Michael Walker:
Hey, what's going on everyone? So I want to take a quick second before the podcast starts, to let you know that registration is officially open for Modern Musician 6th annual Successful Music Virtual Conference. The theme this year is Merging Technology with Humanity, and we talk a lot about AI. Hand selected 15 speakers who are the best in the world at what they teach, all around building a sustainable career with your music. We'll be speaking with music mentors who've coached multi-platinum songwriters, people who've helped artists hit over 1.2 billion streams. And from people who've taught artists how to generate over seven figures of sync placements. We're on track to make this our biggest event to date. So I want to make sure that you have a chance to register so you don't miss it. And all the details are included in the link in this description. So don't wait, pause the episode now, go claim your free ticket. Event's going to be incredible. I can't wait to see you there. It's totally free. So go ahead and sign up, and now let's get into the episode.

Kristine Mirelle:
It was just a fantastic discovery and I would've gone that route. And so that's why I'm so passionate about it with artists, because we're tired. Sometimes we're tired of working our jobs all day. You get home, you're tired, you don't want to write songs. It's hard to get in the studio when you're exhausted. But with cover song gigs to make $75,000 a year... I've seen people literally with this much talent make a $100,000 a year. You don't have to be the best, you just have to be good enough, but most people just don't even know that it's an option.

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. But 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 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 in today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker. We have an awesome presentation here lined up with my good friend Kristine Mirelle. So Kristine is an indie artist entrepreneur who's been featured in major commercials for Mercedes and Heineken, also performed the national anthem at the Dodger Stadium.
Been highlighted on Fox, NBC and the CW. She was actually a finalist on The X Factor herself for her own music. She does have a super inspiring life journey and life story, that goes everywhere from originally working in a tortilla factory in her childhood, overcoming a lot of adversity, to being able to travel six continents worldwide sharing her music, and her life and her story around the world. Now she's here and she has an awesome presentation lined up that's really about an opportunity that every single musician has essentially. And it's something that really aligns with if your goal is to grow an audience and be recognized for your original music, it's not a shocker or a surprise that one of the best ways to improve your craft is by performing live.
And so many of the greatest artists of all time, The Beatles, they got their start by playing a lot of live performances and playing cover shows. And it's also a great way to monetize your music. And Kristine has a lot of expertise, and even an agency where she helps musicians get booked for these gigs sometimes on cruise ships and really cool opportunities. Kristine, thank you again for coming on here live and for taking the time to be here today.

Kristine Mirelle:
Awesome. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. So how about we kick things off with anyone who this is their first time meeting you and they haven't connected with you yet. Maybe you could introduce yourself briefly, and share the actual story that doesn't involve getting raised by pigs.

Kristine Mirelle:
Sure, sure. I grew up in a small town in New Mexico and I just was in love with music and wanted to... I just had this dream of doing music for a living. And I always thought that you were either super popular and rich or you were broke, and I didn't know that there was a place in between where you didn't have to be famous.
Even if that's our goal to be famous, we'd be pursuing that while also making money, and I didn't know that. But I still went out and tried to make it happen, about eight years I used to sell my music going door to door, and sing on people's doorsteps and that's how I survived. And I sold a lot of merchandise and I was selling music on MySpace, if you guys remember MySpace. I also had a really good following on MySpace. And just built everything organically and I didn't have money, I didn't have resources, I didn't know anybody, so I had to really build my career just through blood, sweat and tears.
And then eventually got to this point where I was traveling all over the world in six continents and 2,500 shows later, and sold thousands of albums and millions of streams online and just had a really awesome time. And then now I just focus on mainly helping other musicians accomplish their goals. We have so many resources now that I didn't have that Michael you didn't have when you were doing music. Right now is the most amazing time that artists can be independent, make money, travel, do whatever it is that they want to do. Right now, there has never been so many more resources for artists, so it's an exciting time. So I'm excited to be a part of it and really awesome of you to put this on, Michael, this is huge for everybody here. So I hope everybody knows that this here, this is so awesome of Michael to do for all the artists here, and to provide this opportunity for everybody to learn.

Michael Walker:
Thank you, I appreciate that. And we've been talking about that throughout the conference, just how much of a blessing it is to be able to bring on people like you to be able to share really your entire life experience in a way that creates all these ripple effects. It literally helps you avoid making the same mistakes that we've already made together collectively, so that we can save a lot of time and energy and heartache by doing things right the first way. It's pretty awesome. Along those lines, maybe we can get started talking about the idea of really one of the biggest challenges I think. And I know that you hear this all the time because as a musician, the reason that we became a musician was because we have a passion for making music. And it probably wasn't because we were thinking the fastest way to make as much money as possible, "Making music that's the idea."
For a lot of us that wasn't really like the main thing, but guess what, we live in a society that we need money in order to sustain our craft. In order to focus our time and our energy on our passion, we need to be able to make income. And being a musician, it can be really challenging figuring out how do I actually monetize this and turn it into a career. So maybe you can talk a little bit about the opportunity that comes with playing live paid gigs, and why it's something that musicians should at least consider for themselves.

