Michael Walker: Hey, this is Michael from Modern Musician, and before we start the show, I wanted to let you know that right now I’m looking for new artists to mentor personally. Specifically, we’re looking for artists that have at least 1 song professionally recorded. It doesn’t have to be Beyonce level production, but it just needs to be something that you feel proud of and you’re ready to promote. We’re looking for artists who are really just poised for growth, and are ready to go all in on their music. There’s a saying that when the student’s ready, the mentor appears, and so if that's you, if you’re truly ready for it then I want to invite you to apply for a free coaching call with our team. The goal is to launch an automated system that allows you to build a loyal and engaged fan base so you make a sustainable income with your music online without having to sell your soul to social media, or post 20x a day on TikTok. Before we get started, we always offer a free 30-minute coaching call to make sure it’s a good fit before you get your campaign launched. At this point, the artists that we’ve worked with have hit over 561.3 million streams, a #1 album on iTunes, and we’ve helped many artists grow from scratch to making a full-time income with their music online. In a few rare cases, they’ve even been able to generate over $1 million a year with their music. With that being said, we are very selective with who we work with just based on who’s the best fit and who we can best serve. Because we have a limited amount of time available for those free sessions, we do require an application process where you can submit your music, and you can apply for a free coaching call with our team. So if you’re interested, go ahead and click on the link in the show notes to submit an application and share one of your songs. I'm looking forward to checking out your music, and now… let’s start the show!

Evan Price: Confidence follows action. Not the other way around. So by doing it, you're going to be more confident selling a higher ticket offer, you're going to be more confident in actually building something and like enhancing it. Your guys' program is always evolving too, and that just happened from you starting it one day. So, just start is really kind of going back to that. I just wanted to tag onto the confidence thing, because that is a big thing I hear with a lot of musicians too. Because if you wait until you're ready, you'll never start. You'll never build it.

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 in today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

I'm here with my friend, Evan Price. Evan is someone who's had over 15 years of experience in the industry. He launched a company called artists collective out of his dorm room, and since then he's helped to launch over a hundred plus music brands and help artists become entrepreneurs. He's someone that I'm really excited to connect with today because, for a lot of artists I think right now, one of the biggest challenges is just around self worth and how we identify the value that we provide. One thing that we found is that high ticket offers and creating VIP fan experiences has been very fruitful both for the artists and for their fans, and there's a lot of mindset blocks and limiting beliefs and things that kind of come up around it. So, I'm really excited to connect with them today and just share some of the lessons and wisdom that he's learned around this topic of helping artists discover their value, and provide that value to their fans. So one interesting fact too to mention is Evan backstage, he was just sharing that he's fully living a nomadic lifestyle right now. He's in Turkey right now as we're doing this, and so I'm sure that a lot of the folks who are listening to this right now, you understand what it's like to live a nomadic lifestyle to be on the road. But I thought that was pretty cool when you shared that, Evan.

Evan Price: Yeah, it’s been a wild experience! Thanks for having me dude!

Michael: Maybe to kick things off, if you could share a bit of an introduction related to how you found yourself living this nomadic lifestyle and kind of teaching the concepts that we're gonna be walking through today around developing a high ticket offer as a musician.

Evan: Yeah, of course. So I got started just working with specifically artists/musicians. I think the biggest thing that I saw was it was just harder for them to monetize and in an accelerated rate, selling their music for pennies on Spotify. We won't go down that road today. Selling merch is a good way to go, and some other… relying on venues, things like that. What I found was what they were lacking is just a big impact; a big offer that was specific and catered to their expertise. So I kind of transitioned my focus from artists, to what I've coined as artistpreneurs: people who have a creative spirit, but also really want to package those skills in a way that they can sell to their most ideal dream clients, dream fans, dream customers, if you will.

Michael: Awesome. Yeah, it definitely seems like one of the biggest issues or challenges that we're all facing right now as artists is just the amount of content that's available online, and how easy it is to make music. There's so much music being released every day. And now there's tools like udio.com and Suno.ai where you can generate music with AI. So just like, the amount of time that we have has stayed the same, but the amount of content has exploded. So it's like the same amount of hours in a day, more content. So we're more spread out. So it seems like it's more important than ever for artists to really figure out: what is that big idea? What is something that makes them unique and something that helps to cut through the noise? So I'd like you to share a little bit about some of those types of offers that you found working really well with artists, and if I remember correctly, I think you help focus on some of the production side of things as well. But I'm just kind of curious to hear your experience as it relates to: what types of offers have you seen working really well for artists?

