Wendy Day:
One of the things that I've learned as somebody who teaches artists how to make money with their music is it's not how it's thrown, it's how it's caught. So I can say something to them but if they don't understand and I can see it in their face, then I have to come from another angle. I can't just keep repeating myself, hoping that they'll get it or even worse, raising my voice. Maybe if I say it louder they'll understand, no, you've got to reach people the way they're able to understand it. And you have to do it when they're ready to accept it.

Michael Walker:
Did you say 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 they 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.

Michael Walker:
All right. So I'm excited to be here today with my new friend Wendy Day. She is a mentor and consultant for hip hop artists. She's worked with artists like Eminem, Lil Wayne, Young Buck, and many others. She's also brokered landmark deals, including Cash Money Records, $30 million deal with Universal Music Group. And not only is she awesome for all those reasons, but she also has a nonprofit organization called Rap Coalition and a consulting firm called PowerMoves. Altogether her clients have sold over a billion dollars in sound recordings. So she's been in the game for awhile and she's someone who has a huge amount of wisdom and experience. And so today I'm really excited to dig into really the fundamentals in my eyes of building a successful music career, which are one, how do I make money with my music? And once I have the money, where do I spend it? How do I build the right network of people that I can trust? And how do I build a fan base? So Wendy, thanks so much for taking the time to be here today.

Wendy Day:
I'm so happy to be here. Those are such great points that you just made. We could be here a week talking about them, but you hit all the highlights. I love it.

Michael Walker:
You've been here for decades, just talking about it. And that's where it all comes from. It's really cool.

Wendy Day:
And I started as a fan, which is always like the great place to come from. I started as a fan of rap music and still am.

Michael Walker:
Ah, that's awesome. That would make everything 10 times more. I mean there's probably one of the biggest reasons that you're-

Wendy Day:
It's still rewarding.

Michael Walker:
... still doing it now is because you can enjoy it so much at the same time. Cool. I know you've been doing this. You've been in the game for a long time. So I'd love to hear a little bit about your story for anyone who is meeting you for the first time. Could you just introduce yourself and talk briefly about how you got to this point?

Wendy Day:
Absolutely. I'm Wendy Day, I started listening to rap music in 1980, which was pretty much when it started. I was in Philadelphia at the time and went to New York. I heard the Mr. Magic Marley & Marl radio show and decided that because New York had such great radio, I needed to be there. So I came back to Philadelphia, quit my job, loaded all my stuff into a U-Haul and moved to New York with no job, no money, no nothing, but I made a go of it. I worked in ad sales and I went out at night and just really had a good time. Danced to music, went to the clubs, things that somebody in their young '20s likes to do. And then I went to Montreal and I worked for a liquor company in the late '80s. And that was like my training wheels.

Wendy Day:
So what I learned from that experience was that I can start a company and take it to the next level and become successful for me, it wasn't my company or my money. It was somebody else's, but he put his faith in me and I was able to deliver what was expected. And that taught me that I could do it for myself. If I could make him wealthy, I could make myself wealthy. So I came back to New York and decided to figure out what I wanted to do with my life next. I knew that I wanted to help people. I knew that I wanted to make a difference in people's lives, but I thought I would be doing that on more of an entrepreneurial path. And I ended up starting a not-for-profit organization called Rap Coalition, and we pulled artists out of bad deals. And after doing that for a few years, I realized that just pulling somebody out of a bad deal, wasn't enough. I really wanted to help people get into deals where they could profit and benefit and really change their lives, help them build generational wealth.

Wendy Day:
So the burst deal that I was part of was Master P's deal. And that was a really great deal to be part of because it was a landmark deal. And then from there I went on to work with Twista out of Chicago. We did a joint venture for him at Atlantic. I worked with Do Or Die signed to rap a lot. I worked with Eminem and help sign him to Aftermath, Cash Money, I helped do their $30 million deal at Universal, David Banner's deal from there I went on to work with Trouble here in Atlanta, where I'm now based. Little Donald, we had a hit record in 2018 and helped make him a millionaire between 2018 and 2020. So I've really learned to help artists make money with their music, but more from a teaching and hands on perspective than any other, I'd rather teach someone how to fish than feed them. Does that make sense?