Kristine Mirelle:
Yeah, absolutely. We know it's expensive to record songs, to produce songs, to do music videos, to tour, or to just do anything in music. Most of us do it because we're passionate about it, and I think most of us would be happy if we could just make a living from it. I spent the first eight to 10 years just doing original songs and I made enough money to survive. But we didn't have a lot of the resources that we had. I didn't have the education and the things that I know now to get by. So I was surviving, I was making a living off my music. I didn't have to have another job, but it was still I was worried about a lot of things. It was really high highs and really low lows.
And so there was a point where I got a call and they were like, "Hey, there's this piano in this lobby and you should go in and you should see if they'll hire you to play." I was thinking, "Hey, sure, of course I will." So I went in and they asked me to audition and they said, "What songs do you know?" And I only knew original songs and they were basically what venues do, so what a lot of people don't know is let's say you're building your original career. And it can take you a while to be able to sell enough tickets to a venue to actually make money at a show, and most venues you have to sell tickets. In fact, if many of you guys live in LA, you know that if you don't sell a certain amount of tickets they won't even let you perform or you owe them money. So you actually owe them money to perform.
But a lot of these venues, if they already have a crowd, let's say a restaurant, a bar, a casino. If they already have a 100 people or 300 people show up at night, the people are already there, they just need entertainment. And for you, if you're just starting out, it's an amazing opportunity for you to make money right away because it costs money for you to produce music, it costs money for you to run ads, it costs money for you to create merchandise to sell. And the fastest way you can make money is to jump on stage, but you have to provide some value to the venue. You can't just say, "I'm going to sing a song about my cat that had leukemia." And then you have this sad songwriter song, when the whole crowd wants to dance. And usually if anyone already has... if it's a casino and they already have 200 people there, or if it's a bar and they already have a 100 people there, they're willing to pay you if you can keep those people dancing and singing and hanging out.
Because those people might bar hop and they might leave, but if they like the entertainment they are not leaving. And so a lot of them have budgets and anywhere from 200 to $1,500 for just a small venue is very common. And for most artists to be able to make, let's say on average two to $500 a night, you can easily make 75 to a $100,000 a year. And a lot of artists don't know that, but the trade-off is that you sing cover songs. But the money comes in so quickly that you're able to invest that into your original music, you're able to invest that into your music videos, you can run ads. Your program is so awesome, you show them how to run ads and put them in funnels. You could have more money to put into those types of things.
So it worked so well as a business plan. And so for me continuing my story when I got there to the venue and they said, "What songs do you know?" I knew one song and I knew one song by Amy Winehouse, Rehab (singing). So I was like that's the one song I knew. So I played it and I was like, "Please don't ask me to sing another song." And the guy goes, "Oh, that was so great, can you sing another song?" I didn't know any other songs. I just told him bs and I was like, "Look, I'll tell you if the crowd, let's say they're super quiet and it's more jazzy night and they're sipping on champagne, I'll sing the song like this." So I slowed the song down and I sang the same song and then he was like, "Oh, that's great."
And I just kept talking and I was like, "Yeah, and if they want to dance, I'll sing it like this." So I kept singing the same song over and over again in different styles. Our conversation just started finally, he goes, "You know what, I'll give you the gig it pays," I think it was like 225 or 250 a night plus tips, "you start in two weeks and you got to perform for three hours." So I went home and I just learned three songs a day or something like that was how I went out. I ended up making $75,000 a year, I ended up performing there for two years, and that was just more money than I had ever made. And I was able to put that money into my original music. I was able to shoot awesome music videos, higher production type things.
I was able to know that I had money coming in, something that was like I could count on. And so it was just a really cool thing that I really wish I had known when I started, because I would've gone that route. I would've gone cover songs while simultaneously building my original music career. Because I would've known that there was money coming in, and I didn't have to worry about so many people are working jobs that they don't like. So many people here are working in a department store or maybe working at a restaurant or something, and that's not our dream job. It's amazing to be on stage and even if your goal is to do original music, it's amazing to be able to make that money to put into your original music. And you can still sing your original songs if they fit in with the way that the energy is, you can still sing it.
And you can sell your merchandise, you can sell your posters, you can get people's email, put them in your email list. It was just a fantastic discovery and I would've gone that route. And so that's why I'm so passionate about it with artists. Because we're tired, sometimes we're tired of working our jobs all day. You get home, you're tired, you don't want to write songs. It's hard to get in the studio when you're exhausted. But with cover song gigs to make $75,000 a year and some of the... I've seen people literally with this much talent make a $100,000 a year, literally. You don't have to be the best, you just have to be good enough. But most people just don't even know that it's an option. And so that's why I'm like it's an option, consider it, it's crazy.

Michael Walker:
It's a huge opportunity because I think that one thing that I think could hold back people initially when they hear, "I don't want to be a cover artist. I don't want to play other people's songs." And maybe what they might not realize is that this is actually one of the best ways to hone your craft, at the same time as you're getting paid to essentially practice. But the best kind of practice, the practice that's in front of a live audience. It seems like it's so complimentary too. As a performing artist and/or a singer-songwriter, if you're looking at getting as much leverage as possible and what should you focus your time on. Live performance is something that's going to ripple out into your entire music career, whether it comes to any live performance, being on stage, performing for other people, even just the personal ability to manage your nerves and fears.
You're about to go on stage and perform is super valuable. But also if you're becoming a better performing artist, then that's going to help you when it comes to recording new songs, you're going to become a better instrumentalist, better at playing the songs. Also when it comes to songwriting if you're covering popular songs, then you're going to be getting all of the wisdom and all the collective time of discovering these are really good songs, and that's going to impact your own songwriting. You're going to become a better songwriter because you're going to start to hear the patterns as you're playing all these hit songs.
So it just seems like it's so complimentary and it's not necessarily something that... Especially if you compare it to also go get a day job that's totally unrelated to music, and I don't really enjoy it that much. Or I could get paid to play music, to be honing my craft and getting experience, and then just a lot more aligned than working a day job. It seems like a really awesome opportunity. One question I saw that came in that was a really good one was, how do you find these gigs to make money performing the songs? And where do you get started if you're like, "Okay, cool, this I'm sold. This is a good opportunity, I want to get started." What's the first step?

