Adam Ivy:
So if you could build a movement behind what your brand represents and your brand is not just about you, it's about something bigger than yourself and you could really tell that story, those who could tell a story and make people feel those emotional triggers are those who succeed. You don't have to be the best musician, guitar player, singer or anything, you could still succeed if you have a pack of people behind you that believe in what you're trying to do.

Michael Walker:
It's easy to get lost in today's music industry, with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician, and it's only getting better. If you have high quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution on today's music industry, and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

Michael Walker:
All right. I'm super excited to be here today with my new Adam Ivy. Adam is an award-winning music producer, professional YouTuber and creative marketing specialist. He's someone that I've had on my radar for a while, and I've wanted to connect with and bring him on the podcast. We just met at Funnel Hacking Live for the first time, and my suspicions were verified as soon as I got to talk with him. I'm like, "This guy's awesome. A really good dude." And so I'm excited to bring him my on here and to be able to share some of the lessons that he's learned.

Michael Walker:
He is the founder of sellmusic.com, featured on CNBC, MTV, E! Network, worked with artists like G-Eazy, ModSun, Kevin Gates, and really just an overall branding and marketing wizard who really has a lot of expertise around increasing your brand recognition and being able to get your music heard in an organic way. So Adam, thanks so much for taking the time to be here today.

Adam Ivy:
I appreciate the opportunity, I appreciate the badass intro. Thank you so much. I feel really good about myself when I get introduced like that. So thank you for boosting my confidence a little bit here today.

Michael Walker:
Just speaking the truth. It's nice when I can say things like that, and it's like, "Man." Because it all also reminds me, I'm like, "Oh yeah. This dude's a badass."

Adam Ivy:
We've come a long way, man. We've come a long way. When you can talk shop and get together with people that get it and have been at it for a long time, it's just refreshing, it's really refreshing."

Michael Walker:
For sure, man. So to start out with, for everyone that's listening this right now who maybe they've heard of you before, they saw a YouTube video here are there, but they'd like to learn a little bit more about your story. Could you share a little bit about yourself and how you got started with your brand?

Adam Ivy:
For sure. I started making music late in life compared to what a lot of these kids consider late nowadays. I didn't start making music till I was 21 in the form of music production. I played trumpet back in high school, as an embarrassing as that sounds. But 21, I fell in love with making beats on an old crappy laptop with about as minimal of a setup as possible. And I just absolutely just became passionate about it to the point where a couple years later, I moved to Florida to pursue a career in music production. I took a few day jobs.

Adam Ivy:
And then in 2009, I lost my said day job because of the economy caught up with that business. I got laid off along with, I think, 12 other people. And I said to myself, "I thought that I had a future there. I thought that this music thing would just be a cool supplemental income." And I said, "That's a sign. I moved away from home to pursue this thing, now I'm back in the driver's seat with all this time on my hands." So between 2009 and 2010, I really dove in head first into saying, "Okay, I'm making a little bit of money here, but a little bit isn't going to pay the bills."

Adam Ivy:
Aside from music I was also side hustling doing graphic design projects for just about every club downtown Orlando here, thanks to one of my near and dear friends, DJ Deville. He set me up with some club promoters and whatnot, and all of a sudden, I had a little bit of a side income. Fast forward to 2010 to 2011, was the first year I ever cracked six figures selling beats online. And one day, just kind of by accident, my uncle said, "You are really good at marketing and branding yourself." And I'm like, "I have no idea what you're talking about." Because what I was doing I didn't think really applied to that realm.

Adam Ivy:
So, once he made me aware of this and I started looking at what I was doing for other side hustles, such as copywriting, which I didn't know that that's what it was called at the time and doing email marketing for some small veterinarians offices and building WordPress websites and stuff. I realized that, "Oh yeah... " I would always say, "You just want it to look appealing, you just want it to look good. You want it to be welcoming," it's all branding, it's all marketing. So what I was doing was this same thing, tripping through Photoshop and stuff.

Adam Ivy:
And now here we are, 10 years corporate marketing experience on top of doing the music stuff because I am a busy body. So I don't think I could ever just sit still with one project. With a slight hearing loss back in 2016, I started doing these YouTube videos as a hobby, teaching people how to market themselves, brand themselves, start making beats and produce and a few product reviews here and there. And the next thing you know, it turned into an education business that I'm just as passionate about as making music itself. I own a couple other businesses, and have a nonprofit and stuff, but that might be better suited for follow up shows or something like that.

Adam Ivy:
That's me in a shell. I enjoy producing pop, hip hop RnB, some future based EDM stuff. But primarily, these days I'm focused on business development and helping other music creators build their brand and businesses.

Michael Walker:
Awesome, man. I feel like in most of the people that I talk to and my mentors and successful people, they have a similar story in the sense that there's something that happens, like when you got laid off from your job, where at the time, I'm sure it was this huge weight. You're like, "Oh man, what do I do?" And that actually turns out that thing was a blessing in disguise and that really was the thing that initiated this transformation and you achieving the success that you have

Adam Ivy:
For sure. A lot of people in life, I talk to business owners all the time when I do these car rallies and car shows and stuff, kind of the what do you do effect? And a lot of people have these stories where it's like, "I finally had enough, I finally had enough runway, and I quit my job. And finally, I made a goal for six months and I quit my job." I lost my job. People ask all the time, "What do I do to get ready to leave my job?" And I'm like, "Well, be financially stable and have a runway and everything that I just went over. But I think sometimes the universe throws things at us, and then how we react dictates the results that we're going to experience.

Adam Ivy:
Don't get me wrong, there was a few times during that stretch of trying to make music work before it did work that I was looking at jobs and I was getting phone calls from previous coworkers, "Hey man, I've got a job here. Are still looking for a job?" "Give me a couple of months, then maybe I'll follow back up with you." But I think that through adversity, through obstacles, comes real change and allows us to step outside of that comfort zone and complacency that becomes very comfortable. It's like a warm get at times and just throws you into this, "What the frick is going on with my life? I need to figure this out."

Adam Ivy:
And either you can have somebody else sign a check for you and go to somebody else signing a check for you, or you can figure out how to sign your own checks.

Michael Walker:
That's so good. Speaking to that point of no return or that point of like, "I've had enough," there is something so powerful in that. And this idea of burning your bridges in a certain sense. What was the analogy of the-

Adam Ivy:
Kings would burn the boats, that's what I would think of.

