order to get a $50 or $60 room rate. I don't want to stay in a, in a dive or roach motel or a hooker hotel, so I'm going to have to do a little bit of research to find out which are the nicer inexpensive hotels. I'm going to go in and read the reviews, maybe at TripAdvisor, get a feel for, you know, which hotels are the better deals in the price range that I'm looking to spend. And then I'm going to put a plan together. I'm going to figure out exactly what I'm going to do in each city, I'm going to want to maybe do a meet and greet with all the DJs and take them to a Wingstop. So I'm going to need a couple hundred dollars in each city in order to feed DJs. If I decide that I can't afford to feed DJs, I at least have to feed myself and my team. I want to bring myself on tour. Um, I want to bring somebody who's going to film everything for me. I want a videographer there. Um, let's see, what else do I want? Um, I want somebody who's really good at talking because there are times where I get a little tired and shy. So I want somebody that's a good mouthpiece to talk for me. Maybe that's my manager. Um, so now there's 3 of us that are going out on tour. Because I don't have a big budget, I'm going to rent, um, an SUV. And, um, um, I might wrap it, I might not. It depends on how much money I have. It costs $3,000 to wrap a vehicle. I can wrap a rental vehicle, but I'm going to need to bring a rental vehicle— the longest I can keep it is 28 days. I'm going to need to bring it back in and rent another vehicle. So the longest I'm going to have the wrap is 3 grand— is 30 days, 28 days. I don't know if I want to spend 3 grand for, um, 30 days. So unless it's my own vehicle, I might not wrap it. Um, and I'm gonna figure out— I'm gonna put us all in one hotel room. 3 of us can stay in one room room. Um, it won't be comfortable, but we'll make do. So I'm putting together a budget, figuring out all of my costs— tolls, gas, um, the hotels, food for the 3 of us, the t-shirts, the flyers. Um, I'm gonna want to hire a publicist for 3 months. I'm not great at social media, so I'm gonna want to hire somebody to help me with my social media marketing. Um, that may be another 3 grand a month because I'm gonna buy ads, so I've got a little budget in there for advertising. I'm gonna shoot videos. I'm probably gonna spend between $500 and $1,000 per video. I probably want to have maybe 6 to 10 videos. Maybe I'll do some lyric videos to cut, you know, to cut down the cost for that. Um, what else do I want to do? I want to hire a video promoter. That's gonna be $3,000. Grand for my single. I think I want to have a playlist promoter too. I want to get on Spotify and Apple Music. I don't have the right connections, so I'm definitely going to hire a playlist promoter. That's another $2,500 to $3,000. I need street teams in some of those areas. Like Tallahassee is an important market to me, Jacksonville is, Atlanta, um Montgomery is an important market to me, Charlotte. So I'm going to hire street teams in those areas, and if I don't have access to street teams in those areas, then I'll bring somebody on the road with me and that person will act as my street team while I'm out there. Um, so I'm going to add the cost in for that. I'm going to call the different areas, find out who the best, uh, street promoters are, and I'm going to figure how much it's going to cost by talking to them and I'm gonna put them in my budget. If I need a consultant like Wendy Day to help me put my project together, I'm gonna figure in her cost. So when I add everything together, I'm gonna have a feel for what type of budget I need, and that's gonna tell me either I need to raise more money or I can afford to do it myself. If I need to raise more money, then I'm gonna need to put a business plan together. If I put a business plan together, then I'm going to need to put some money into, um, looking for an investor. I might need a couple hundred dollars to wine and dine some people with money and explain to them why they should invest in me. Um, let's see, what else do I need to do? I think that's pretty much it. So at that point, either I'm going to start taking things off the list— maybe I can't afford to do download cards and postcards cards. Maybe I just do one or the other. Maybe I can't afford 400 t-shirts, so maybe I only give out 10 per area. Or maybe I skip t-shirts altogether and invest in them once I have my, um, once I have my, um, income coming in from my shows, because that's where my money is going to come from first. I'm going to get show money, and then at some point I'm going to build a Shopify store, and I'm gonna go to Printful and design some Wendy Day t-shirts so that I can direct people to my website to buy merchandise. Once I start making enough money, then I can start taking t-shirts on the road with me. Um, the great thing about Printful and Shopify is I don't have to spend money on, um, having the t-shirts printed in advance. People will buy them and they'll print and then drop ship them, and then I get a portion of the profit from doing that. And once I get, you know, maybe $1,000 together, I can start pressing my own t-shirts and take them on the road and sell them for $20 a pop. So once I put this budget together, I'm gonna have a feel for what it takes to succeed in the music business. And now let me step outside of everything that I just told you, because I basically just broke this down to you as if I were the artist. If you're gonna hire a consultant, you're either gonna pay them on a monthly basis, or somebody like myself, you're gonna pay them in a lump sum. And you're gonna have to have a budget of somewhere around— you know, I— it takes $150,000 in marketing and promotion to do what I do, and then I charge on top of that. So you need somewhere around a quarter million dollars in order for me to come on board and help you. Now, that doesn't mean that if you have the money that I'm going to be able to work with you, because you may not have the necessary grind or hustle that it takes to win. You might not have marketable music, and by marketable, it doesn't mean music that I like. It means music that I think will sell to a large enough portion of the population that it makes sense for us to make an investment of this type of money in your career. And I don't invest, I'm a hired gun. So you're going to hire me to help you do this. I'm going to show you how to do it. I'm going to teach you how to do it. Instead of feeding you, I'm going to teach you how to fish because I want you to be able to do this again and again and again and again, not only for yourself, but I want you to be able to bring on other artists underneath you and be able to do this for them too. I want you to become a full-functioning independent record label. That's my goal, is to help you build to be like the next Strange Music. It's great to be an independent artist, but it's even greater if you can learn how to do this once and then keep repeating the cycle over and over until you build yourself an empire. There's nothing wrong with that, right? So all that to say, this is not a free industry, and there is a lot of stuff that you can do now to build your buzz while you're building your plan and putting together your budget and putting together your business plan so that you can get an investor to go to the next level. Maybe you just put out, um, an album first and start working it in your own local area and online and build your buzz and let people see who you are. And that is the best way to attract investors. When people see you grinding and they see you moving forward, that's when people come to you and say, hey, I like what you're doing, I really like your music, I want to invest in you. And it just kind of makes sense for somebody that's making an investment to jump on the bandwagon of an artist that's already starting to move forward and starting starting to have some success. Because if somebody's working hard with no money, imagine what they'll do if you put a little bit of investment behind them. So now you know how to build a budget. You can go through, figure out what you can afford to do, what you can't afford to do. You know, the— they say the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. So don't look at the number that you need to succeed as something to stop you. Look at it as something to work towards and use as a goal to motivate you. And then step by step, you get to that point where you build up enough of a following, somebody wants to invest in you, and then you can become a successful artist making money with your music and owning your own art form. To me, that's just the, the natural progression. If you're looking for a record deal, you still take all of those same steps, but instead of looking to attract an investor, you look to attract a label who's gonna come in and sign you. But I promise you, the deal you're gonna get with an investor is gonna be far more to your advantage than if you sign a deal with a record label. Okay guys, thanks for getting this far, and thanks for tuning in. I drop videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11 AM and then I go live every Wednesday at 7 PM. Thanks for tuning in. Bye.