Kristine Mirelle:
Yeah, that's a great question. There's work that you need to do before you reach out. If you wanted to be a doctor you're not going to go straight to the... the hospitals are there, that's where you get the job, but you go to college first. So there's different things, you got to learn the skills of what's required to do it. There's actually usually three things that I say in order. First is you got to put together your set list, and you have to have a really killer set list. And a lot of that can be done really simply just by Googling. I tell everyone if you put top wedding band songs, it's great because you're going to get a variety of stuff that people like to sing along to, stuff that people like to dance to, stuff that DJs play.
And then you also get some loves thrown in there, so those types of things or top dueling piano songs. I don't know if you guys here have ever been to a dueling piano bar. I used to be a dueling pianist. Our job was to make people sing all night and sing along songs are the best... you make so much in tips. I've made thousands in a night in tips, thousands of dollars in tips in one night. What better opportunity for you to... you're getting rewarded for your ability to entertain. So you become this amazing entertainer when it becomes to this point where you're never even nervous getting on stage. So top dueling pianos, that's another great thing you could Google, just top cover songs of. I like to put together a pretty good variety of styles, I like to do Motown is really good.
American Songbook is another, those are the Tom Petty (singing), songs that get people singing along or American Pie. And then you get into what's popular now like dance songs and those types of things. But I will say most of the venues that have high budgets like casinos that pay 4,500 to $10,000 a night. And you don't have to have a hit song guys, you don't have to have any followers, you don't have to have gone viral, they don't care. They already have the crowd there, they just need great entertainers, 4,500 to $10,000 a night. Most people have not made $10,000 in a year off of their music, so it's those types of things. Motown, I will say, again, some of the songs that bring in more money that the venues want to hire you to come perform for are a little bit older like '70s, '80s, when you think of Journey, you think of those types of things.
Or really great Prince, Michael Jackson, funky stuff, those types of things. Casey and the Sunshine Band, really fun stuff. But you can definitely play new stuff. I'll do everything from Calvin Harris, Rihanna, Beyonce, I even get into rap music, I'll do Sir Mix-a-Lot. I do fun stuff, Spice Girls, just funny stuff to make people laugh. And that's at the end of the night. I never do that at eight o'clock. But if it's midnight people have had a little bit to drink, I'll go straight into (singing). Oh my God, it's hilarious. Everyone will be singing along all ages dancing and stuff. So it's really fun and it takes away the seriousness sometimes I think that we have that pressure to sing perfect, or rap perfect, or dance perfect, so it's really fun too to do.
Definitely first, that set list, you got to get that down together. And I do recommend you can have a band or if you're a solo artist, you can definitely sing to tracks. If you are just a singer I do recommend getting a partner that plays either piano or guitar or something like that, those usually just get booked more if you have... Because if you're just singing with tracks, with karaoke, it's possible, but it's not as easy to book, so that's step one. The second step, you need to make a promo video, this is the most important thing you can do. You don't need a website, you don't need a resume, you don't need any of those things. I recommend having them. But if you're like, "I got to make money now, I want to do this right now." Your promo video will be the most valuable thing that you could possibly make.
And basically what it is, you take about four or five songs that you think you sing really well or you perform really well, and you sing or perform about 30 seconds of each of those. So you don't want your promo video to even be bigger than two minutes. And you just chop it up and you might have Brown Eyed Girl. And then the next song might be an Adele song. And the next song might be a Beyonce song. And then the last song might be a Motown, The Temptations. And so you vary it up and you have that two minute video, that's going to be the most important thing that an agent, or a venue's going to look at. They're going to go, "This is awesome. I want to book them for this." A lot of times they're getting so many submissions, they don't have time to go through your website and go through... They don't have time, they would rather just see it.
And a lot of times I sit there with agencies, we go through things we know within the first 20 seconds. So put your best stuff right off the bat. Don't have this long intro of someone starting from the stars and slowly going through. That's great for music videos and stuff, but for your promo video, they just want to know, "Can you entertain our crowd? Cool, done." And you could be booking an amazing paid gig. And then the last thing finding venues. Go to Yelp, this is what I always recommend. Go to Yelp or if you're international, whatever classified websites that you have, type in venues with live... No, don't type in venues, I'm sorry, don't type in venues with live music. Type in bars with live music, casinos with live music, country clubs with live music, restaurants with live music.
The reason why you don't want to put in venues with live music is because you might get big arenas, big venues, and they require you to sell tickets. And if you're not at that place where you have thousands of fans or hundreds of fans coming to your shows, that doesn't count for you because they're not going to pay you. Whereas restaurants, they have budgets already to pay you. And if you just call restaurants, you don't know if they have live music or not, so you don't want to do that, that's why you want to put restaurants with live music, bars with live music, casinos with live music. They already are paying artists, they already are paying guns. Now all you got to do is call them, ask them, "Who does your booking?" Get their email, get their phone number. Ask them where to send your promo video.
Or if you can come in and play for free for three songs, "Hey, can I come in and audition? Can I come in and talk to you?" And so those types of things are going to be really valuable. Those are the three steps that you have to do. And most people skip the first two and they just go to the last one and they're like, "Oh, you book paid shows, you should hire me." And they're like, "Okay, I need a promo video. I need your set list. I got to see what you do. I got to hear what you do." That's what I recommend. It's pretty simple, it's not too difficult, but most people just don't know that order of things.

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. So 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. So 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 get access to our entire Music Mentor content vault for free. The vault's organized into four different content pillars, the first being the music, then the artist, the fans, and last but not least, the business.
When you sign up you'll unlock our best in-depth masterclass 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. And one of the most amazing parts is that you can get your questions answered live by these top level music mentors. So a lot of the people that you hear right here on the podcast are there're 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. 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. From there you can check out all of the amazing content, connect with the community and sign up for the live masterclass 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.
It's super helpful. Yeah, no, because I think that it kind of strips away a lot of the confusion, or unnecessary things, it just goes, "Look, you don't need all the bells and whistles." Really just having that one promo video that illustrates it. So I'd love to dive a little bit into that video, and how you'd recommend putting that together. But also I can just confirm with Paradise Fears I remember this actually might have been the highest paid gig that we ever did, it was from Mohegan Sun Casino. And we played some headlining tours that sold out shows and those usually made a few thousand dollars from tickets. But we got paid $11,000 for a single Mohegan Sun Casino show and they gave us 11 hotel rooms, there's six of us in the band, we're like, "What do you think that we need all these extra hotel rooms for?"

Kristine Mirelle:
That's great.

Michael Walker:
Definitely casinos, casinos they have a lot of money because they are money generating machines.

Kristine Mirelle:
Without paying taxes.

Michael Walker:
But that's such a good point too, I think Adam Ivy might have been the one who was talking about this yesterday about soft gigs versus hard gigs. I think that he was the one who was describing this, hard gigs is when you sell your own tickets to the shows and you get paid in your own tickets. The soft gigs, you don't have to worry about selling the tickets and they're bringing their own audience.
If you don't have an audience yet, then that can be a way to start getting real experience and making real revenue that's going to be able to sustain you in the meantime. Awesome. So when it comes to the promo video, so if they're putting together this promo video. And maybe the question is what would you recommend in terms of what are best practices for creating a really great promo video that cuts through the noise, and that does not get ignored within the first 15 to 20 seconds? Because I know that you're also on the receiving side of these, so what do you personally look for that makes one of these videos really compelling?