Michael Walker:
The Vikings would burn the boats. Yeah. That's so good where it's like, "All right, well, you no choice but be forward here. You've got to throw your hat over the fence." It's interesting. I think that the people who are the most successful in the world tend to do a good job of throwing a hat over the fence or putting themselves in that situation where you have to show up or do or die. But sometimes, it's either given to us like it's out of our hands where there's something like you got fired and all of a sudden, you have to do it. But if you don't have that in your life, it seems like it's really important for you to create that sense of urgency for yourself or find something, find a reason where it's like, "All right, this needs to happen now. I've had enough. This is my decision. This is my point in the road where I actually choose to make this a reality."

Adam Ivy:
Oh, for sure. Even in my business ventures outside of having a day job, I was just talking to Zach at lunch today about the fact that he and I are very similar in terms of like, I live by the motto or the mantra, "Proud, but never satisfied." I purposely put myself in positions of discomfort or positions of unknowing in order to challenge myself and in order to keep going. A few years ago I found myself, vehicle paid off, very low mortgage payment, no debt, no credit card debt, own everything outright.

Adam Ivy:
And I'm like, "This is cool, but I need to have more than just financial goals that I'm chasing." So I started a non-profit organization to benefit underprivileged children that want to do something artistic. It doesn't have to be music, but just something artistic as well as co-founding a supercar rally. And I have a couple other businesses, like I mentioned. And so, it's always something to keep my feet moving because some people recharge by just sitting around and relaxing, and there's nothing wrong with that. A hot tub and a book and Netflix, a good time. But I would go crazy if that was my Monday through Friday, I would go absolutely crazy.

Adam Ivy:
I run just fine off of five or six hours of sleep. I enjoy 10 hours of sleep on occasion, but overall, it's just about, "What am I going to be able to accomplish with the time I have." I'm 36 years old, I'm not young, but I'm not old. And I have so much more runway to really see what's capable or what I'm capable of and what's possible. So whether it's doing music, whether it's coaching others, whether it's a business venture that has nothing to do with any of this stuff 10 years from now, I think there's a certain ING that we put ourselves in when we start seeing what's possible, when we stop making excuses, when we step outside of the comfort zone.

Adam Ivy:
I know people and I've been this person in life myself, you go and you buy a car that you can't afford because you're going to go fight harder to make more money or a house or a watch or whatever that might be. Some people take a job that they've might not really feel qualified for because they know it's going to level up. Some people take on more clients than they think they're capable of to be able to figure out their systems. So I think the trial by fire thing really goes to music creators as well. How many people are you reaching out to? What networking or gigs are you going to that maybe you're introverted in your uncomfortable but something special could come out on the other end?

Adam Ivy:
We are just weird, man. As music creators, we are fricking insane to begin with. And when you can link up with other insane people, sometimes it just works.

Michael Walker:
A network insanity.

Adam Ivy:
I like it.

Michael Walker:
That's so good, man. That's something that I feel like is reflected in a lot of the most successful people that I know, is this mindset of not necessarily shying away from discomfort, there's a being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Obviously, there's limits to it, you don't want to like stretch your rubber band so far it snaps, kind of thing. But there is something so powerful about putting yourself on those situations and intentionally leaning into the discomfort and saying like, "Okay, this is going to be way out of my comfort zone, but I'm going to lean into it. I'm going to learn. And if I screw up completely, I'm going to learn through the process," and it's about who you become in that process.

Adam Ivy:
Absolutely. I couldn't agree anymore, man.

Michael Walker:
Cool. This is fun. I love geeking out on stuff like this. Let's talk a little bit about, I know that at this point you've had a ton of experience working with artists and specifically focusing on this area of branding and getting your music heard. I'm sure that you see a lot of the same mistakes and challenges coming up over and over again. What would you say are some of the biggest challenges or mistakes that you see musicians struggling with right now when it comes to getting their music heard?

Adam Ivy:
I think one of the biggest issues is that people aren't trying to find their unique voice. I look at patterns, not only from branding of music creators, but comedians and movies and different things like that. And you look at comedians over the years and you look at the ones that ring a bell, the ones that are iconic, the Kevin Harts and the Chris Rocks and the Jerry Seinfelds and the Sam Kinisons, who else is out there? Robin Williams, for example. And they all have a unique cadence.

Adam Ivy:
Every single one of those people, you and I could do a horrible impression of, but there's something there to do an impression of. So many music creators are so vanilla and they play so safe that they're looking at other people in the space, musicians, producers, artists, singer, songwriters, bands, it doesn't matter, and they're trying to take influence without stepping up. They're taking some derivative version or derived version of that and then coming out with a six out of 10. There's nothing to talk about, it's just, "Okay, it fits in with everything on Spotify. Awesome. It fits in with everything on Instagram."

Adam Ivy:
But sometimes fitting in is not what we're trying to do. I don't by any means imply that somebody has to be this shock jock, gimmicky, crazy mohawks, and white beards down to here, anything like that. But I bet you, everybody listening just imagined what that would look like with a big mohawk and a big white beard, you can visualize it. If I tell you, "Oh, I know this band, it's awesome. The guy looks like Chad Kroeger, a little it like Dane Cook. These things are just super forgettable. It's just the fact of the matter that people trying to get heard aren't doing enough to get seen.

Adam Ivy:
We live in this social world where YouTube videos are going viral, TikTok videos are going viral, Instagram accounts are blowing up, even though some people are saying it's dead, that's absolutely ridiculous. But we really have to look at how the brand impacts everything that we're doing from our marketing perspective, because the brand is what we are and our music is the product. So you need that visibility. You and I spoke about it not too long ago, the VCL, the visibility, the connection, and then the offers. So you need to build out a real system around this and not just, "I'm going to let my music speak for itself."

Adam Ivy:
Even if you're in construction and you build the most beautiful house ever, the house isn't going to speak for itself, nobody's going to know it's for sale. They're not going to do the walkthroughs by themselves. You have a product, it could be beautiful, you can rejoice, you could celebrate it, but what vehicle are you using to present it to the world? And that's your brand. I think that any major brand has three things in common. The first thing is knowing with confidence who they are, what they represent. Usually, it's a so associated with the brand aesthetic of some sort that then ties in with making sure that that brand aesthetic in that message directly resonate with their target audience.