Evan: Yeah. So for our clients specifically, a lot of our clientele are also educators/coaches. So a lot of them have that duality where they're still actively touring, putting out their own music, but also teaching others to create in a way that has made them stand out, whether it be improvising on a saxophone, or booking bands because they've been able to do it themselves. So it's just honing in on that 1 thing that they have done really well for themselves, and they've turned around and taught some other people, whether that's fans of their music, or strangers on the internet. That's one of the main ones that we have with our clients is teachers/coaches, also in the freelance sector, right? Making beats, creating custom songs, even live shows can be seen as a high ticket offer if you can really focus in on the 1 experience that you help with, and not just be another person that does another show. So, yeah, the main thing is really just educators and coaches and building an offer around what you've been able to do really well, and can you package that and teach others to do the same thing and get similar results, then you probably have a good offer there.

Michael: That definitely makes sense, and it's interesting. You brought up a point there around, shows and how, if you package it in the right way, if you position it, then you can actually have a high ticket show. What that reminded me of is just this concept of positioning, and how you really can have like the same thing, but you just package it differently, position it differently, and you can take something that would be worth $50, and now it can be worth $5,000 because you have the positioning. I don't know if you've ever heard the story about the study they did. There was a famous violinist. He was one of the best in the world, and they did a social experiment where later that night, he was going to do a giant performance in an amphitheater. Sold out crowd. It was gonna be massive. Before the show, they did a social experiment where they brought him to a sidewalk on a busy street and they dressed him up like he was a beggar. So he started to perform for tips, and what happened was all of these people were just passing this world renowned violinist, and not giving him the time of day. He got very few tips, even though he was like one of the best in the world, and then later that night he went and he played this sold out show at a theater. The takeaway from it was that the positioning of like: he was playing the same music; he was playing the same songs, same violin, but one of those things earned him pennies, and one of them earned him tens of thousands of dollars. I think there's something really gold there about that concept as it relates to shows. What comes to mind is one of our clients, Erica Mason, she essentially does like a retreat where it's music-based and it's sort of like a unique show experience, but it's not just a normal show at a bar. At a bar, you might just get paid drinks; you get paid just like to drink for free, whereas for her retreat, she had $2,000 a ticket, or just by framing it by positioning it differently by providing more value and doing those things that kind of go the extra edge. So I just love that concept that you just shared and I just rambled on a bit long about that, but I thought it was an important point to sort of reflect this idea of positioning.

Evan: Yeah, and I definitely remember that story and I think I remember seeing a lot of it just with the violinist. A lot of people were going towards “oh, how we value music”. I really like your take on it. It's a fresh take that I haven't heard about repackaging. It's just like, that's really all marketing is right: solving a specific problem and packaging in a certain way and presenting and meeting your customers where they're at. Another thing that comes to mind is like private house shows. You can make a lot more money doing that because you position in like a unique experience with people. I don't know. I'm sure a lot of your clients do something similar, but I had clients in the past when I've worked directly with music artists that would do this and make 10x a private show playing towards 20 people, versus making almost, like you said, getting paid in drinks and still playing in front of hundreds of people at a bar, just because it's a different experience. It's unique. It's kind of like the so far sounds like situation. So it's just repackaging it, and like making it more of a unique experience is really everything. So, yeah, that's a fresh take on the violinist though. I like that.

Michael: Absolutely. Yeah. The house concerts and private shows is a really interesting one too, because that's one where sometimes people will actually do house concerts for free. At least I've heard of one model where they do house concerts for free and they kind of do it for tips, versus doing it where it's a premium experience. I know personally with our band Paradise Fears, we did house concerts for thousands of dollars for a single show. We have clients who have done house concerts for $15,000 for a single show. So definitely an extremely valuable experience, and maybe kind of segues us nicely into this next question, which is around making the offer and positioning the offer, and how does someone, especially if they're just getting started and they don't have a lot of experience or they don't have a giant fan base, I'm sure that you hear this a lot, but people who are just getting started and just feel uncomfortable with making an offer, and for asking for a high ticket investment for something that they're kind of newer at. So I'm curious, what would your recommendations be for someone who, maybe they are newer; they're getting started and they want to create this amazing high value offer, but they're still looking to get the confidence to be able to present that and they want to make sure that they are providing value with that at the same time?