Michael Walker:
That's totally makes sense. Yeah. And I think that traditionally one of the biggest changes, it seems like in the music industry has been a shift from the old model of where the fishing was all done for you as a musician. Like, "Oh the record labels

Wendy Day:
At a very high price.

Michael Walker:
At a very high price. And now there's these opportunities where we can actually directly reach out and connect with our fans and our distributor. It's really cool. So I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about having experienced the shift in the industry. It must be like pretty fascinating and experiencing it from when you first got started. So what things are happening right now and the way that things are evolving, what are some of the biggest changes that you think that are differences between the old model, the new model that someone listening to this right now could really take and run with?

Wendy Day:
Well, I'm going to bypass the obvious because that would be boring the fact that it went for CD so streaming, but the two things that I've really noticed in my world is that we can now go direct to fans. We don't have to have gatekeepers anymore. We can find a small distributor, upload music and start marketing and promoting directly to our fan base and expand the fan base. And then the money comes directly to the artists. There's no label in between. And then the second big change that I've noticed is how we research. And the difference is when I started in the '90s and it wasn't hard for me because I'm part of the community and I love the music, but it would be our gut. We would really trust our gut for the music. And we would decide either your team or the artist, or even the record label in what order they were going to release music.

Wendy Day:
And we don't do that anymore. Although I still use my gut, partially I research everything, I test everything. So if we're going to release music, I might take five songs, shoot five inexpensive videos of an artist, just rapping in the vocal booth, put them all out there, put a little bit of a budget behind them, maybe 500 or $250, test the songs and see which songs that fans really gravitate towards. So when I go to work the music and I still work all the songs, but it tells me which songs are going to react better and faster. So if song two and five comes back a doing much better in the test, then I'll spend 70% of the budget on songs, two and five and the other 30% or more one, three and four. So that's changed a lot and it's made it a lot easier, a lot more predictable. It's still an emotional sell. So it's not 100%, but it gives me an idea of what's going to react.

Michael Walker:
That's so good. Yeah. It's definitely incredible. There's the power of direct response marketing and being able to test out these different things.

Wendy Day:
A/B testing. Yes.

Michael Walker:
A/B testing.

Wendy Day:
It's changed the game. I remember when labels would put out music and if it didn't catch right away, if the artist was a priority act, they will force the music down the band's throats. So they could spend millions of millions of dollars, but only sell 50,000 CDs or was CDs back then, or only 100,000 CDs. And the artists would never recoup. So the artists would almost be like a failure at 21. And really it's because somebody picked the song that they liked over what we can now test today to find out what the band's like. It's a different word.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That is awesome. One thing that you spoke to a little bit that I would love to hear your thoughts about are the shift in model from the CD sales to streaming and talking about making money with music, what do you think are some of the biggest opportunities right now for a musician? Maybe both one that's starting out, starting out hasn't built much of an audience yet. Who would want to get things off the ground, kind of like a quick path to cash, but also just in general, do you think that streaming, which is still the foundation, like business model of this aiming for, or is there another thing that's been working with?

Wendy Day:
Yeah, it has to, because that's the way you find out what your fans are embracing is through setting it up on platform. So all you want it to be on all platforms where people might find you, you want to be on YouTube and SoundCloud and Spotify and Apple, Tidal and TikTok and all of your social media like Instagram and Facebook, you want it to be everywhere that your fans might discover you. And streaming isn't enough anymore because it pays 0.0007 cents a stream, which is not really a lot of money. So what it's taught us is to find other streams of income. So my clients set up merchandising accounts, much stores sooner than later, and that's been a really great profit center. I was talking to an artist today. He makes about three or $4,000 in streaming, but he's making $30,000 a quarter on his March site and doing pop-up stores.