Adam Ivy:
And obviously, the third step of that is knowing who your target audience is and where they are so you could step in front of the traffic or buy your way in with ads and stuff. But I think that with branding, a lot of people miss the mark because they think branding is a logo, they think branding is a slogan, they think branding is that one look that they give in every single one of their videos or something, something gimmicky. It can be, it really can be. But I find in my experience, the people that are most gimmicky burn out the fastest, because it's not really them, typically. They're trying to do so thing that they think is clever in a marketing sense. And then all of a sudden, they're like, "I don't want to be known for that guy. I don't want to be known to do... " But you do.

Adam Ivy:
So when it comes to the branding element, you have to understand that branding and promotion and marketing and advertising, it's all separate puzzle pieces in the overall system. I think that some people think that branding is just everything or marketing is just everything. And I think that that's where people stumble, and it's okay. People start producing music at different stages in their life and they spend the time to learn the intricacies, "I want to learn how to sequence drums or maybe I play drums and I want to learn how to record correctly and mix everything." And they're so patient with all of these puzzle pieces, all these little Lego blocks to build a song that they're really proud of.

Adam Ivy:
And then when they have to learn new Lego blocks, they have to learn new puzzle pieces, they're like, "Oh, it shouldn't be this hard." Come on, come on. So I think it's a mixture of impatience. You have all these creative juices to make songs, you need the same creative juices to define a who you are. And I think a lot of people can let their emotions and their thoughts and all this stuff out into songs, but they have a hard time putting it out visually and building something succinct to be able to deliver it in a cohesive fashion consistently. I probably layered that answer, but there there's a lot of stumbling blocks there.

Michael Walker:
That was super good. There's a lot that we can dig into there. I totally hear what you're saying in terms of that discomfort that comes from leaning into marketing or it is this new thing. The same way that when you first picked up a guitar, you didn't just instantly play most complicated thing that you possibly.... You had stumbled through it, it had to be just uncomfortable. It sounds like what you're saying is that there's a learning process, but you can bring that same creativity that came from your music and you as an artist, you're a pretty creative person, so if you would just apply that to this new world of branding and marketing, it can actually be a lot of fun.

Michael Walker:
It doesn't need to be something slimy where you're trying to impress or be someone else than who you are, it's just about take who you actually are and amplifying that. So along that point, I love what you brought up about really having either a signature set sound, or when it comes to your brand, being iconic, having that thing where someone hears you or they see you and they know pretty quickly who you are because of your signature, who you are. So I'd be curious on, if someone's listening or watching this right now a they're like, "I don't even know what that is for me. What is it about me that stands out, that makes me unique? How do I start finding that signature sound? What can I do to stand out?"

Adam Ivy:
I think that when it comes to signature sound, when it comes to really differentiating yourself from the rest of the marketplace, you have to step up to the plate and step outside of that comfort zone and understand that you're moving into who you are rather becoming who you... You don't just magically become the host of a show, you don't magically become comfortable on camera. So you have to understand that we have to present ourselves to the world as the optimized version of who we really are, but it needs to be that optimized version.

Adam Ivy:
I understand the importance of authenticity, I understand the importance of being real, everybody wants to be real, but if I'm having a bad hair day, if I have acnes because I ate too much chocolate or whatever that looks like, I think that one thing we have to look at is, okay, you could take a step back, but you need to move forward and really drive into who you see yourself becoming. Because anybody, like I mentioned, stand-up comedian, you look at a guy, I just read a story recently about Drake. Drake rented a Bentley, I think, or it might have been a Rolls Royce for like a year straight, spent like $12,000 on renting this thing, because not only did he want to visualize who he wanted to become, but he wanted everybody else to see who he was knowing...

Adam Ivy:
I mean, there's a certain aspect of fake it till you make it, I acknowledge that, but he said, "I'm special. I'm going to be as somebody. I want to feel what it's like to live on an elevated level, not pull up in an Acura TSX and feel self-conscious about myself." So he put whatever his smoothie needed to be full of with the confidence and maybe a little bit of investment, maybe a little bit of going for it before he was actually there, and you step into it, you step into your true self. Time and time again, you see these massive acts, Elton John changed his name, you see Celine Dion, she was discovered by, I believe David Foster.

Adam Ivy:
And these people either infuse that confidence into these young artists or they say, "I need the right tools, whatever that looks like, to become the artist that I believe in inside I'm going to become. With that being said, I think it takes a little bit of, you got to be a human man, you've got to be willing to risk feeling embarrassed, you need to be willing to risk people, calling you maybe by your stage name. And it's uncomfortable at first to really say like, "No, this is what I want. This is what I really want." Because we're raised in a society where nobody's going to tell you that's possible in school, nobody's going to tell you that's possible, really, within family circle, unless you have like a very artistic, open-minded family.

Adam Ivy:
Where I grew up in the Midwest, my parents believed in me kind of blindly. They have no idea what I'm talking about when I'm like, "I want to produce music. I want to make hip hop beats." "Sure. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Make sure you've got a good job, you've got to pay for this stuff." I'm getting off subject a little bit. But when it comes to really stepping up to the plate, you have to go up to the plate every time trying to hit a home run, not just being like, "Okay." Nobody wants to be a seven out of 10 when it comes to how impressive you are in the music industry, and the people that have the crazy amounts of confidence, the people that are willing to go out there...

Adam Ivy:
Look at acts like Lady Gaga. Now she can do whatever she wants, but when she was really coming up, she did the outlandish stuff. She really built a following and a brand around her. She has the little monsters. And then we have the people that follow Taylor Swift, I think they call them Swifies. So if you could build a movement behind what your brand represents, and your brand is not just about you, it's about something bigger than yourself, and you can really tell that story. Those who could tell a story and make people feel those emotional triggers are those who succeed.

Adam Ivy:
You don't have to be the best musician, guitar player, singer, anything, you could still succeed if you have a pack of people behind you that believe in what you're trying to do.

Michael Walker:
All right. Let's take a quick break from the podcast so I can tell you about a free, special offer that we're doing right now, exclusively for our podcast listeners. If you get a ton of value from the show, but you want to take your music career to the next level, connect with a community of driven musicians and connect with the music mentors directly that we have on this podcast, or if you just want to know the best way to market your music and grow an audience right now, then this is going to be perfect for you. Right now, we're offering a free two-week trial to our Music Mentor Coaching Program. And if you sign up in the show notes below, you're going to access to our entire Music Mentor Content Vault for free. The vault is organized into four different content pillars, the first being the music, then the artist, the fans, and last but not least, the business.