Evan: Yeah, that's a good question. I think for somebody who's just getting started, wants to build that confidence, you said specifically, they want to create. I would say, you don't want to create/manufacture something that isn't there. Use what you've got. So, look at your own skill sets that you already have your own brand that already exists. Something's already there, you just need to set a higher price to it. I mean, it's the difference… Let's look at branding, right? The shoes in dollar general and the shoes you're going to find in Gucci. In the end, there's still shoes, right? You're just rebranding it and making it a higher ticket. It's a watered down version of looking at it, but think of it like that. You already have something in your skill sets already. Don't manufacture anything that's not there. Use what you got and just set your price’s higher. The confidence will come later. There's a balance, of course. You don't want to go directly from playing for free to being like: I now charge a million dollars. [both laughing] Like, there's a middle ground there, I think, but sell the experience and the emotion that they're going to get. To answer your question, again, just use the skills that you already have. A lot of times people think they need to have a bunch of extra stuff and fluff in there. I'm speaking to general offers at this point. But it's not usually the case. Use the skills that you have and roll with it and the confidence will come.

Michael: Yep, that's a great answer, because I think that no matter what way you splice it, when you first make some of those offers, you aren't going to have the confidence because you haven't made the offers yet and you haven't delivered the experience, you haven't seen the results that they're going to get from it, so you have to sort of start with where you're at, and then over time you can develop the confidence as you start to see that the value’s there. One way to frame it, we've seen this working really well for artists in particular, when they're just getting started, they don't have that experience yet. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this, and if this is something that you think is a good way to frame it for artists. One way that we've seen helping a lot is for the initial offers to present it to their fans and kind of co-create it with them. So for example, if they had a high ticket experience, like they were going to take them on a trip to Africa, they have a nonprofit and they're gonna get to have this life changing experience and the safari, they're gonna get to meet the communities out there, they're gonna create a special piece of artwork there before they come home. That's one example of an actual high ticket offer that one of our artists is creating for his fans. If they're just getting started, then one way to frame it is they could say something like: so this is the thing that I'm thinking about. I'd love to hear feedback. What's most exciting to you about that and kind of co-creating it, but then when it comes to the actual presentation of the offer saying something like: normally my mentor recommends that I offer this for $5,000, but to be totally honest with you, I'm kinda just getting started with this right now, and it's more important to me that I provide value. If you have $5,000 and you'd like to support the music, it goes towards me creating new songs and creating more content for you, but because right now I'm at a point where testimonials are more important, I'm just looking to provide value, I'm happy to be more flexible for you. So what would work for you? And leaving it a little bit more flexible for them for at least some of the first initial ones where maybe they don't have that confidence yet, they haven't delivered it yet so they're not sure. It is more important for them just to provide value. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on that angle.

Evan: Yeah, I call that the beta angle and I think it works great because people like to be a part of something new. I think whether it's an offer where it's like on my end, where it's like an offer of a new music educator creating a new program teaching drummers to build confidence, or if it's a cool offer. That Africa offer sounds awesome. I'd love to be a part of that. That sounds great. If it's an offer for fans, musicians feel like or just like creative business owners, entrepreneurs feel like it has to be done before they start selling it, when in reality, people like to be a part of something new; they like to feel like they're a part of a Kickstarter or like helping them build. So that beta mentality of like: hey, I'm going to market at this price, but honestly, I just really want to provide value and I want to give you a deal and I want to like bring you closer into the ecosystem. People like that and it works really well. So I definitely call that the beta angle. I think it works for any offers, and you should definitely roll, and it will help you build a confidence to help you build that social proof. It'll help you just build trust with those people that are like: Oh my gosh, it's $5,000 and you accepted just two grand and I'm going to go to Africa with you? Like, that's cool. So yeah, roll with it and don't feel like it needs to be done and completed until you roll it out.

Michael: I love it. Yeah. You articulated that super well. And the idea of, kind of like co-creation, I think is a really interesting one where it's like, if they had their ideas that were a part of what created the offer, they're going to be more invested, or they're going to have more of themselves in it, and it's just going to make a more awesome offer because it's more in tune with what they would personally find most valuable. So there's something really powerful about that as an intro, while you're still kind of designing the offer, and making sure that it is valuable for people and you learn through that experience.

