Music Production #FastTracks - Christa Couture | LevelsFM

 
Music Production #FastTracks - Christa Couture | LevelsFM - YouTube

so as mentioned um the work of being a musician is highly administrative and the thing that i do really well in relation to music is actually that admin side to be honest my ability to write grant applications and budgets and do bookkeeping i took a bookkeeping course once it was made a huge difference in my life those have been some of the biggest secrets to my success or like longevity with a career and those are all areas that i have tips but um but where this comes into play most often that i think most people can use is in writing emails that people will actually reply to because there's a lot of cold calling when you're doing this stuff right so um i've learned you know like when i'm booking gigs so i used to book all these tours or applying to festivals or just like getting a podcast interview if i don't already know the host um i've learned how to increase my chances and

here are my steps that you can do at home so uh step number one is a super clear and specific subject line so you're not just saying booking inquiry you're saying you know booking chris couture at the black sheep in in march 2022. and this has also helped when i've gone back trying to like find the email that i sent to someone is like you also bring it there for yourself but you want that ask to be clear because these people get emails all the time so it's nothing vague um two i always start with proof that i've done my research um and that i'm a decent person i learned from uh uh anna tsiarta to approach each venue like each producer um like they're a potential friend like this is going to be a relationship you might develop over years so you want to give them a reason to show you've paid attention to them first like you know with with venues i would say oh i saw that you had this artist and this

artist and i love that you like post highlights on instagram and my favorite was that one um and i spend time doing that research and i'll say and i'm similar to these artists in this way and that's why i'd be such a great fit so do your research make it show they're more likely to care about you if you show that you care and you put some energy into that um and so that's always my first paragraph before i even go into that elevator pitch of like i'm chris couture i'm a singer songwriter blah blah i always start with like i know who you are don't worry this is not a completely uninformed email right three i make sure that there's a clear ask and i'm really specific with my asks as well so it's easy for them to respond like with booking gigs i would suggest three specific dates you know they might come back and say i don't have those dates but i'm still like how about i play on this day you know after i've checked their calendar online um or with pitching myself for an interview same thing i'll be like i'm available tuesdays at noon how about you because

then if there's something you know it moves the conversation forward in a more like action-oriented way um you're not just saying are you interested let me know like it's like let's just let's just move ahead here's a time you know now we have something to talk about and lastly although i do have a bonus tip but my like last step in writing the perfect almost perfect email is my magical closing line which is something that i learned from marsha shandor of uh yes yesmarsha.com she used to do like networking uh stuff i use this on every single email i end with if you have two minutes to hit reply and let me know what you think that would be fantastic and it's this magic line for some reason it's because everyone has like a million emails most of the time we're like okay i'll reply to that later but this invitation to be like it's just gonna take you two minutes hit reply people are like oh yeah okay good idea i can do that um and it has totally upped how

many times i hear back from people i mean this is like anecdotal i haven't done like a hard analysis but i have noticed that um it's this it just like gives people an easy way to write back and then the ball is in your court and then you can like keep that conversation going because it's amazing i mean even being you know i'm i've also been like an arts programmer and and manager at different arts organizations like when people send you emails it's so often that people aren't including the best information that you having to like kind of do that work for them and so i do as much of the work as i can when i'm sending that email clear subject line clear ask i've done my research take two minutes to let me know what you think that's great those are my tips for you i love it super helpful it reminds me of marketing too it reminds me of good marketing you've got a clear you know tag line the the the thing at the end is your call to action yeah the middle part is

your you're appealing to people on on on a real level and i think with all this it goes without saying but um it has to be authentic going back to the the beginning of this interview you don't want to do all those things inauthentically unauthentically inauthentically inauthentically because people have a great detector and so you don't want to you know you've got to be real about all this and i think most people understand that but they they don't do the clarity they don't make a clear subject line and they don't have a clear call to action and they don't have a defined date and a do this this and this because they feel like they don't want to boss people around but but like you said if you don't boss people around then they're gonna have to do all the work and they don't even know you and they probably just did the work for the last email so it seems a little bit counter-intuitive yeah i think but

it makes it easy for people and i found with like with all like suggesting dates it's been also because again it's like it gives them something even to say no to where they're like actually no we're already booked those dates but and then it's like but we can do this or whatever um yeah the authentic thing is really true and that's why like honest advice of like you know you want to be their friend like sure it's a business relationship you want it to be friendly um that i learned a lot from that i learned also from uh doug cox who's a great musician and is was is the ad of um i think it's called vancouver island folk festival in like comox valley and i remember asking him about like how do i book more festivals like i'm inviting them to my showcases and like uh and he was like two things are true one you know like you're great at what you do but there's a lot of people like you there's a lot of talented singer-songwriters more than we can program in a festival right and he was like your best bet is to actually when you're at those conferences or whatever don't try and get them to your showcase

try and just sit down and have a coffee with them because they actually might be more inclined if they get to know you you're gonna be able to talk to them you're gonna you know pull on these skills of like chatting and being friendly and and um that then that might be what gives me the edge and it it did like i you know you think that you can just make the music and that's going to be good music is going to be enough um and it's not which is sort of disheartening i know i felt disheartened by that for a while but then i felt a little less precious and was like okay well if the music isn't enough i'm gonna write the good emails and figure out you know like how to take those steps yeah my bonus tip is the um gmail add-on boomerang it's like i use it so much from an organizational perspective do you use boomerang my fa i don't know what life would be like without boomerang it is so useful i used to have like spreadsheets where i'm tracking who i emailed when but the fact that you can just be like hey boomerang
tell me if this person doesn't write back to me or like hey boomerang send this email at a reasonable hour instead of 3am um or boomerang i want to read this email on wednesday at 3 30 p.m be on be gone with you be gone with you remind me later yeah so boomerang is a amazing tool for keeping track of all this stuff that you're sending out into the world free tools shout out boomerang by the way boomerang uh levels fm is accepting sponsorships at this point i don't know how that would work but i mean that was an organic you and i really love boomerang that was an unpaid plug [Music]