Michael Walker:
When you sign up, you unlock our best in-depth master classes from a network of world-class musicians and industry experts on the most cutting edge strategies right now for growing your music business. On top of that, you'll get access to our weekly live masterminds, where our highest level Modern Musician coaches teach you exactly what they're doing to make an income and an impact with their music. Then once a month, we're going to have our Music Mentor Spotlight series. And that's what we're going to bring on some of the world's biggest and best artist coaches and successful musicians to teach you what's working right now.

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And one of the most amazing parts is that you can get your questions answered live by these top of music mentors. So a lot of the people that you hear right here on the podcast are there live interacting with you personally, so imagine being able to connect with them directly. On top of all that, you'll get access to our private Music Mentor Community. And this is definitely one of my favorite parts of Music Mentor and maybe the most valuable, is that you're going to have this community where you can network with other artists and link up, collaborate, ask questions, get support, and discuss everything related to your music career.

Michael Walker:
So if you're curious and you want to take advantage of the free trial, then go click on the link in the show notes right now, you can sign up for free. And from there, you can check out all of the amazing contents, connect with the community and sign up for the live master classes that happen every week. This is a gift for listening to our podcast, supporting the show. So don't miss it out. Go sign up for free now. And let's get back to our interview.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, that is so important is having that, having that community, having that tribe of people in it. It might be bigger than just the music. One thing that you talked about, because I think this is so important, this is really foundational to everything, is really having the belief or having the vision and being willing to stretch who you are and actually assuming that identity, grabbing that identity, owning that identity even before you become that person. And there is that fine line of, you shouldn't lie or say something is true that isn't true, but there's a difference between lying and owning that future identity and being willing to do whatever it takes, and being well willing to embarrass yourself or look stupid in pursuit of that future identity, really claiming that.

Michael Walker:
That's where champions are born, I think is really around that ability to own that identity. Where do you think that comes from?

Adam Ivy:
Yeah. If you think about it, man, you just said the word champion, champions are made of that. But think about from a physical perspective, I love the tie-in here. If you and I go to the gym and you and I are skinny and we want to become ripped, we want to look like The Rock.

Michael Walker:
You're speaking a little too close to home, man. I was a weird lanky, awkward kid in high school, so I have a personal trainer now.

Adam Ivy:
I'm much shorter than you, but when I moved to Florida, I was 140 pounds. I was skin and bone, you could see my ribs. And you go to the gym, and what does it take to become muscular? What does it take to become in shape? What does it take to become marathon runner? If you hand me five-pound dumbbells, I can curl those things 50 times before I'm even feeling anything. That's not going to make my muscle grow, that's not going to put me into hypertrophy, that's not going to tear down to build. We need to be able to tear down to build. So if we can curl 25 pounds or bench press, and I know people are going to be like, "Yeah, stop talking about working out." But it's the fact that you have to put yourself into pain in order to continue to progress.

Adam Ivy:
So you tear down and you build up, and that's what we have to do within our own branding and marketing, we have to be willing to fail. Yeah, that campaign you did might suck, the video that you did and you're really be goofy or you're doing a silly challenge or you went and had a makeup artist paint you up like an '80s hairband rocker because that's who you want to be, people might laugh at you in your circle, even your mom or your dad or your siblings, best friend, whatever it looks like, they might not understand where you're trying to go because they know you as the foundation, they know you from where you've been, not where you're going. So you have to see within your mind where you're going so vividly.

Adam Ivy:
I say this all the time to my wife, I'm like, "I know what our future looks like, time just hasn't caught up yet." Because I could sit there and literally, I could feel the chrome trim on the private jet that will be flying, I could feel the carpet beneath my feet in theater room that we didn't have and now we do. And obviously, it's not all about material possessions. I've been married to my wife almost exactly one year now, and I always wanted to find somebody that understood what I was doing, challenged me when needed, supported me through thick and thin, and obviously everything else that my wife brings to the table and why I married her and no one else.

Adam Ivy:
And the same thing goes for your business development. You're building a relationship with yourself to believe in yourself, trust yourself, know that you are going to step up to the plate and put that stuff on your shoulders and you're not going to let it all crumble. So it's a little bit of a dedication thing, it's a little bit of a delusion thing because a lot of people will call us delusional for what we see, but no different than if you're starting a t-shirt brand, if you want to open a car dealership. You have this idea of what could be, you have to f-ing and follow through and make it a reality because people can tell you till they're blue in the that they believe in you, what can you accomplish is really what matters?

Adam Ivy:
I think that, like you said, being comfortable with being uncomfortable is where it all starts. A lot of people will leave funny comments on my YouTube videos like, "Oh, if only it was this easy." And then I have 42 comments like, "Man, I've seen a lot of progress using this." It's like there's people that will look at the mountain and talk for six years on how they don't have the right shoes and that they might cut their hand on a rock if they start climbing, and then there's the people that get up, fall a little bit, get up, stumble, skin their knee, keep going. And over time, understand technique, understand the right gear, understand what they're capable of, and what their limits are, what their boundaries are.

Adam Ivy:
I'm 5'8", I'm not a very tall guy. I knew I would never make it to the NBA, so I stopped playing basketball my junior year. I'm like, "This shit isn't going to work." But there's certain aspects of pushing things to the limit that you can only do, nobody can do it for you, no agency can do it for you, no personal trainer is going to lift your weights for you, no dietician is going to eat those salads and prepare your chicken for you. Well, they might prepare your chicken if we're really overthinking things, but you get what I mean, man. I think that it's a special type of human being that says, "I'm sick of living how I'm living, I want to live different."

Adam Ivy:
It doesn't even have to be associated with a dollar amount, because there's plenty of people that are super happy on like 30 grand a year. It's just how you want to live your life, and there's no right or wrong way to do it, but we should live in happiness and fulfillment no matter how we're living it.

Michael Walker:
It's so good. I'm glad that we're starting here. And we can step and start talking about some more strategic and tactical stuff here in a bit, but I think that this is really the foundation of everything. Ultimately, it comes down to a decision, a decision of who you're going to be, what you're going to commit to. And if anyone listening or watching this right now, you're looking internally and being like, why is it for you? Why is it a non-negotiable? Your music career, why does it need to happen? And what can you do to like throw your hat over the fence in order to make it a must. That is always a really powerful exercise.