Evan: Yeah, absolutely. And kind of back to the prior thing too, the last thing I'll add there is we talked about confidence and people not feeling confident to do the full offer, or full high ticket, or feeling confident because something's new. Confidence follows action, not the other way around. So by doing it, you're going to be more confident selling a higher ticket offer, you're going to be more confident in actually building something and enhancing it. Your guys' program is always evolving too, and that just happened from you starting it one day. So, just start, is really kind of going back to that. I just wanted to tag onto the confidence thing, because that is a big thing I hear with a lot of musicians too. Because if you wait until you're ready, you'll never start; you'll never build it.

Michael: Such a good point: confidence follows action, not the other way around. Yeah. It definitely seems like you're talking about, are programmed in a way that our identities... It's interesting, I think it is possible to create goals and create affirmations and beliefs and help frame your mind, but your mind is pretty smart. I9t knows if you have this, but you're not actually congruent with it. If it knows you're not actually doing the things and taking the steps towards it. So I think that's 100% right. It is a case where confidence follows action, and there is nothing like that experience when you have your first high ticket offer that goes through and there's like a light bulb switch where it's like: wow. That's actually possible now! I would say equally, if not more important, is when you fulfill or you deliver on that first high ticket offer, and the person on the other side is like, this was so valuable. Thank you so much. That to me is almost just as important, if not more important, because then it sort of trains you that not only did you make this high ticket offer and someone purchased it, but they're really grateful and they're excited for it. Maybe another question, related to that concept around fulfillment and delivery and the value coming from it: I’m curious if you have any recommendations for leveraging, I don't know, testimonials, or leveraging stories or experiences. Let's imagine that there's an artist here that they have made their first high ticket sale, and maybe let's imagine it's for a custom song. I know one of our artists that was on the podcast recently had just made a $2,500 sale for an acoustic song that he wrote for one of his fans. I'm curious if you have any recommendations for ways to leverage that experience and to be able to share that with more people in a way that doesn't feel super salesy, but it's more just so like: look at this awesome thing that someone got so you can use that as fuel to be able to bring in more high ticket offers.

Evan: Yeah, that's a good one. I think the big thing to keep in mind which is a phrase that you hear the gurus everywhere saying which is: sell the vacation, not the plane ride. Yeah, the writing of the song is cool. Sell the end result, right? Nobody goes to Disney because of the leg room that they have on the plane. Nobody cares. They want to feel the warmth of Mickey's hug. They want to feel the joy of not being at work anymore and riding rides. Sell that. So the story getting there is definitely important with those testimonials, but you need to bottle whatever that end transformation is after somebody learns piano or after somebody got a custom song from you. What's that look like? That's why you see… another good example is weight loss, right? It's always a before and after. Notice how none of those commercials share the process of making that happen walking on the treadmill for 5 hours a day? They don't want the work, they want the end result, so sell that, and of course the story along the way too: The surprise of them showing the custom song to their fiance that they've had it written for; the moment that it's shown. That's what you want to sell; that emotion there. 

Michael: That's so good. Yeah. That's fantastic. So the idea of making sure you're capturing the value/capturing the moment as if possible. What that brought to mind was one of our artists, Eli Lev. He's also a team member. He's awesome. He did a custom song for one of his fans who was celebrating their great grandma's 100th birthday. He shared this experience of how the family gathered around the great grandma and celebrated that moment. Honestly, it makes me emotional just thinking about how special of a moment that must have been for them. Capturing that, if they had that on video, and there he was able to share that moment and that experience is so compelling. Great idea. If you do a custom song, for example, just document/record the moment that they listen to it for the first time or document/record the moment that they share it with the person for the first time. Oh, I can see that being a really compelling thing to focus on.

Evan: Another example would be like if you're a wedding band and your high ticket offer is just like playing at weddings. That moment of you playing, even a cover song, for somebody's first dance or something. That's what you want to encompass. You want to package that feeling that they get because that's what you're selling to other people, technically. “Oh, I want that. That looks so magical”. That's what you're selling. So yeah, package that end result, that outcome, that transformation.

Michael: That's fantastic. Yeah. Especially as it relates to artists who are creating these high ticket offers in the form of a magical experience, and something that is sort of priceless or timeless. Things like a private concert or things like a custom song, or the wedding gig. It's about that moment. Where's that moment in time where the transformation is happening or the experience is happening that best encapsulates the value or the transformation that they're getting from it? Super smart. Cool. So I'm curious, aside from the things that we've talked about up to this point, what do you see as some of the biggest blocks or hurdles that prevent people from successfully being able to come up with these high ticket offer ideas and being able to offer them and provide them to their communities?