Wendy Day:
So he's learned to really monetize through more than just streaming. Touring is a great income stream with COVID that kind of got shut down. So artists couldn't tour as much. My artists still did because they're smaller acts. They're not at the level of like a Drake or Rihanna yet. So they were able to rent Airbnbs and do different parties here in Atlanta, we didn't really shut down for more than two months. We were kind of back up pretty quickly. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it gave artists an opportunity to make money. A couple of my clients did park parties, which is what we used to do back in the '80s and '90s were in the warmer weather, they would just do a pop-up and bring out speakers and start performing and people could wear masks and be socially distance and feel good about the fact that they're able to still see a live artists perform.

Wendy Day:
And then they would sell merch at that event, instead of charging people an entry fee, because they'd be in a park or in a public space. Other ways that artists make money are through endorsement deals. They go to a local company for a product that they use and they work out a deal and say, "You know what? I will either make a song about your product, or I will use your product on my website and on my social media. And let's figure out a price that works for that, whether it's $500 or $1,000." It's more of piece by piece hustle than it was back in the '90s. But I love that because it's really expanding the audience for the artists.

Wendy Day:
The people that might see the merch are not necessarily the same people that might see a sponsored product, or a lot of artists license their music, excuse me, to film and TV and video games. So you might be playing [inaudible 00:13:22] Datto. And you might hear a song in the background that you like, and you might Shazam it because you really liked the song. And now you've just discovered a new artists and it's another income stream for that artist. So there's ways for artists to make money outside of the traditional way of people listening to music. There's a lot of different ways.

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 the 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 metaphor coaching program. And if you sign up in the show notes below, you're going to access to our entire music mentor content vault for free. The vaults 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 masterclasses from a network of world-class musicians, industry experts on the most cutting edge strategies right now for growing your music business.

Michael Walker:
On top of that, you'll get access to our weekly live masterminds, where our highest level of modern musician coaches teach you exactly what they're doing, make an income and an impact 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 artists 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 of the news mentors. So a lot of the people that you hear right here on the podcast where their live, interacting with you personally. So imagine being able to connect with them directly.

Michael Walker:
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 and 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 and go click on the link in the show notes right now, sign up for free. From there, you can check out all of the amazing contents connect with the community, sign up for the live masterclasses that happen every week. This is a gift for listening to our podcast for the show. So don't miss out, go sign up for free now and let's get back to our interview.

Michael Walker:
That's so good. Yeah. And you just dropped four or five value bombs there in terms of all the different types of income streams that they can do. And a couple of that spoke to me. There is the endorsements one, remind me of one of the first things that we did with our band was when we wanted to get a trailer, but we had no money, but we wanted a trailer. So we could tour, it was like $2,500 trailer. So we went to local businesses and we lived in a small town with like 1,000 people year round. And we walked up to business owners in there and asked if they wanted to have an endorsement on our trailer, like a big sticker of there's like a few

Wendy Day:
Yeah because you've been driving around and they would see it.

Michael Walker:
Right, because we were driving around. So we had a funeral home sticker on the trailer and a bunch of different local businesses. And we paid off the whole $2,500 trailer with endorsements like that. So if there's a one thing that gathered through like all the different income streams you just mentioned was that the ability to be resourceful and to be able to be creative and coming up, that there's a lot of these different opportunities and they don't necessarily rely on just that one income stream of streaming, but there's all these other opportunities to pursue.

Wendy Day:
And artists are so creative to begin with, to an artist, 2,500 might seem like an unobtainable amount of money, but it's really $500. So when you look at it that way, it just makes it a lot easier to achieve your goal.

Michael Walker:
Absolutely. Yeah. I love that idea of the... what'd you call it the park parties as well, where people did the pop-up shows and you can do them outdoors. Awesome. One big question, because intimately interlinked with the question of how do I monetize my music for a lot of the different income streams is also, how do I build an audience that is going to want to buy the merchandise from me? Or is that going to want to come out to the pop-up shows? So what are some ideas if anyone listening this right now for, let's say that someone is starting and they've got their friends and their family who always tried to share their music with, but aside from that-

Wendy Day:

Michael Walker:
... exactly. But in there, like, "How do I actually reach people aside from my friends and family?" What are some ideas that they could leverage right now?