Michael Walker:
And it's something that is like taking showers, it's not something you just do once and you're all done with it. So you come back to it over and over again, you go deeper and deeper and deeper. But eventually, you get to a point where you really know your purpose, your mission and why you're doing what you do. And that is the thing that like drives you into that discomfort. So it's like, "Yeah, this is uncomfortable, but it's for a bigger purpose." Let's assume that listener watching this is like, "Okay, cool. I got it. I've got my why, or I've got kind my foundations, I'm willing to it. I'm going to do whatever it takes. No matter what happens, I'm going to do whatever it takes."

Michael Walker:
And now it's like, "Man, I've got the songs, I've got a few songs I've worked on. I didn't record with the Grammy Award winning production team to start out with, but I feel pretty proud of it. I feel like this is actually has a good shot, I think that people would actually enjoy this. Man, now I've got the songs, what do I actually do to get it heard? Or how do I grow my fan base?" What are some initial ways for them to start actually finding the right people who are going to connect with it?

Adam Ivy:
I think the first thing people need to understand is that it's going to take probably about $2 million in Facebook ads. I'm just kidding. Totally kidding.

Michael Walker:
That wouldn't hurt. Wouldn't hurt.

Adam Ivy:
Yeah. It wouldn't hurt. If you know that, you're probably not listening to this if you're loaded like that, but here's the thing, good music like I mentioned earlier, doesn't speak for itself, and I think we agree on that. But the thing that does matter is that people really resonate with you. I'm not saying that they have to feel like you're super close, your long lost siblings or best friends or anything like that, but why do people connect with songs? They connect with the story, the feel, the vibe, those emotional triggers.

Adam Ivy:
Same goes statistically speaking, if somebody cares for you, if somebody's interested in you, there's a statistical, I don't know what the percentage is now on the spot, but statistically shows that people will like your music more. Got stumbled up there for a second. But what I'm getting at is if I know, Michael, and you came out with a song, I don't even have to be like BFFs with you or anything, I'm like, "Oh, I'm proud of him. There's something that I resonate with. There's some connection there. It's human." We've all listened to a song on Spotify that's overly produced, overly auto tuned, overly perfect, perfect quantization, it sounds like robots made it in the back shed of some huge server room.

Adam Ivy:
It doesn't have the same resonance, it doesn't have the same feel, the same vibe. And so if we can go out there and take this music that we're making, whether we've been making music for six months or 60 years and put it out in front of a story, put it out in front of a visual experience, it's going to get you a lot further faster, because we can go upload it to any distribution company, put it up on Spotify and just sit around the computer waiting for the stats to go up like that, but you have to promote it. And one thing that I think people get tripped up on, we sit in our bedroom, we sit at a studio, we sit wherever, making this music, we're listening to it over and over, and over, and over, and over again, we have six, 10, 15 tracks on a project or maybe just a single that you've literally now listened to 832 times.

Adam Ivy:
And then when we release it, we have all this expectation of it just taking off. It's like a hot air balloon, we've filled this thing with hot air, we have a fire underneath and it's supposed to go. But the world is brand new to it, they're not sick of it. Their energy has to be built rather than our energy's already up here, and we have to resist the temptation to let that energy dither away or wither away. So when we have the product, which obviously is the music, we have to position it in a way where we are delivering it to our target audience typically through the platforms that you're most connected on.

Adam Ivy:
So if you are focused on Instagram and YouTube, for example, both visual platforms, then figure out a way to really be able to present an experience to these people, whether it's a live listening session, whether it's a contest, whether it's a dance challenge on TikTok, whether that's a behind the scenes video of where the music came from, maybe a music video and then a unplugged version, and then a origin story. You get what I'm saying, you give them an experience long term that then breathes life into it. And that's the organic path. You don't need any Facebook ad budget for that, you don't need any paid advertising for that.

Adam Ivy:
And I think that those grassroots pushes are, I was going to say bluegrass, I always do that. The grassroots, I did it correctly. I'm like, "Not bluegrass." Although if you do make bluegrass music, grassroots works as well, but going out there and really trying to become immersed in your community like I said earlier, actually being the face of your music, the face of your brand, and then showing appreciation for those who are sharing it, those who are appreciating it, obviously the networking aspect of it of reaching out to playlist curators and going through Spotify for Artists to properly submit your music four to six weeks before it comes out.

Adam Ivy:
There's a lot of technical stuff on the backend that I'm sure you teach day in and day out to everybody, but when it comes to business, there's business to business, there's business to consumer, B2B, B2C, obviously, I really think that the music industry more than most industries, it's P2P, person to person, because that's how you build that following that's going to share, that's going to get excited for your gig where only 30 people show up, but they're excited all week to make it to Friday or Saturday to come see you perform and take some time and actually thank you, or share a few snippets of what you've done with their people.

Adam Ivy:
And so I think that people overlook the power of real numbers and they try to trade them in for vanity metrics, which it's cool, I understand it. I totally get it. We all want the numbers to go crazy, we don't want our Spotify releases to have under 1,000, the little half triangle with 1,000. Everybody's like, "Oh, we just got to get 2,000, we just got to get 2,000." But I think if you treat people, whether it's 12 people or 120 people the same way, that's going to elongate your chances of having a sustainable music career. Because a lot of people will show up, 30 people will show up to a gig or something similar and 30 people will show up, they'll go in the back and they'll throw a chair and they'll break stuff and say, "It was such a failure."

Adam Ivy:
Meanwhile, they're totally neglecting those 30 people who took time out of the day and didn't see it as a failure, they were there to support. Like old saying goes, "Those who are good people are going to be even better people with money. Those who are crappy people aren't going to be any better of a person with money," I think the same goes for audience size. If you're a good person and appreciative at 50 followers, you're probably going to be a relatively good person at 500,000 followers.

Michael Walker:
I love that quote. I think I hadn't heard that one before, but definitely that rings true that money is just like a tool to amplify what you're already doing. That's super helpful. I think it sounds like what you're saying is that it's really important when you come into the game of promoting yourself that you're not overly focused on numbers for numbers' sake or vanity metrics because ultimately, it feels good to have those things and it is important to a certain degree of social proof or whatnot, but really, fundamentally the thing that you should start from is really focusing on being a good human being and focusing on building long-term relationships and providing value for other people.