Evan: I smirked when you asked that because I know exactly what I'm gonna say: distraction. There's a saying that we use over here… well, how do I put this? There's a framework that we use when artists want to package and create their own high ticket offer. I call it the DLB offer model. It stands for Do Less Better. Musicians want to package everything. They want to do all of these things. They want to focus on shows, and merch, and this stuff. And I get it: you want to do all those things. But really hyper focusing in on what you do best, and what you're most passionate about is what you should really focus, especially when you're first launching it, right? You can't be distracted with 18,000 other things while you're trying to really make this one product; this one offer really good. So distraction, to answer your question of what's the biggest roadblock. Distraction, shiny object, whatever you want to call it, I think is the biggest thing for people in general, but definitely us creatives. We're all over the place. We want to do all of the things. So really dialing in. If you want to build a high ticket offer, dial in for 3 months and just be like: I want to put my all into this. I'm not going to worry about all these other things. I'm going to do this one thing and I'm going to do it well.

Michael: Such a good answer. What that reminded me of is the metaphor of a light bulb versus a laser beam. A laser beam, it's the same amount of energy as the light bulb, but focused and it can cut through steel. It has extreme power or as a light bulb is more diffused, it's kind of spread out. and it does seem like that ability to get hyper focused, that leverage helps you to really cut through at a time where it's more important than ever to learn how to cut through.

Evan: Yeah. Specifically around another roadblock you talked about, which is confidence on selling. If y'all are listening, this is going to be your biggest thing to come across: Selling high ticket is even different than selling a $10 ticket to a show. It's going to force you out of your comfort zone. It's not an easy task, but it is a skill anyone can acquire. Naturally, we’ll have resistance to stuff like this, especially if it's out of our wheelhouse. So for me selling high tickets was uncomfortable. I'd never even worked a sales job before. I was like: Oh my gosh, I just thought somebody would just buy a $5 course and I'd be a millionaire. Like, no, you got to really dial in and you got to master the art of selling with empathy and passion. But that's going to be the biggest hurdle for sure with high tickets specifically too, on top of distraction, which is hyper focusing and learning these new skills that you probably don't know, like marketing, sales, DMing, branding. You're going to have to really dial in. Sales is number one. Just a lot of pushback on artists because we don't like to be pushy. We just want people to just come and listen to our music and find it themselves or come and stumble on a $5,000 offer to Africa. But we know that's not how it happens. You have to kind of sell it. So you gotta learn how to do that in order to make that happen. Long story short.

Michael: Yeah, 100%. I mean, sales in particular, I think, is something that's really scary for artists because we’re almost like anti-sales. We want to be all about the arts, and especially in this community, there's sort of this fear of selling out or that the selling somehow can be incongruent with the artwork itself. There's some truth to it too. If you are doing something that's not in congruence with who you are; it's not authentic and you're just doing it because you think it'll make money. That is possible, but there's definitely a path to providing value, being authentic, and learning how to sell in the form of service to be able to serve your fans in the highest way. So maybe you could share a little bit of mindset around the process of sales, and for artists who, maybe they don't want to feel that icky feeling that comes with the idea of sales, how do you view sales? And specifically for an artist, how can they overcome that roadblock and actually reframe it into a way that allows them to actually serve more people?

Evan: Yeah, I think just that. It's looking at it as serving, instead of taking away from people. You think of sales as: Oh, I'm taking money out of people's pockets. No, you're giving them a value, whatever it might be. Whether it's a show at their wedding, a trip to Africa that they've always dreamed of, or the chance to learn the piano so they can do X, Y, or Z.

So getting clear on what that thing is that you're providing is #1, because then when you do that the value and you're not taking anything from anyone. It’s just a transaction, right? Doctors probably don't feel bad for selling a life changing treatment. You should treat it the same way. This is an outrageous example, but sell like a doctor, right? I have a prescription for you. It's going to help you with this ailment. It's going to save your life or it's going to give you the result that you want. So treat it like that. So I think that's the biggest mindset shift I would say.