Wendy Day:
The way that we do it, we do a lot of Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Instagram ads. But you also have to take into consideration that the real hardcore fans don't want to be advertised to. They want to discover your music. So you might be running ads for your merchandise. And then somebody is going to be like, "Well, wait, who's this?" Okay, that shit's kind of cool, but I've never heard of them. So they're going to go and they're going to do a Google Search, and they're going to read more about you. And they're going to listen to your music that they like it. They discovered you. So even though you're running ads to reach them, you may not want to just like blast your music in their face. Maybe have the music playing in the background and show something that would be a little bit more of interest to them, like your lifestyle or some behind the scenes footage of you recording in the studio, or a lot of artists make their own merch.

Wendy Day:
So they may have a friend shoot a video of them on their iPhone of been silk screening shirts. And they're using that as the ad with the music playing in the background. But anything you can do to bring people in with our clients, we also find out like, what are their hobbies? What do they do when they're not making music? And if it's something like a lot of the guys that I work with are sports fans, others love to cook. So we set up shows for them either on Snap or on YouTube or on Twitch, wherever it makes sense. And we have them doing whatever it is that they love to do. Whether if it's sports, maybe they're on when they're with their friend and they're bantering back and forth. And it's funny in most cases to hear people argue about sports or maybe it's on YouTube and they're doing a cooking show and they're showing people how to make their favorite meals, whatever it is that brings people in.

Wendy Day:
And then you let people discover the fact that you're an artist. You've got a great podcast. So as people get to see you on the podcast side and they go and research you, they find out, "Oh, wow, this is what he's into." And they discover your music that way. And it's such a great bind for people that really love to discover music. Because you're not just spamming your music at them on Twitter or on Instagram, which is what most artists do. You're actually having the opportunity to engage with them. And that's another great way. If somebody just wants to start with social media, go to the page of an artist who you feel has a similar sound to you or a similar fan base. And just start talking to the people that are in their feed and not about your music, but about whatever the subject is going on.

Wendy Day:
Maybe they're arguing about sports or politics or life, or as you engage with people. What's the first thing we do when somebody we don't know talks us? We press on their bio to see who they are. And once people see that you're an artist, they're going to do some digging if they have interest in that, if they don't have interest, it's nothing lost. It's just a conversation. So it's just a really great way to meet people. And the goal is to start a dialogue back and forth with them, positive dialogue so that they'll come into your franchise, follow you on your social media, and then also go and find your music. Again, if people really like your music, they'll share it with their friends. And that's really what you want. So as an artist, once you figure out your demographic, it's going to make it so much easier for you.

Wendy Day:
But a lot of artists, when they're starting out, they don't know who their fan base is. They don't know who's going to listen to them. So this is a great way for you to find your niche is by finding artists that have a similar sound or a similar fan base to you. And what I mean by that in case I need to get really down and dirty with it. If you're a street rapper, you're going to want to go to the social media for other street rappers that have similar content, if you're more lyrical rapper and you're more of an activist and you're teaching people about, I don't know, black history or whatever, you're going to have to go to the social media, other artists that are doing similar things and then start talking to their fan base. And you'll find out pretty quickly what your fan base is, who responds.

Michael Walker:
That's awesome. Yeah. There's a bunch of gold in there. That sounds like-

Wendy Day:
I hope I didn't get too basic. I kind of went all the way down that road.