Kristine Mirelle:
Yeah, that's super great question. So what I recommend for your promo videos is it's not a music video, so don't send your music video that's been auto-tuned and it's all beautiful and you have wind, whatever. Don't do that. You just want something simple, the simpler, the better. You can absolutely shoot it on your cell phone, make sure you're in a quiet place. It doesn't have to be live. But I would recommend if you're a solo performer and let's say you're playing guitar and singing, or you're playing piano and singing, something like that, do it live because it's going to be great. If they can hear you and say, "This is what this person sounds like without autotune," without the fog and the pyrotechnics or whatever it is, without dancers. "If this is how they sound, then I know they're going to sound great on my stage."
So you want it as simple as possible. Now with the band, this is what I will say, okay. If you have a band, listen to this. Because the first promo video that I ever did, I had a band, I tried to do it live. I miced all the drums, I had a whole engineer, I miced everybody, I just miced every... I'm like, "We're going to do the whole thing live." Absolute disaster. And it cost me like $7,500 because I had to hire everybody out, it was so expensive. And then I had to mix and master it and all the things didn't come right. And then of course we had to keep reshooting it to try to get a good take. And if it wasn't perfect it just didn't feel good, so it was hard. So what I actually recommend now, what I've done anytime I've done a promo video with bands, we pre-record everything with the band.
And by the way, what I've done too just to make it simple for you guys, I don't even pre-record all the instruments. I'll just get a track and take something that I already know is already done because I don't have to do it. And then I just record my vocals over it, and then I get a band together and we pretend to perform it. Now you have to make sure that your band can actually play. Because you don't want to show them this amazing video, and then you show up and it's like a bunch of kids playing

Michael Walker:
Or it's unplugged

Kristine Mirelle:
A triangle. Obviously, you have to be able to perform and bring it. But for the video, you don't want to spend $7,500 on a video, that's just too much. When you can literally just record it in a home studio, and already take a track that you like. Maybe you're doing whatever song that you're singing. Take the track, just record over it, and then everyone pretend to play. And that just makes it so much easier, so you don't have to do all those things, that's just what I prefer. But my band members are kick ass, they're amazing. So we actually sound better live than what we even do on the track, but it's just too much time to try to get them all in to record everything. So I recommend if you're going to do a band type setting, then just pre-record everything and then you can just record it, and not have to worry about having microphones set up and then mixing and mastering.
And then what if the take... maybe one microphone didn't quite pick up the drums very well, so now you just have all of the other instruments. There's all these things that could possibly go wrong. And then if you have to reshoot it and get everybody back together again, get the location again, it's going to be a real pain in the butt. I highly recommend doing something like that. If you're a solo performer do it live if you can because that's going to be great, that's easy to do. You can set up a PA, or you can even do it acoustically if it's quiet enough. But if you have a full band, just pre-record it. And you can do it very simply guys, this could be in your living room, it could be in your garage. It shouldn't look like you're at a garbage disposal place, but make sure it's clean and nice.
But I've shot plenty of things just in my living room. And one good tip that I will share too, this is a good one because maybe you're like, "You know what, I don't quite have a venue. I don't really know where to perform." So what I did with one of my first videos was I booked a show and I asked the venue if I could film a video there, but what I said was, "Hey, I would love to film our band performing here and I'll use it to promote our shows." Because they were going to have us performing there every Friday, or maybe at that time it was just once they were going to have us. But I said, "Look, I'll use this and then you can use it to invite people to come see us on Fridays too."
So it was cool because I got the venue for free and you can usually, if you're renting a venue that can cost a $1,000 to rent a venue for the day. But I got the venue for free and then the venue got footage so they could promote their Friday night live music. I got footage and now I could also use that footage to not only promote Friday. But I can now send this to booking agents and other venues and other places and say, "Hey, look at what we sound like, look at what we look like." And I have this beautiful venue that I didn't have to pay for, so that's how I got around having to rent it.

Michael Walker:
That's so smart too. And just to zoom out and for everyone watching this to make sure that you didn't miss this part. We were talking with Bree Noble about how when it comes to influencing yourself, or motivating yourself to do something. It's like you focus on the benefits for yourself, and then you also focus about the negatives or the pain if you don't do the thing. But that's actually the same way that you motivate or you influence other people as well as you focus on the benefits. So notice how when she was approaching those venues she didn't say, "Hey, can I please record this video because I want to promote myself and do all this stuff for me." She thought about them and thought about what is the benefit for them, "Hey, is it okay if I record this video that's going to help me promote these Friday nights and bring more people into your establishment?"
Just totally different question just because of that focus and that perspective on how can I focus on the value and the benefits for the other person? Super smart. And I can definitely speak to the recording yourself perform.... As a band one of our promo videos that we did once that turned out really good was a live performance video that we recorded, and it was an actual live performance. But then afterwards we went back and added in the actual song behind it. And because we were playing with a click track in our ears, it was on time so we could sync it up with the actual song, so it was in sync. So that's one thing that if you guys are in a band and you're playing live shows and you have some social proof, or you have a crowd that's singing along or is really into it, then you can get that recording and put the really nice audio recording along with it. And now you also have that social proof element too of everyone that's at the crowd having a good time with it.

Kristine Mirelle:
Yeah, that's a huge one. A lot of people ask that, "Can I put shows that I've performed in, is that okay?" And if you didn't perform with the live track, it's still possible to be able to use it. You just don't want it where it was your homey in the back who's also drinking, and so the camera was looking like this. And then there's hands and then there's people talking. You want the audio to be good. So if you are going to try to use something from a live performance where maybe it doesn't sync up with your music, then you can still use it. But just make sure that it's something that still highlights you well.
And sometimes it's worth it to just hire someone to come in. In the past I've put Craigslist ads, "Hey, does someone have a nice camera that wants to shoot something?" There's plenty of people out there that maybe just bought a really nice camera, have some really nice lenses and want to go film something cool. And, "I'll give you 50 bucks, just come out and film my performance tonight." That's worth it to have something like that, so I would recommend that too. If you have a cool show coming up make sure you get some footage, that footage will be very valuable in booking future shows.

Michael Walker:
Awesome, super helpful. So if I remember I think that you said there was three steps that you were going to walk through, and maybe step number two was about getting the promo video recorded. So what was step number three?