Michael: Absolutely. That's a great point. Looking at it, not necessarily as you're trying to manipulate or take something from someone else, but you're actually looking to provide a service, provide value to them in exchange for the money. so with that mindset in mind, what are some of the core frameworks or principles? Let's say that someone's listening right now and they've never learned a thing about sales. They have no idea even where to start making these offers. Let's imagine, though, that they did have the opportunity to connect with a fan. Let's put this as the pre context: they had an idea to do this unique experience. Maybe it's the Africa retreat thing, and they kind of put out the feelers, and they had a form where someone could submit and say: Hey, I'm interested in this thing. A fan filled in the form and said: Hey, I'm interested in the thing, and they were able to schedule a call with the fan to discuss more about that offer and potentially to offer them the opportunity to come on the trip. On that call, could you share maybe a bird's eye view of what needs to happen during that conversation to effectively be able to present an offer and sell that high ticket offer to the fan?

Evan: Yeah, I think the offers you're talking about are slightly different from the offers that I helped train, but overall there needs to be some discovery. What brought you here? What are you trying to solve or trying to gain in your life that brought you to this call? Hopefully they're not coming in totally blind like: I just clicked a button and now I'm here. Like obviously they should know something. Had a DM conversation before.

Michael: Right question. Yeah. What made you interested in this opportunity? Why are you interested in coming on this trip to Africa?

Evan: Yeah. So for our clients, we teach them the art of discovery. You have to ask the right questions. You have to almost treat it like a therapist, right? You got to lead them to what they deep down know already. You're here because you want to learn the piano. You're here because you want to produce your own music and you don't know how. Cool. What have you done so far? What things have you tried? How did that affect your life? So there'd be a similar way. It wouldn't be exactly the same for your particular offer that you've done throughout here, but ultimately you need to have some discovery: figure out why they're here, what they're looking to gain from this trip, and sell that as the solution. Oh, have you looked into doing stuff to Africa on your own? What's held you back? Maybe they're just there because they want to support you and they are overwhelmed with planning a trip to Africa and have no idea where to start, and you're just going to offer a solution where it's a one click, I'll do everything for you and tell you where to go, essentially. So figuring out what really drove them to come there and why you are the best solution and then present your solution as the only solution, right? So I think that's the best framework I can give you in this general sense is: discovery and then kind of positioning your offer just bluntly. Obviously they're going to be there cause they know a general sense of what you have to offer. So that'll be helpful.

Michael: Totally makes sense! So what I'm hearing is most importantly, you want to look at it as a discovery call and ask them questions to understand why they're interested in getting this experience, whether it's the wedding experience with having you perform, or it's a custom song, or it's going on a trip to Africa with you. Really kind of ask them questions to go deeper into starting out with what brought them onto the call in the first place. Why did they apply? Why are they interested in this experience? What would it do for them? Going deeper into the benefits for them and kind of what are they imagining? What would make it most valuable for them? Maybe getting their feedback on some of the activities and kind of seeing which of these would be most valuable, what are you most excited about? And really it's kind of coming back to the point that you brought up earlier around the transformation and that experience/that moment. What is that that would make it the most valuable for them and making sure that we're aligned with that, and that being one of the main motivators that kind of pulls them through the conversation.

Evan: Absolutely. And with sales overall, objection handling. That's the rough patch for everybody, right? Some people say, I need to think about it, I need to do this, and that could be an entire podcast episode on its own: knowing how to do that in a way that doesn't make you feel like you because the discovery part’s easy. Let me tell that's easy. You're just asking questions. You're just connecting with people like we're doing right here. When it comes down to: cool, this is the investment it's going to take, that's when the walls come up, and they say: oh, well, I got to think about it. Well, you've been wanting to plan a trip to Africa for 12 years now! You've had 12 years to think about it. You know what I mean? Being able to overcome those objections and add urgency to it is usually the most uncomfortable place, and that's something even I still feel like I'm starting to master because it is a tough one because you don't want to feel icky, we don't want to feel pushy, but at the same time, a good sales person knows how to overcome those objections and lead the prospect to the decision that they know is best, they're just uncomfortable themselves because it's a high ticket, right? It's a big decision. So, figuring out the best way for you to handle those objections and actually handling them and not just being like: okay, cool. Think about it. Bye! Like, you know what I mean? Trying to overcome those fears with them, is an art of its own.