Michael Walker:
You should be in a good person and be a good human being and that's going to make you more attractive, it's going to make the world a better place. So definitely start there. And I'd love to talk a little bit about, how does someone, let's say that they're coming at it from the right angle and they're like, "I want to do the right thing. I just want to start putting my music in front of the right people and start connecting with them." What are some ideas or different tactics or strategies or ways for them to basically identify who their target audience is and where they congregate, where they hang out and actually start the process of connecting with those people?

Adam Ivy:
I typically ask my students like, what food group do you think you're in? For example, if you know who Charlie Puth is, and then you know who Sean Mendes is, you know that they're in the same food group. If you went and saw one of them open for the other, they're interchangeable, you'd be happy with the experience. So you need to find out who your food group is. If you're a trap rapper, find the biggest trap rappers that are coming up. I'm not talking about the ones that are already established for the last six years because their journey so six years ago was not what it is now.

Adam Ivy:
You need to find people that are a few chapters ahead of you in the book of music success, not the people that have... Because I say that, because man, I'm not trying to be rude to anybody listening to this right now, but there's people out there that message me are like, "Drake's not doing the social media stuff." Okay. But I also remember when Drake was huge on my space. So we got to quit comparing our chapter one or chapter two to other people's chapter 28 and start saying like, "Who's on chapter like five and where were they a year ago?" And start looking and getting clues.

Adam Ivy:
I'm not saying to be a copycat of anybody else, not by any stretch of the imagination, but unless you're doing some crazy experimental jazz, polka EDM, death metal that nobody's ever heard before and probably doesn't have a market right now, your music is derived on things that you grew up around, who your influences are. And so all of these lend clues to where we need to look as far as similarities in vibes, similarities in sound, similarities in messaging. There's so many unicorn playlists on Spotify, for example, there's holiday playlists that everybody's familiar with, there's pride playlists that a lot of people are familiar with now, but there's also playlists on music to listen to while folding laundry.

Adam Ivy:
If you're making music and somebody's like, "Man, this is just chill. I love it, I could have a plane in the background," type in background music for chill days. There's probably a unicorn playlist like that. There's a copycat like that.

Michael Walker:
Like a song just, I'm folding socks now, I'm folding my t-shirt now.

Adam Ivy:
I'm missing my sock, where did it go?

Michael Walker:
Doing laundry feels awesome. I totally cut you off, sorry.

Adam Ivy:
No, that's all right. This is gorilla marketing. Now, people are here listening to this and now we're telling them about our next upcoming release.

Michael Walker:
We like driving down the story or driving down the story. We're going to be driving down the street tomorrow. We're going to flip on the radio and there's going to be like, "Vote in my laundry." So it sounds like, "Listen, wait, what?"

Michael Walker:
New hit. Number one song, like, "Wait, where did they come from?"

Adam Ivy:
That's Michael and Adam, the laundry boys.

Michael Walker:
The laundry boys with the Z.

Adam Ivy:
The laundromat. That's our band, laundromat. Anyway, but this is how fun ideas come about. So if you don't have fun ideas, you really need to stop looking at your business as a burden, you need to stop looking at obligation that's turning into resentment because I know that that's plaguing a lot of us that do this, off and on, we have our waves. When it comes to finding that food group like I was talking about, though I think it's very important to say, I'm unique, I'm a derivative of this though, let's see where I can reverse engineer my way into. And so you have to be humble enough to say, "There's other people that are doing this way better than me. There's other people that people really love. I'd like to become one of those people that these people love."

Adam Ivy:
So you get into the mix with everything. Maybe you're starting conversations with people, and I used it earlier, but Sean Mendes fan group or Ed Sheeran or whatever type of music, Dua Lipa, whatever type of music, I'm naming a whole lot of pop artists right now. But from there, you can really see what is working as far as festivals for them. If you're in the states and there's a festival in your area, this is where you can reach out to talent acquisition scouts, and event promoters and stuff, and eventually work your way into that. Open mic Knights, coffee shops, all these different opportunities to promote yourself through an angle that is already aligned with your sound.

Adam Ivy:
And then it's up to you with your brand to really give them a unique perspective, a unique experience. But another great way of doing this with the whole food group analogy is by finding their fans and then having conversations with them. I'm not saying the like for like thing, but let's say that we're on Instagram and I am targeting, who would be? Jon Bellion. I freaking love Jon Bellion. So let's say I made music like Jon Bellion. Well, I could go to all of his followers and I could start conversations in the chat. The ones that are active are obviously active for a reason, and I go see what they're doing.

Adam Ivy:
And I'd leave comments on a few of their posts. And the only ones that I genuinely like, I'm not saying become a bot, but we go out and we're human. Yeah, we make music. Yeah, they might make music, we're human. We have other interests. I really like blueberry toasters strudels, I really like Rolex watches, I like supercars, I like '80s and '90s nostalgic cartoons. I have more interests than just music and everybody else does as well. So if you go out and you really ingest what people are putting out and you're having conversations, obviously everything I'm talking about right now is not when you can flip the switch and you have 100,000 followers that are in engaged and then you have a blue check mark and things are good.

Adam Ivy:
It's about building to the point where you can then build the systems and eventually hire your first employees as far as software automation and save some time. I know you and I spoke about this a couple weeks ago. And then hire maybe an assistant, or have a spouse, or a loved one, or a brother, or whatever, help you, "Hey, can you help me do some of this stuff that's just taken me time?" A lot of people who believe in you, maybe even your first few super fans, would be honored to be able to help you in that way, because they believe in you just as much as believe in yourself.

Adam Ivy:
So you really have to position yourself and say, "This is the long play." This is why the Super Bowl is the last game of the season and not the first. We have to put in the time, we have to put in the effort, we have to win some, we have to lose some, because that's going to make us better. That's when you can really step up to the plate and have those huge wins, like said Super Bowl analogy.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. That's so good. The beginning by building the relationships and focusing on connecting with people one at a time I think that's one thing that's overlooked a lot, like you are talking about with the compare yourself to people who are ultra-successful, like Drake chapter 28, and then it's like, "All right. I'm just going to be like Drake," trying to skip ahead 28 chapters and trying to act like a certain way when it just doesn't resonate because it's just not who you are and it's not how they got to where they are either. So I think that you're spot on when it comes to when starting out, it's so, so important that you actually build a community, build relationships, real relationships with your fans and actually have conversations with people, start to network.