Michael Walker:
No, no, that was fantastic. What I gathered from what you just said was that one overall that one mistake or one challenge that happens that's pretty common. It being too, almost like overly promotional and certainly I've seen this. I'm sure everyone has had someone who was like, sort of just been spamming, sort of just like, "Hey, listen to my music or listen to me." And if that's the first thing, and actually they feels like me, me, me, me then just doesn't come across as well as really building out a holistic approach to really your brand overall. So maybe it's the music as a part of that, but also it's the other things that you're doing, that you're excited about your hobbies. So it really, flushing that out and doing things that make you excited so that the music is almost a little nugget of like, "Oh wow, that's cool." So they can discover it rather than being it being forced down their throat.

Wendy Day:
You don't want to do anything that you wouldn't do in real life. I would never walk up to and slam my music in your face and then insult you if you didn't listen to it. So why would I ever do that on social media? It's still the polite factor. If I wanted you to listen to my music in real life, I'd walk up to you, I'd introduce myself to you, I'd start a conversation. And then I would start talking about what I do. I wouldn't just come up to you and throw music at you. It wouldn't work.

Michael Walker:
Right. Yeah. I think that that's probably a piece of advice that the internet would be a little bit friendlier of a place if we all took that piece of advice of we are doing real in-person. So the other part that you talked about I think is really smart because it is the foundation, but I think that it's super important is really identifying what's your demographic, who is the audience that is going to also enjoy your music and great way to do that is finding similar artists, people that have the fan base that would also probably like your music and then starting conversations with them and actually building a relationship in a way that's not just about me, me, me, and just about your music, but actually about building the relationship.

Wendy Day:
How wonderful is it to find fans that give you feedback so that you know which songs they like better and which ones they don't like as much if you're hearing from all of your fans, "Wow, I really like your happy more upbeat music," and you keep making really sad, sad, depressing music. Then you're learning something, they're giving you a key to help you do what you do better. Not that you shouldn't do what's in your heart. That's not what I'm saying, but if you've got music that runs all gambits and everybody does, how wonderful is it to hear people say, "Gee, I really like this side of you. I love when you do that," because then it gives you the opportunity to do more of that.

Michael Walker:
Absolutely. Yeah. For some reason the visual that came up as you're describing this process of networking, connect with those fans is like, like a brain with neurons and how, I think in a lot of ways, our relationships with each other, it's sort of like how a brain works and how electrical signals travel from impulse to impulse, from different neurons. So you going and surrounding yourself with an audience of people who are likely to like your music, it's kind of like there's all these little inter connections that can happen with those people. And just by putting yourself in that space, putting yourself in the place where you're building those relationships, you're already so far ahead of the game, than trying to do something away from where all of those network of interconnected neurons are already firing.

Wendy Day:
Think about how it feels when you discover an artist or music that you love. It's the best feeling when you hear a song and you go, "Oh, I really liked that." And then you're just hoping that they've got more just like it. And then you listen to that and you're like, "Oh, I like that too." There's such a high that comes from loving that music that you can't help, but tell your friends, "Hey, have you heard of this group or this band or this artist?" And it's like you become this evangelical being that just wants to share what you found and you're touching all these other people and then they spread and then they spread it. And all of a sudden, you've got millions of bands. It's not that best obviously, but it's the greatest feeling for both, both the fan to discover an artist and for an artist to grow and realize that somebody loves their music.

Michael Walker:
I love the way you just described it too. You can tell that yourself are like such a big fan as well, that you're able to relate and to share that experience-

Wendy Day:
Oh, gosh.

Michael Walker:
... the excitement of sharing that is great. Awesome. So let's keep rocking. There's a couple of other really good questions here that had talking points I think so once an artist does, and this might not apply to everyone that's listening, but if it doesn't apply to you yet, then it's still going to be really valuable because this is probably, if you stay persistent and you keep working hard, then this is going to apply to you once you have the money, where do you spend it? And how do you actually build, you talked about generational wealth because it's no secret that a lot of times on the surface, very successful seeming people might make all this money and then end up going bankrupt or end up falling back on old, broke or falling back into old patterns. So can we talk a little bit about how someone could, like once they have the money, what's the best way for them to really, to fill generation?