Michael: Yeah, that's a great point. Objection handling and sort of being the most uncomfortable one, because generally the objections will come up and they're not always transparent. Sometimes it's coming from a place of fear or doubt, or there's other things that they're just not sharing because it's something that is uncomfortable to bring up that kind of forces them to sort of make a decision and come to it. I know this could be like a whole masterclass in and of itself just around objective handling, but let's imagine that we were offering a wedding opportunity so someone they said, I'm open to doing wedding concerts. The fan reached out and they said I'm really interested in this. This would be awesome. The date is in 6 months from now, we're planning it out, and they're on this call with the artist, they've kind of established what it might look like they've gotten to it, and then the artist shares the investment for it. Let's imagine that the investment's $5,000. At that point what do you think are some of the main objections that an artist should be kind of like aware of that are very common that will probably come up, and maybe just in broad strokes, some ways that they could handle those objections so that they're not being forceful or pushy or manipulative, but they're empathetically handling those objections to be able to kind of help, if it is something that the fan is interested in, they can help to take that next step.

Evan: The first step is isolating what it is, because your original question was like, what are things that they can expect? Of course, they're going to throw out money. Money's an issue. But they're probably going to throw out 4 other things too. Oh, I need to think about it. You know, gotta talk to the wife, or the fiancé, I need to do this or that. Isolating which one it is, because you can't tackle all of them at once. Okay. So, a good example is a way to isolate a money objection. Okay, you have a suitcase of money sitting next to you right now with the exact amount I need. Would you would do it? Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm a 10/10. Temperature check is another way to do that. Okay. So, 0/10. Okay, 0 being: I want to get off this call; this sucks. 10 being: this is the perfect fit. Like, let's go right now. Where are you? You're isolating where they're at in terms of: is this a good fit for them. Okay? And then you isolate money. Okay. The money objection. Yeah. If I have a case of money next to me, great. Now you can offer solutions. Let's go through. Okay. If it's just about the money, well, I have some solutions like credit cards, asking for friends and family, payment plans, financing a lot of people can do now pretty easily, but behind that might be another objection too. Oh, well, I just need to think about it. Okay. So it's trust. Let's talk about that. What people tend to do is tackle all of them at once, and you don't really know which is the real one and which one's the facade. So isolating which one it is and doing it with empathy, right? Like if they're super uncomfortable and don't want to tell you they're the truth about their finances, it is what it is. You can't force them there, but always ask permission: Hey, if it's just about money, is it okay that we'd have a real talk about your finances? Is that okay? If I ask you some personal questions about how much money is in your bank? What's in your savings? Do you have access to credit? Do you have family that you could loan from? Things like that, but asking permission is important. You don't want to just go straight in and like a shark. So, isolating, I think, is my best advice. Figuring out what the real objection is so you can help them find a solution. If the objection is: this doesn't sound like a good fit for me, you don't want to sell someone who it feels like it's not a good fit. You just, there's no objection there. You can't really do much. Most of the time they're just going to throw up a bunch of other objections that you have to sift through and find the real one.

Michael: So interesting. I mean, there really is an art to this process of objection handling. Again, done in the right way, this really is of service to your fans and to your customer, because generally… and it depends on the objection, right? But in a lot of cases, it's just a leap of faith, and it takes facing a certain amount of fear/hesitation in order to transform and to have any sort of meaningful experience or transformation requires coming to the edge of your comfort zone. So it's pretty natural for that to come up. I love the strategy that you talked about in terms of isolating what are the actual real objections, and the one way to do it being if you could wave a magic wand, or if you had a suitcase full of money next to you, is there anything else, or would that solve it? That seems like a really helpful way to isolate and maybe there are a few different objections or things, but there's actually only one real big one. This is the big one where it's like a domino, or if you knocked over that one domino, that would actually be the main thing. That's sort of like the resistance and in a lot of cases, there are objections that can be solved/that can be handled, but it requires being willing to face the fear or sit with the tension and be able to kind of process and digest it. Yeah, I think that's just a really helpful perspective to share because likely artists, if you're listening to this right now and you're thinking about doing these types of offers, then you should be expecting that people are going to have questions or objections or concerns, and you'll have to really learn how to navigate those and not just, give up on them. So maybe you could share: what's like some of the biggest mistakes that you see artists making as it relates to handling objections.

Evan: Biggest mistakes with handling objections. Yeah, I mean, I hate to just double down on my original answer, but not isolating them. Right? If you say: cool, you're ready to go? Oh yeah. I just don't have enough money. And you try to solve that, and you don't actually isolate what that is, another one's going to pop up later in the conversation. Oh, well I just don't know enough about your company yet because we didn't isolate, they're going to have a bunch of other ones when in reality, like you said, you're 100%, right: it's usually just the real objection is fear. They're afraid of getting out of the comfort zone, doing something new, spending a lot of money on something they've never spent a lot of money on. So the biggest mistake is 1) just taking it at face value. I'm not saying like everybody's a liar or anything, but just taking it at face value and not digging in would be a big mistake, and not actually isolating what the thing is, because otherwise they have all the other objections in their back pocket ready to just pull out once you solve that one,unless you double down and you figure out what that is.