Michael Walker:
And it's not until you reach a point where it's literally you can't keep up with it, that you start to build a team around it and you start to leverage your time more. So it sounds like in terms of overview, the process that you'd recommend starting by thinking about the food groups. I love that analogy too, the food groups and making a list, maybe 10 to 20 similar artists that you resonate with, that you are influenced by. And then you're following them on Instagram or different social media platforms and just being a human being, starting to interact with their comments, with their posts, starting to connect with the people who are in that community.

Michael Walker:
And maybe you could talk a little bit about, I think for a lot of people, there might be an awkward, or they might just not know what to say, they're like, "How do I actually approach new people in a way that's not just like spammy or whatnot, but actually ultimately, I want them to care about my music. How do I actually start that conversation?" Do you have any examples or ideas of just genuine ways that they could actually build that relationship?

Adam Ivy:
Yeah. Think about this, when you were in school, maybe you go to the gym, maybe it's at a job that you took right out of high school, college, for example, you're going to bump into your new friends group through osmosis, through being at the same place, through routine of it. Initially, introducing yourself or someone introducing themselves to you. And then from there, your circle and your circle of influence expands. Same goes for social media though. You don't just walk up to somebody who you have no interest in, they might come off class, they might come off abrasive. You're not just going to be like, "I want to be friends with that person," some people might, but what you want to do is you want to align with people.

Adam Ivy:
And that's why clubs, whether it's a social club, whether it's a literary club, whether it's a sports club, clubs are packs of people that have similar interests. So same goes for Instagram, same goes for TikTok. We gravitate to what we're interested in. Literally, I have a student named Max, shout out to Max who the other day did a video in our private group and he said, "I think so many of you guys are obsessed with reaching out to other music creators that you get burnt out from it. I literally reach out to what I'm interested in that moment." He's like, "I literally just got three followers on Instagram in the last 15 minutes by commenting on cheesecake posts or people using the hashtag #cheesecake." Because he goes, "I'm in the mood for some MF cheesecake."

Adam Ivy:
And that's the thing. What are you interested in? I go to these supercar rallies and sure I'm interested in cars, but then we start talking about shoes, "Oh dude, those are the new Nike SBs. Those are the new Air Max 90s." Things that you're interested in, people light up. Then they come back and see, what are you interested, "Oh, you make music?" If we go and we lead with our offer, unless we're running ads to a targeted audience and we know how to position it and the psychology behind an ad and all that stuff, which is a whole different conversation, we're trying to connect with humans.

Adam Ivy:
We're trying to get out there and say... I could sit there and shake you, "What would you say to me if we were standing around a water cooler at a nine to five that none of us really liked." Because I could walk up to a group of people and say like, "Wow football. Huh?" Maybe like, "Yeah." Or if I said, "I don't know about you guys, but I watched eight college football games this weekend and I cannot believe what the Wisconsin Badges did against the Penn State." Well, it's a little bit more context, "Oh, I didn't watch that game, but did you see the Florida State game?" Leading into more, expanding.

Adam Ivy:
Same goes for social media, because I get this all the time, "Oh I don't have time to talk to all these people." But you're expecting people to stop what they're doing to listen to you. You're expecting to get the people to stop to buy your merch. You got to stop looking at it as if you're the center of your universe, because I know we are, but it's not going to translate very well. You've all seen people blow up on celebrity gossip clips on YouTube for being an a-hole. Nobody likes an a-hole. Even if you are like a big a-hole, pretend not to be for a while. How would you treat someone you really cared for? A little bit of empathy, little bit of patience, little bit of understanding, and genuine interest in other people aside from ourselves.

Adam Ivy:
It's really easy to fall into a realm of me, me, me, me, my phone, what do I want to do? What do I want to record? The age of accessibility has screwed up our social skills so much that people lack soft skills even on social media, and that's a huge hindrance to their growth. Get out of the house and talk to somebody even if you have 18 masks on, just talk to someone face to face, refine those skills, because without it... We're all socially awkward in one way, shape or form, I think the people that thrive behind the camera, behind a microphone, we're socially awkward, and that's why we're so comfortable behind a computer, but we really have to look at it as what is the systems? Because the solutions are within the systems.

Adam Ivy:
People aren't listening to my music. Okay. Is it because I'm not delivering the music? They're not just magically discovering it on a platform that has 65,000 new songs a day? Imagine that, imagine that. We really have to look at it as far as building a real business. So many people can make a song now in under an hour realistically, it might not be great, but they can make something. You and I could sit there and make, Where Did My Sock Go in less than an hour if we got together, I know we could. And that screws up everything, because if you want to start a t-shirt shop and have a real screen printing, you have to learn the skill, you have to buy and you have to invest, and you have to have the time, and then the inventory, and then you have to have a shop, and you have to have a way to deliver it.

Adam Ivy:
Now, we can do everything in our freaking phone and it discounts everything. And it really builds the entitlement. I'm not saying everybody's entitled, I'm not trying to be a dick, but entitlement is this kind of inherent when it's so easy. Because if it's so easy to put together, if we're able to do it with very minimal investment, now that's subjective. $50 could be a lot for somebody just getting started. There's people out there that spend $5,000 on a music video that now has 728 likes or 728 views even worse. But we have to look at it as, okay, it's digital, I get it, studio time costs money, equipment to do it at home costs money.

Adam Ivy:
But if you were a t-shirt shop, if you had a tire shop, if you painted cars, if you had a greenhouse and sold plants during certain months of the year, all of it, how are people filling your parking lot? We have to bring people into our parking lot with followers and subscribers and all these metrics that connect us with somebody. And then we have to go out and make sure that that connection stays strong because nothing's worse than an account that has 10,000 followers and only 32 of them ever look at your stuff because you've disconnected.

Adam Ivy:
You were so focused on getting them in the door, and then before you were walking them around and showing them, "Oh, this is what we offer over here, and if I can do anything for you, my name's Adam, come back, let me know." You're like, "Okay, you're in the door. I'm back out in the parking lot trying to bring somebody else in the door." Now, you have a store full of people that just want to leave.

Michael Walker:
That's powerful. Building the connections from the inside out and making sure that it's not overly focused on just getting new people to come in, but actually treating those people well when they're inside. Awesome. Cool, man. This is a lot of fun, I love geeking out on the stuff that we talked about today, I think is really helpful in terms of... I think it's something that's really easily overlooked. A lot of times people are looking for, I don't know, a shiny object, or the hack, or the thing that's going to like change everything when it's like, nope, you just be a good human and you actually build relationships.