Wendy Day:
Can I do a middle step first? Because there is kind of a middle step. Once you start building your fan base, then you will have to increase it. And when you increase it, you've got to keep the fans that you've already brought in and bring in new fans at the same time. And the way that I recommend people do this is to build like a six hour driving radius around where you live and use that as your target market. Don't try to reach everybody in the whole world, just do like a manageable territory, whatever you can afford. So if you have a bigger budget, you're going to go a little bigger. If you have a smaller budget, you're going to go a little smaller, but you want to work digitally online, social media, influencer marketing, all that stuff, but you also want to go out and touch and feel people.

Wendy Day:
So you want to perform, you want to do promotional tours, you want to do meet and greets. And then that is what's going to really build your wealth. Because once you get to the point where you've got millions of fans, that's where the big money starts to come and that's where you start to build generational wealth. So I don't want to skip that middle step because it's really kind of important. You need a large amount of fans to be able to really monetize this and get to the point where you're a millionaire or multimillionaire. And then once you get to that point, you really want to surround yourself with professionals that can help you invest, help you devise a budget that you're comfortable living on, and really help you to make investment choices that are going to grow that wealth, not lose that wealth.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, it's a topic that I think is sometimes over overlooked because yeah, the goal is always like yeah, making more money or raising income and not necessarily realizing that that's not really the end game that it's really about profits.

Wendy Day:
It's not. Right.

Michael Walker:
Have you ever heard the book Profit First by Mike Michalowicz?

Wendy Day:
No.

Michael Walker:
That book is awesome. That book completely changed my life. And is exactly about what we're talking about right now in terms of-

Wendy Day:
It's called Profit First?

Michael Walker:
It's called Profit First. And in a nutshell, the core theme of the book is that as humans, our psychology tends to make it so that if we have a certain amount of money that we can spend, and we just like, have it sitting there, then we're likely to spend that money if it's like in our periphery. And so here's a-

Wendy Day:
Right, that's so true.

Michael Walker:
... takeaway is that if we create a system where you have an income account, you have maybe five different accounts, one that's an income account when the income comes in, you split it based on these certain percentages. So that only a certain portion of that income is actually going to go to your, "Safe to spend budget." And he's got a good system for what the percentages to do and how to pay off debts. Yeah. I was like $36,000 in debt before I had read the book and paid it off about a year later. And-

Wendy Day:
Beautiful, as well.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Yeah, that book was definitely a game changer for me. And I think along the lines that like what we're talking about right now, it's just like a really important topic, so-

Wendy Day:
Yeas. Thank you. I just wanted to my phone while you were talking about it and bought it.

Michael Walker:
Cool, awesome.

Wendy Day:
Bought it from Amazon.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Look, do you think of it? So what are some of your takeaways in terms of you obviously you've worked with some very, very successful people now and what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see people make when it comes to the money that is coming in and also around building a network of the people that they can trust when they're at that level?

Wendy Day:
I see that more than anything, I see artists surrounding themselves with a team of people and they didn't put a lot of thought into that team or they chose the wrong people. And I see that more than anything. So I've seen, especially in my world, because I deal with rappers and there's a lot of trust issues with rappers. So they will bring their cousin or their brother or their boy down the block in to manage them because they trust them, not realizing that they're entrusting their career to someone that has no business sense, no practical music, business experience, no connections, no understanding of how it all works. And then their career falters and they don't understand why.

Wendy Day:
There was an artist that I worked with and I got him to this incredible level of success. And then Interscope Records signed him and gave him a multi-million dollar deal. They gave him an amazing deal, but they couldn't stand his manager and his manager didn't really understand how the music business worked. So he kept asking for these outrageous, bizarre things. And after a while, the label was just like, "Okay, enough, next?" And they shelved him and he ended up getting dropped from the label. He's now in Def Jam and he's got a new team, but he blew an incredible opportunity just because he trusted the wrong person. And that's just heartbreaking.