Michael: Awesome. So good. Yeah. That idea of like, not just sort of taking that face value, meaning like objections are going to happen, they're going to come up, and maybe the easy tendency is going to be to just sort of be like: oh, you need time to think about it? Like, awesome. Okay. Like, well, think about it and then get back to me later, without really actually taking the time to sit and help digest and kind of understand what the root cause of the objection was. The other one I just want to reiterate, because I think it was a really cool idea that you shared, was around this temperature test: on a scale of 0-10, like where are you at right now? I love that question for all sorts of different use cases. I think I heard it once from a book called Success Principles with Jack Canfield, but he uses this question and all different areas of his life. He’ll ask on a scale of 1-10, how would you rate our relationship in the past week? And whatever the answer is, if it's like 7-8/10, the follow up question is always, like, okay, awesome. So what could have made it a 10/10? And it kind of helps to close that gap because if it's not 10/10, there's a reason for that, and maybe the way to articulate it isn't always front of mind, but if you say 8/10, then say, what can make it a 10/10? It does seem like that kind of has a way of shining a light on the real issues, or the real stuff that's happening that's kind of preventing it. So it might be a healthy way to uncover some of those objections as well, or sort of identify the fact that there are objections in the first place.

Evan: Yeah. What we also have been doing with our team here is instead of what you're saying, which works in a different way, we say: well, why isn't it a 3? What you're doing is you're asking them why it's so good. Okay? They say 8, and you say, okay, well, why aren't you a 2? You're getting them to sell the program, or whatever it is you're selling to themselves, almost. So that has power and weight as well. Just wanted to mention that. That's kind of what we've been using in our tool belt.

Michael: That's a cool idea. I like it cause then when you say, why isn't it 3, then it allows them to share the parts of it that the reason that it is where it is. I guess different tools for different situations right? If the conversation required more of them to lean in more and the point wasn't as much to uncover objections then, asking “why wasn’t it lower?” would kind of help to reinforce that and help, because like that is kind of another situation right where someone… and this totally could be the case for artists where they have a fan who wants the thing, but they also want to be seen as sort of like too cool for school, or like they want to seem like they don't really want it that much because it's just a game that sometimes people play and especially for fans and artists. I know we had some fans who, it's totally valid, but they want to come across like they weren't as big of a fan as they are because they want to be seen as like cool or cooler to the artist, which creates this… it's sort of an interesting way to look at it. It's not always the case, but sometimes it definitely is the case where someone will want the thing and it's super valuable to them, but they don't want to come across like they really want it. They want to come across like: Oh, like, I don't really care about it, in which case, asking a question, like, “why are we here right now”, or “can you share a little bit more about that?” can help to just get the truth out of the situation and to actually have that alignment.

Evan: Yeah 100%!

Michael: Well, Evan, I mean, it's been a great conversation. Really timely because like I mentioned backstage before we got started, we're about to go into a revamp of this specific concept for our community, and I think it's really important. The work that you're doing to help artists and creatives to value themselves and to create a unique service, whether that's entirely service-based learning how to play piano, and X, Y, Z, or if it's something that's more experience-based, it still has the same pillars of the transformation, of being able to present the high ticket offer in the right way. So, yeah, man, I just really appreciate you taking the time to be here today to share some of these lessons. For anyone here that's interested in learning more about your program and the resources that you offer for artists, what's the best place for them to go to to dive deeper?

Evan: The best place is to just get social with us! Instagram is the best one right now. You can find me @AC_Evan. Bunch of links and things there. Shoot me a DM. Love to just answer any questions there in the chat.

Michael: Awesome. Fantastic. Well, like always, we'll put the links in the show notes for easy access. And yeah, Evan, thanks for taking the time. Even though you're overseas right now, living a nomadic lifestyle in Turkey, to hop on the podcast today.

Evan: Of course, man. Thanks for having me.

Michael: Yeeeaaaah. 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 a few ways to help us grow. First if you hit ‘subscribe’ then that’s make sure you don’t miss a new episode. Secondly if you share it with your friends, on 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 take their music to the next level. The time to be a Modern Musician is now, and I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.