Michael Walker:
You build connections with people and you actually care, especially early on, you really need to do that, that initial networking, both with the people like you mentioned who are two or three chapters that ahead of you. Maybe it's not like the people who are on chapter 28, but it's just you making a list of, "Okay, who are the 25 people that live nearby, then the venues that are a few chapters ahead of me? And how do I connect with those people? How do I bring those?" And you start reaching out to those people and you start having conversations, you start connecting. It's not necessarily the most like shiny like, wow, crazy, blind blue, but it is the truth. It's what works.

Michael Walker:
We're humans and we thrive based on connections. So man, I love this stuff and I appreciate really being able to stick with the foundations too in terms of the mindset that all this revolves around because all of the tactics and all the things they fall apart if they don't have a strong belief or strong mindset, strong vision behind it. So super valuable.

Adam Ivy:
As music creators, and I know you got to go here soon, but as music creators, and I say music creators, I love the term and hate the term at the same time because we all have our own individual focus, but we're all very fragile. I have met more fragile people, including myself that make music than any other industry that I've ever been a part of. And it's because we care, it's because we have a lot to say, it's because we have a lot of emotion that we need to transfer to people through music.

Adam Ivy:
Sometimes it's not easy to write a caption or a persuasive copy in an email to get people to come back to our music, yet we can pour our heart and soul into a 16-track project over the course of two years through blood, sweat, and tears. And I think that we have to have aggressive patience and give ourselves permission totally suck at these things, because I didn't know how to do bookkeeping when I started a business, I didn't know how to do invoicing, I didn't know how to follow... To this day, I'm not great at following up via email, it's one thing that's something that I'm not great at.

Adam Ivy:
It's identifying something, "Okay. I'm not great at this. Either I can build a system that'll make me better, bring somebody in that can help me," or just be very self-aware that, "Hey, I really procrastinate when it comes to X, Y, Z, I need to attack X, Y, Z first thing in the morning because I'm really sluggish after lunch and there's no way I'm finishing that." So I think being real with ourselves, understanding that it's a business, there's a whole lot of people that have lawnmowers in their garage, there's far less people that turn that lawnmower into a successful lawn care business. Same tool, different application.

Adam Ivy:
And that's why we speak mindset so much. I know that you and I rode a long journey to get to where we are now and we're just getting started. I think when I'm on my death bed, I'm going to be looking over at my wife hopefully and saying, "I'm just getting started." But I think it's important that we band gather, that we stay patient, that we expect more from ourselves and then show ourselves what we're capable of when we really apply ourselves and are willing to fail. And I think these conversations are incredibly important. So if anybody got any gems out of this, make sure to share it with somebody. Michael, you're doing an incredible service to the entire community. And it's just an honor to talk to you, man.

Michael Walker:
Thanks, man. I appreciate being part of it. Yeah, this is a lot of fun. Sometimes I take a step back, I'm like, "Man, this is really cool." I don't know what I did in the past life to deserve to be able to host these amazing people on the podcast, but it's definitely very, very humbling. For anyone who's listening or watching us right now who's like, "Man, Adam Ivy, this guy's awesome. I'd love to connect more. I'd love to learn more from him." Could you talk a little bit about, I know you have a ton of resources and you have a YouTube channel that is really remarkable, could you share a little bit about where if someone wants to dive deeper, where should they go to connect more with you?

Adam Ivy:
Sure. I always tell people, hey, I have a bolt load of free content on YouTube. If you go to musicmarketing.com, it just goes right to my YouTube channel, just easy to remember, and dive into those videos. I do have a paid program, I do have a paid mentorship program, but I really want people to be able to understand not only my delivery, how I am, my quirks and features, but take action on the free stuff. Because if you take action on the free stuff, I know it works. I know that the sky is blue. So if you take the action on the free stuff, then we can build a rapport with one another, I can become more familiar with you.

Adam Ivy:
Hopefully you'll reach out to me maybe on Instagram @adamivy, start a conversation so I can be familiar with what you're doing and check that out on the background. Then that's where I see the students thrive the most, is when we just start organically. I can sit here and pitch something, which I got plenty of stuff I can pitch, but these conversations are more about what can you do with what you have right now? One of the things I said a long time ago by mistake in a YouTube video that stuck to this day, people are still quoting me on Twitter it's use what you have until what you have pays for what you want.

Adam Ivy:
So my goal is to provide so much free value to you guys over on YouTube. It's a no-brainer to say, "Hey, what else does he offer? Let's give it a go." I also own a platform for music producers and beat makers called thecharts.com. You can go over there and sign up for a free count, sell your music, your instrumentals, your beats, your services over on thecharts.com, kind of early on. I started developing that site a couple years ago and we're making money and everything's great. There's very little competition, so now's the best time to jump on there before we start marketing the hell out of it. But guys, I love making connections.

Adam Ivy:
I think you can tell just from this conversation with Michael that I really enjoy getting to know people and being part of the community. I might not always have a chance to respond to a DM in 15 minutes or anything like that, but I pride myself on responding to everyone, unless you just spam me with a bunch of SoundCloud links, then I just will delete you. But it's just all about building that community. And I want you guys to learn more about me, see if it's a good fit for who you are, and we'll go from there. So musicmarketing.com or youtube.com/adamivy, Adam Ivy on Twitter, Adam Ivy on Instagram, Adam Ivy on TikTok, A-D-A-M-I-V-Y.

Adam Ivy:
I really appreciate you giving me some time to share some of my thoughts and opinions on stuff, Michael. And I look forward to doing it again, man.

Michael Walker:
For sure, dude. And one thing that we'll do for everyone is we'll throw the links in the bio and description like always so you have easy access to those. And also, don't miss out on, he just dropped a golden path towards so much value in terms of, he directly opens himself up to have conversations with you and to be able to connect. But you start by going and absorbing the free content and actually implement it. So get results and then reach out to Adam. It's like, step one, go check out the free content, implement it, get results. Then step two, reach out to Adam.

Michael Walker:
And that's pretty awesome, that's a very easy one, two step. So we'll include all the links in the bio. Adam, thanks again. You're the man. Appreciate, appreciate being on here.

Adam Ivy:
I appreciate the time, and have a great weekend.

Michael Walker:
Hey, it's Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today. And if you want to support the podcast, then there's few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit Subscribe, then I'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends on your social media, tag us. That really helps us out. And third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us reach more musicians like you who want to take their music career to the next level. The time to be a modern musician is now. And I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.