Kristine Mirelle:
The step three was what I mentioned about going on Yelp to actually find the venues. So searching bars with live music, casinos with live music. And just to add on that I usually make a spreadsheet, and I write down each of the venues and I write down who I've contacted. It normally takes a while to find the owner or whoever it is that is booking the agent. I usually have a color code. I usually use green if I got a hold of somebody, but I need to follow-up. And then I have a little note like follow up or, "Hey, the person wasn't in that day, they said to call back Tuesday at two o'clock," those types of things. So then I can see my progress and see who I've reached out to, how many venues I've reached out to, who I've contacted and that sort of thing.
So I keep a spreadsheet of something like that. And then in my emails when I reach out to them, I keep it really simple. You don't want to send a full biography, "I was born here and I love walking down the beach and I was raised by pigs," or whatever. You don't really need to put all that in there because again, they're busy, they get tons of submissions, they get all those things. What I usually do when I respond to them, I go, "What do they care about?" Back to what you were talking about, what benefits them? So I say, "Hey, my name's Kristine Mirelle I'm a singer pianist. I'm great with everything from jazz type of nights, to getting people singing and dancing all night until two o'clock in the morning. I cover everything from Prince and Michael Jackson to Beyonce and Justin Bieber."
This is a big one, put who you cover, "These are the artists that I cover." And if you've performed other places, "Hey, I also perform at Bob's Bar. I also perform at Sally's Pub," or whatever it is. Or maybe you're doing private shows, "I've done weddings, I've done this and that, and would love to perform at your venue." And that can be one short paragraph, so you let them know that you have a little bit of experience. Or if you don't have any experience just leave that out and you can just let your video speak for itself.
And just let them know, "Hey, this is the style of music that I do and here's my video." And send them a link, don't send them attachments. I will say that as a big mistake, never send attachments, always send links. Because if I'm getting a hundred emails a day and having to choose what artist I want to book, I don't want to download a 100 videos. I don't want to download a another a 100 resumes. Don't do that, make sure everything is in link form. Everything's a streaming video that they can go watch. If you have it on YouTube and you don't want the world to see it, put it as unlisted. You just want it to be as convenient as possible for them.
And if they're in the middle of the dentist's office and they happen to open your email at that time, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to see that you're awesome. Because they may just be busy and they go, "Eh, I'm busy." And then they forgot about you, and they don't see how awesome you are and now you lost the gig. Not because you're not amazing, but just because they were busy doing something. And you sent them a long bio and they couldn't even get to the links, and they had attachments, and they had all that stuff. So those are things that you just want to keep in mind, those are the don't do that when you contact them.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, that's so good. It reminds of Chris SD yesterday was talking about in the context of recording music for sync. How one of the mistakes a lot of times is we put way too much into the song, the arrangement is just 10 different instruments in one. So it's almost like you're cooking a meal and you throw the cake in with the turkey, and you mix it all into one thing and it's too much. And actually this process of zooming out and taking out ingredients until you're left with less, but it's actually way better.
And it sounds like what you're saying is that the same thing applies to when you're reaching out to venues or for opportunities for these gigs, that one tendency or one mistake is to try to include your whole life story and way too much in a single email and it's too much, and so it just gets overwhelming. When actually sometimes less is more. And if you guys just had strip it away and just get to the point and share what are the benefits for them, what's in it for them and focus on their point of view, then that's going to really help you cut through the noise.

Kristine Mirelle:
Yeah, absolutely. And you know what I wanted to add actually too. One of my good friends, his name's Frankie Moreno. Most people don't know him. Most people have never heard of his music. He holds the number one world record for number ones ever of all time. He's beat out Drake, he's beat out Madonna, Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, all the people that you know. How does a person who nobody knows have the number one record for number ones. The way he did this, so I knew him 12 years ago before he had ever even charted any... He had nothing, he had nothing charting, and had never charted nothing. And I used to go see him in little smokey bars at the casino here in Vegas, and I just thought he was a great entertainer. He was so good with people. He talked to everybody, he got everybody's phone number.
He reached out to you individually to invite you to his shows. And I remember thinking, "I don't think this is him texting me. There's no way he's texting everybody." And then when I'd get there everyone's like, "Yeah, he texted us all." So there was all these Frankie Moreno groupies. And I was really impressed by how much time he gave to all of the people that came to see him. And I remember there'd be like 20 people in the room, but then all of a sudden there's 40 people, 80 people, a 100 people. And he was only singing cover songs, but he would throw in an original song every now and then. But he was getting these shows and he was getting paid, and he was building his email list, he was building his contact list. I saw that he had albums for sale. Now he spent years doing this, accumulating emails, asking everybody.
Now just a few years later he starts headlining at the Palms Casino, which is a 300 person venue. Just within a year is he's headlining at Stratosphere, which is a huge room, 600 people I think it was. Now he performs all over the world. He does no cover songs, he doesn't have to anymore. He built his community so big, that now he only does original songs. He doesn't do a single cover song at all. But he got paid to build his list. He got paid to become an amazing performer, and he got paid to where the point where his list was so big that when he started releasing music, George was... No, Toby Keith held the world record, it was 45 number ones, that's Billboard on Apple Music, so just to give you guys some context. So that means the most number ones at Billboard on Apple Music. When he started releasing original music Toby Keith had 45 number ones over the entire span of his lifetime.
Frankie Moreno beat every human being that exists within 18 months, because he started putting out his original songs like this. He started putting out a song a week. His email list was so big because it's not based on streaming, it's based on sales, so they bought, and they bought, and they bough. The last time I talked to him, which was probably three months ago, he was already at 55 number ones, he's probably at 65 now. He's just like, "I just want to leave so many number ones that there's no way anybody could ever beat me." Now, he just does original songs. So that's why I say this is such a good plan, whether you just want to do cover songs and make a living, or whether you want to do original songs. It's such an amazing plan to have money because he had the money to continue to live, and he didn't have to have another job.
He just did his own music and they built this email list and this fan base that is diehard, he performs all over the world. He just did Carnegie Hall multiple times, huge orchestra arrangements and everything. He's just crushing it and has beat every major artist out there, and most people don't even know who he is. But he didn't have to go and get on a big TV show. He didn't have to go to PR, he doesn't have to be on anything. He doesn't even want to, he's not even on the radio. He built his fan base and they buy from him every time he releases songs because he built that email list, which is the most valuable thing that we could possibly have, be able to email and contact our fans. So I think that's a huge thing for people to keep in mind as they think about their plan, their business plan as a musician.