Michael Walker:
Wow. So how would you recommend that someone starts, let's say that they're at that level where they're really ready to start scaling up and they really need the right people and the right team around them. One-

Wendy Day:
That's a great question.

Michael Walker:
... how do they gracefully cut ties or part ways with a relationship that's ready to go, that's not serving the greater good anymore. And then from there, how do they build the team with the right people?

Wendy Day:
I think you have to have really great communication skills. And I think you have to always be honest with people. I don't think stringing somebody along as fair to either you or the person, you're stringing along, because if you've got somebody on your team that can't meet the mark or hit the highlights that you need them to hit, you're really setting them up for failure and they could leave your employee and go do another job where they could be hugely successful. And you're preventing them from finding their sweet spot when you're holding them into a position. So I just believe that if people really love you and respect you, they're going to hear you when you explain that this isn't working out and there's two ways to do it, you can kill the relationship, which would be really, really sad. Or you can just be honest and tell them how you feel and explain that they have value to you, but you're outgrowing them.

Wendy Day:
And I think most people understand that as long as you're coming from a place of honesty and you're not getting rid of them because you don't want to pay them, or you're getting rid of them because somebody dangled a shiny trinket in your face. I think that people really care about other people and everybody wants to see each other succeed and survive and go on and do well. So I think it just comes down to communication. And then in terms of finding somebody that's ideal for you, as you become more adept at studying this industry, and you learn who the players are, you learn to look at the careers of other people that are either at your level or just above a level or two of where you are and see who's advising them? And would that person be willing to work with you?

Wendy Day:
I always suggest that artists have an A list and a B list, especially for management, because the manager is the captain of your team or the coach of your team. So that position is your most important player. And you want to make sure that you've got a coach that has the relationships, has experienced, is willing to deliver. And it doesn't mean that if you don't get your first or second choice, that your career is over, you can certainly find great people. You just have to know who they are and who to go after in terms of wanting them on your team.

Wendy Day:
And then if you've got somebody on your team that you really love them as a person, and they've got all of the qualities that you want and you trust them and they're smart, but they just don't have the connections of experience. Ask them to go intern with another management company for three or six months and let them go develop what they need to really get you to the next level. They can go work for somebody else for free and learn who's who? Learn how to do it, get the relationships and the connections and come back to you and really help you get to that next level. I think it all comes down to communication.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. I love that. Yeah, it does. What popped in mind again, was the network and the brain, like the neurons. And it sounds like part of what you're saying is that to have someone who's the right manager, someone who can really take your career forward, you want to find someone who has already built these relationships and they already have their neurons interconnected with other people. Because that's really going to help take things to the next level. And if the person that you trust, that's you kind of playing that role right now, doesn't have those relationships yet. Then they need to build them somehow.

Wendy Day:
Correct.

Michael Walker:
And so-

Wendy Day:
And that's their job, isn't it? That's what they're supposed to bring to the table. It's almost like I'm going to keep with the brain. I love the brain analogy. If you're a brain, you want a neurosurgeon operating on you. You don't want a foot doctor operating on you if you're a brain. So you've got to be in the room with the right people to begin with. And if you've got somebody that is almost there, but not quite 100%, I'm not saying you probably shouldn't get rid of them, but enable them to get to that next level to really help you. You shouldn't both be brand new to the industry.

Michael Walker:
I definitely don't want a foot doctor to be operating on my brain. So that makes sense. Cool. So this is great. Yeah. I think that what I really appreciate about talking with people like you and D is that a lot of times there's like these two different forces at play. There's the tactical kind of like on the surface, like hacks and quick things that are new and things that are kind of shiny objects that may work for a month or two or whatnot. Those things are fun. There's a time and a place for those things. And you can't ever do those, but I think that when I talked to someone who is really a master at what they do, and someone like you with a ton of experience, a lot of times what happens naturally is that it kind of goes back to those roots to the foundations, the fundamentals.