Michael Walker:
100%. That's a really cool story and just a great example of everything you're talking about in practice of starting with this opportunity to get paid while you hone your craft. One thing that I would love to dive into because like you just mentioned one key component of his success. Because there's a lot of artists who perform cover gigs and maybe they make a good living their whole lives, they make a six figure income for 10 years playing cover gigs. But maybe they haven't written 55 number one hit songs because they might have not have had the same strategy and the focus on what he was doing, to really leverage those shows and actually build his audience and build a contact list, to be able to stay in touch with those people. So maybe we could talk a little bit about that step after someone starts playing these shows and booking these gigs, what are some tips or advice for them to really leverage this opportunity, so that they can build a deeper relationship with those people who are at the shows?

Kristine Mirelle:
Yeah, there's a few really good ways. So one is what I talked about. Frankie actually walked around individually to people. He was just this likable person because he took time. On his breaks he didn't go sit in the back, he took time off. He was still working, and he was walking around talking to people, building these relationships. So he got everyone's phone number. Took a picture together. Really created this personal connection with everybody there, huge. He'd be taking shots with people. He was so friendly and he just went over the top. He would stick around afterwards and hang out. He really enjoyed even just creating the community. So that was something that I really noticed right off the bat. Because as a musician I was thinking people just buy your music when I first started, but then I saw no that's not the case, that's not what it is, they buy things from people that they like, they support people that they like, and he was just a likable person.
And so two, the next thing you can do, and this is a really big one, when you take requests, so I usually kept a request sheet. So I put all the songs that I knew so that people could see, "Hey, these are the songs she knows." I can request that, and I would keep that sheet. But you also can keep an additional sheet that they can write on, that has their name and asks for their email, and then the song that they want to hear. So then whenever they sign up and you can even ask for their phone number, you can be getting dozens of emails a night and adding that into your email. If you have a MailChimp or ActiveCampaign or whatever it is that you use, so there's a second way to get emails.
The third way is if you have your funnels built out, if you have a lead magnet where you're like, "I have this free song." And on the mic you can say, "Go to," mine is, "grabmysong.com," that's what I say. It's really easy if you have a domain set up to a funnel where you're giving away a song for free, you can just tell everyone, "Hey guys, if you had a really great time tonight, I would love to give you one of my songs for free, so go to grab my song.com." And you can also do something where you say, "And I'm going to pick one person and we're going to have a shot tonight." Now, if you don't drink it could be, "I'm going to give you an album." Or, "Hey, I'm going to give you a signed poster."
Or, "Hey, you can come to my next show. We're doing this big show at such and such a place. I'll give you and your friend's VIP." Something cool to where the audience wants to go sign up right now. And then you can on the microphone say that it's a great opportunity if you have that set up too. So those are three awesome ways. Walk up to everybody individually, grab as much as you can, take a picture, phone number, that sort of thing. And then second have your request sheets with that option where they can request a song, but then where they can put their email.
And then third, have your funnel built out to where you have a website where you're capturing their email addresses and you're giving them something, and that you can call that out easily from a microphone. And you can do that when you're on radio, you can do that when you're on stage. It's just a great thing to have because you can capture their emails and you're giving them something for free. So it gives initiative rather than, "Join my email list." Because that just sounds like, "Let me spam you." You don't want that, nobody says, "Yay, I want spam." That's not like an exciting thing. But if they like you they're going to watch your songs for free, so that's a really incredible way. So those are three ways that you can capture their contacts at a show.

Michael Walker:
Awesome, that's so valuable. That's probably a good 90% of his strategy of just doing such a good job of connecting with people at the shows, walk up to them, building relationships, the idea of taking pictures with them, that seems like a really smart move too. Because now it's like you have a picture together and that's just a great way that you involve them, and you have involved your face, and humans are pretty good at our facial recognition. A weird amount of our brain, a huge chunk of our brain is just for looking at and interpreting people's faces and their facial expressions, so that's a super smart idea. And one thing we'll be talking about in the final day when I do the keynote is music NFTs. And as you were talking about this idea from stage, have a freebie or have something really cool to give them in exchange for them signing up with their email address.
I was imagining what if you had a live performance NFT that you had a limited amount for each show you say, "Hey, I actually have someone recording this in the back of the room and we're creating an NFT from the show that you just witnessed tonight. If you want to have one of these limited collectibles, then you can get it for free. Just go to this website and you can download it, and I'll send you the replay of the show for free." Or something like that could be an interesting idea. Potentially even sell those at the merch table where it's, "Hey, if you want one of the three NFTs, that's the live performance for the show."

Kristine Mirelle:
Heck yeah, no, that's a great idea,

Michael Walker:
But really the main thing is just asking, making the offer. So I actually went to get my grabmysong... what was it grabmysong.com. And I saw your landing page, it's awesome. Cool. Tiafo says, "This segment is gold. Are there really 500 plus people in the chat?" I'm not sure how many people are in the chat right now. I know we definitely have a few hundred people are here alive. So it's cool because you're getting some of the best, most current gold nuggets of what's working right now. We're catching the wave. This is the tsunami and we're all surfers, and we have benefit of collectively surfing together and catching the momentum from it. Super cool. How about we go to a Q&A segment? So we've got a bunch of questions coming in here, so one from Theodore Dalton who asked, "How long should your set list be at a minimum and do you stretch things out to fill the time?"

Kristine Mirelle:
Oh, great question. When I first started I didn't quite have enough to fill out that last set. Usually, a venue is going to want you to do three to four sets, and those three to four sets are about 45 minutes long. So you do 45 minutes, 15 minutes off, 45 minutes on, 15 minutes off. I would say you should definitely have four sets of music. I was able to do that in two weeks. I estimated it was about 45 songs, so I learned was it three songs a day and most songs aren't super difficult. So I did a combination of learning pop songs and modern pop songs have two chords, so you could learn eight of those in a day.

Michael Walker:
Learn one progression and you've learned like 50%-

Kristine Mirelle:
And you've learned-

Michael Walker:
... of the famous songs.

Kristine Mirelle:
... every modern pop song. When you're doing more like Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones stuff produced by some of these other types of... even Stevie Wonders type stuff, you might spend a whole day on a song. I found a combination of picking songs that I knew had two to four chords. And then I would put a really cool Michael Jackson song or some Motown, or whatever it was that I would put in that might take me a little bit more time to learn. So I found a combination of those things. But definitely, you want to space it out and you can see the times whenever you're on your computer or your iPad, you can see how long the song is. So if the song's four minutes and you need 45 minutes of songs, that's about 12 songs per set.
So I would say have at least four sets. But I will say that I didn't quite have enough to fill out my very first performance when I started. So what I did was I repeated songs from my first set, because I knew most people were not there for four hours. If I started something at eight, they're usually not still there at midnight, that's when I would do that, but I wouldn't recommend relying on that. If you just have something that you have to get ready for then you can do that. But make sure to have enough material and constantly be adding songs. If someone requests a song and you don't know it, write it down and learn it.
Because the more that you can do a song that people know, I've gotten people come to my piano and literally 100 for every song I know. And I'm like, "Heck yeah." Literally, one person I think it was six songs in a row. I just remember them dropping a 100 for every song that I knew. And I was like, "What else do you want to hear? I'll sing and dance a little bit. I'll do the macarena whatever you want me to do." It feels good to know songs that people want to hear.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Super smart. Cool. Another question that came in I think this is a really good one that probably a lot of people can relate with is, "I really want to get good at playing live shows and improve my craft of performing on stage, but I also often struggle with anxiety. How do I overcome the anxiety that comes with getting up on stage and performing?"

Kristine Mirelle:
Yeah, so that's a great question. So there's two things. One, don't feel bad. The first time I ever got on stage I totally peed my pants entirely. I was 12, which it was last year. No, I'm kidding. I was 12 and I totally peed in my pants, it was so embarrassing. But the thing is you have to do the thing to get good at the thing. You can read all about getting on stage, but you have to get on stage to do it. It's not going to be perfect and it's fine. And guys when I first started I used to shake. I remember one time getting on stage I was singing At Last by Etta James. And my voice when I'm nervous my voice shakes, it's the worst thing that could possibly happen. And I was singing then I was (singing). And I just remember someone in the audience goes, "You sound like a lamb."
And I was like, in my head, I was like, "I know. I can't even be mad at them because they're right, I do." But you have to do the thing to get good at the thing. But the best thing that you can do to prepare is learn those songs, because the last thing you want to do is go on stage and be thinking about, "Do I know the lyrics? Do I know the chords? Have I practiced this?" Practice in front of your mirror? Do as much as you can to prepare to know the material, so that's one thing that you do have control over. Know your material, prepare. I usually have an iPad with lyrics on it too, so I have that as my backup. If you have to glance at it every now and then, that's great, no big deal. But do as much as you can, preparation, practice as much as you can.
You can also go to open mics where there's other people like yourself that are also just as nervous and scared as you, because open mics usually are people that are starting out that don't do this professionally. Usually professionals don't go to open mics. So it's usually people that are just trying to get their feet wet, so something like that. And if you find other friends that are also just as nervous as you invite them to your gigs, because now you can support each other and that there's a face in the audience that knows you. But I would just say once again, prepare as much as you can know the material. But do the thing to get good at the thing.

Michael Walker:
Absolutely.

Kristine Mirelle:
There's no way around that.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, that's such good advice. I know for us with the band, and I think this is the case most of the time. It's not like you just your first show, you go up on Webster Hall and you just start performing. Usually as a musician, you start by performing for yourself and maybe for your friends and family in their basement, on their couch, then you start playing for one or two people at a time. And then maybe you muster up the courage to play at an open mic, and you start doing that a little bit. And then you actually you go on stage at a little bit bigger, it is just a one step at a time. And to Kristine's point it seems like this is almost always the case, is that the people who are the most successful, who are the super talented, and they just seem like they're just gifted and they were always that good no matter what.
Usually it seems like they are that way because they were the ones who were willing to suck for long enough, and be okay with sucking and not being good until they didn't suck as much and they became better and better. And that's always stuck with me is if you're doing something new for the first time, then if you're afraid or you're anxious about how you're coming across, then maybe you're being a little too hard on yourself. And if you're okay with sucking and you're like, "This might just suck, this is my first time doing it. I don't know. I'm going to do my best and I'm going to prepare." It's okay if you're not perfect, you don't have to be perfect. And if you're okay with it not being perfect, then if you don't pretend to be perfect, then you don't have to be perfect.

Kristine Mirelle:
Yeah, exactly. That's why those open mics are so good, because there's plenty of people just like you there that are also trying to get over their nerves and anxiety and that sort of thing. So that's a really great place to start.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. All right. Another question I think you already answered this one actually it was Mama Studio asked, "Can you use backing tracks?" So I think you already answered that one. You can use them, but also if you have someone who can come and play along with you that can give you some more credibility.

Kristine Mirelle:
Yeah, I actually recommend having backing tracks because those just do really well. I've played at venues that never had anyone play with backing tracks, and they were like, "Oh my God, this was amazing, everybody's dancing. I didn't know." Because usually they just had acoustic performers, but now all of a sudden people are spending more at the bar. I had an owner of a bar walk out with a few hundred dollars and just be like, "Here." Because he was so happy and he said, "Nobody's ever played with tracks before." So I definitely recommend playing with tracks because it gives a whole band element without the band.
But if you're a singer bring in a guitar or a piano player, or even a player, or a drummer or something to accompany you. Because that live music aspect is I think really valuable, and it adds a lot of value to the performance and people really like it. I do recommend using tracks, but I don't recommend just singing over tracks. Although I know people that do it and I know people that are successful at it, you're just going to get a better response when you at least have a musician with you or you play.

Michael Walker:
That makes a lot of sense. Honestly, the same thing applies to original shows and live performances as well. I know with Paradise Fears we had backing tracks, because we didn't have an orchestra that we could bring on stage for some of the songs, and they add a lot. They can really take your performance from a B to an A plus just by having really high quality backing tracks. So finding that balance because there is a balance to it. You could literally lip sync an entire performance, and some people have done that before and then gotten a lot of slack when they got caught lip-syncing. So there is a bit of a balance to it, but certainly using backend tracks. Especially when you're filling in the gaps for something that just isn't logistically, it doesn't make sense to have an orchestra coming with you can really add a lot to the performance.

Kristine Mirelle:
Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Michael Walker:
All right, Richard asked, "Do you need to memorize all the covers you're performing, or is it okay if you can read the music and lyrics while you're performing?" He actually said, "Whilst you're performing."

Kristine Mirelle:
Whilst you're fancy.

Michael Walker:
Whilst you're performing.

Kristine Mirelle:
Fancy words, another great-

Michael Walker:
Hey, Kristine, I think I might've lost your audio. Is it just me or... Oh, you're back now.

Kristine Mirelle:
I'm back. Okay.

Michael Walker:
IT looks like audio cut off, but we're good now.

Kristine Mirelle:
Okay, got it. One thing that I will say is don't ever go up on stage with your phone, just never do that. Don't be singing, looking at your phone. Do not ever do that under any circumstances. Because I've seen people do that and I'm like, what are they doing?

Michael Walker:
I thought you were about to sing the natural anthem, you're going to be like (singing).

Kristine Mirelle:
Oh my God, that would be the worst. But learn the songs as much as you can. But yes, there's going to be times where, especially if you're getting prepared for a gig and maybe you have never sung these songs before, but you're not going to memorize everything. What I usually do I get an iPad holder and I put it on my mic stand. And usually people don't even really see it from the back. What you don't want is a big book of lyrics that you're turning the pages to because that's going to look terrible. So you can have an iPad. I see some people do it with a phone where they do attach it to the mic stand though, don't be holding it, attache it to a mic stand. So that way you can step back and you can glance at it, you can step back and you can glance at it.
So it's perfectly fine to use that to play along with, or especially if you're playing keys or guitar at the same time and you forget stuff. Or if someone requests a song you haven't played in a long time, it's nice to have it. I use an app called My Lyric Book, and I actually create all my charts, all of them, because I like to have things done my way. But you can use something like GuitarTabs and you can actually, that's an app that you can use.
You can actually bookmark lyrics and chords and stuff like that, and you can put them into lists and be able to access them while you're performing and that sort of thing. The thing is why I like using My Lyric Book if you guys find that is I have all the lyrics there, and with one button I can press the song and the song plays too, because you don't want all this space.
It's so awkward when someone finishes a song and then there's like a clap, and then you just hear clink, clink, clink, other things, baby crying in the background, and then it's quiet and everyone's waiting and watching you. Some venues won't bring you back, they won't bring you back if you do that. Especially if you're performing at a casino and everyone's like dancing, and then they're waiting for you to perform. So you want to be able to move quickly through your set lists as well. Yep, to answer your question, it's fine. Just make sure you're not standing there staring at it like you're singing karaoke, just use it as your reference.

Michael Walker:
Totally makes sense. Awesome. Hey, Kristine, this has been super valuable. Thank you so much for what you do. It wasn't the end of the world that I couldn't take you out in Costa Rica and murder you.

Kristine Mirelle:
Yeah, I know it failed.

Michael Walker:
But I know that your freebie that you prepared for the audience is related to being able to take everything we just talked about with live performing and actually put it into practice. And you actually have exercises and worksheets, and a workshop around getting your next cover gig and getting paid really well for it. I would love if you could talk a little bit about the free workshop that you prepared for it and how people can learn more.

Kristine Mirelle:
Absolutely. Monday, I'm doing a free training where I'm showing everyone... We talked about how I used Frankie Moreno as an example, how he used his cover song gigs to build his email list. So I'm covering funnels and how you can use a funnel, you can use funnels at your live gigs. You can use funnels to sell your original music. You can use funnels to even sell tickets to your gigs, so I'll be covering that. But in there I'm introducing a program that I put together called the Paid Performer Program, where I actually cover all the steps.
So today I shared with you guys the steps, but if you have more questions and you want help every step of the way, I cover every step of the way how to do every single thing, even giving set lists. Anybody that goes to our programs that is actually trained and ready to perform, and let's say wants to go on a cruise ship and travel the world and get paid to see awesome things, and make money at the same time and perform for new people from all over the world. We now can actually book artists all over the world.
So it's just really cool. Monday, I'll be talking about that, I'll be talking about funnels. I'll be talking about how to actually our program that we created to book paid shows. And then the next opportunity after that is if this was something that was exciting to somebody, and they love the idea of traveling and seeing the world, we can then actually submit you to the cruise lines and get you booked. So it's a pretty cool program that we have. And Monday, I will be sharing that.

Michael Walker:
It's super smart. I love it. And basically, it sounds like you've created this course and program in a way that you as an agent, you're essentially training up musicians how to be great entertainers. And how to be successful preparing for these gigs, so that you can give them these opportunities on the silver platter, and actually get them booked for these gigs. So it's just a really awesome service. And personally, I know how important really dialing in your live performance, even if you are someone who struggles with anxiety or it's a little bit scary. As a musician live performance is one of the most valuable skills that you can develop. And I've quite a few of our clients and our artists, that have six figure incomes that are primarily built on playing these kinds of shows. I think it's a really awesome opportunity, appreciate you putting together these resources.
And also, I think that when you attend the workshop, it sounds like there's this complimentary training that's really around funnel building. And we've talked so much throughout the conference already, and there's more to come to around this idea of building funnels and not relying on a platform that someone else owns, Facebook, where Mark Zuckerberg owns your audience. But actually building a platform with a funnel that you own, and instead of getting paid half a penny per stream, you actually can earn a lot more per person that you're sending through your funnel. I remember when you gave the presentation, it was really good, and it was all about that idea of how do you actually maximize the value of where you're sending people. I would highly encourage you to check out, it looks like Ari posted it in the chat. Get access to the free workshop. And Kristine, thank you so much again. You're awesome. And any final thoughts or words of wisdom for the group here?

Kristine Mirelle:
Yeah, sure. Last thing I would say is anybody that wants to do this, it doesn't matter where you're from, where you live, how old you are. One of my oldest students is 63 years old, he started at 63. It's not like he'd been doing this for a long time. And he booked his first $10,000 show in 60 days, so in two months.

Michael Walker:
Wow.

Kristine Mirelle:
So this is possible for anybody, no matter where you are, no matter what you have or don't have, no matter your age. If you have the ability to perform and the ability to get on stage, then you have the ability to get paid to perform, so it's really awesome. So I would encourage everybody here, and thank you so much, Steven. Ari, Steven, the whole Modern Musician team. Thank you guys for having me, and hope this was helpful to everybody.

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 the guests today. And if you want to support the podcast, then there's a 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 or 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 the music careers to the next level. The time to be a modern musicians now. And I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.