Michael Walker:
And so I think that everything we've talked about so far has really spoken to that about connecting with the right people. And literally just starting to build those neural connections, starting to build that network that's going to serve your music career both in terms of the fan base. And in terms of the industry people. One question it might be okay, great. So I need to build relationships with higher level people with experience in the music industry.

Wendy Day:
Don't network down.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Because I need to network with higher level, music industry people. But yeah, what's the best way to actually reach out to those people and to build those relationships starting out? If I don't already have a successful music career and I don't have an audience yet, and I'm starting off from scratch, how do I even build some of those neural connections?

Wendy Day:
The way that people do it with me, it's through social media. They'll reach out to me on Instagram or LinkedIn. I'm not a Facebook person, but most people are. So you could reach out to somebody that you admire on Facebook, but don't just reach out to them and say, "Hey, will you manage me?" You've got to really build a relationship, get to know them, research them. With me, I've got 200 and some videos out there. So somebody could really watch my videos and figure out how I think and how I react and what my likes and dislikes are. So they can get to know me. And if there's a fit, and there's a connection, it's easier to make a connection. When I was coming up in music, there was no social media, there were no websites. So I used to have to go to every industry, function out there and talk to everybody in the room and listen to people, speaking on panels on a stage.

Wendy Day:
And then I would have to go up and engage with them in person, get their business card, go back home and call them and keep in touch and call them 30 or 40 times until they finally responded, almost annoyed like, "What, what do you want?" Ad you get one shot. And if you don't know about that person, you're not going to be able to engage them quickly enough to catch their attention. We all know no matter what we do in life, what catches our attention on the business side and what doesn't. And I think the key is finding out what makes somebody tick and reaching out. Like for example, I love data and research. So people that send me articles about data and research in the music industry immediately catch my attention. Somebody that sends me an article about Kim Kardashian, her newest outfit is not going to catch my attention.

Wendy Day:
I barely combed my hair to be here. So you can probably tell that that's not something that drives me. So if people can figure out what it is about the person that they're trying to connect with, what would interest them, that's the way to do it. The best connection I made with somebody was somebody that loves flying drones. And I know nothing about flying drones. So I did a lot of research to figure out not because I wanted to go flying drones with him. That wasn't my goal, but I wanted to learn enough about it so that if I were to start a conversation with him, I wouldn't be a complete and total idiot in his eyes. And it worked, he's part of a drone club and I was able to ask him, whether he enjoyed flying with other people or flying by himself, I was able to start a conversation.

Wendy Day:
And I'm not a drone flyer, but it was the way in to get him talking. And then when we started talking about music, because he's in the music industry as well. And it did the instant bonding. There's people that I look up to and I want to know more about what they do. Like there'll be teaching something about music, like how to stream more or how to use YouTube more effectively and I'll reach out to them and just ask questions. I don't ask basic questions, but I do enough research so that I can come to them and ask a really decent question, so that it shows that I've done some research and I'm not just looking for free information. And then that builds the relationship.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. It sounds like what you're saying is... This also really comes back to communication as such a powerful skill. And that-

Wendy Day:
I think a lot of this is communication.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. And one thing that feels like kind of like a through line in this conversation is really about to be a good communicator. It almost requires an ability to detach from your own ego temporarily or your own self interest temporarily, and really think about this other person.

Wendy Day:
The other person.

Michael Walker:
What did they find interesting? What's valuable them? Doing research on them so that when you have the conversation, you can do it from a standpoint of something that they are excited about, that they're interested about. And then from there it's a little bit easier of a segue to be able to build a relationship and talk about your music.

Wendy Day:
Right. Exactly.

Michael Walker:
Boom. Mic drop.

Wendy Day:
Mic drop.

Michael Walker:
Mic drop moment.

Wendy Day:
The brain with the neurons, just like swelled up and went, wooi.

Michael Walker:
I don't know what it was about. The brain has just made it's reoccurring analogy in this, but it's good.

Wendy Day:
I love that.

Michael Walker:
Maybe it's like, I've been reading too many of mind maps lately. The software that I showed you last month, mind notes,-

Wendy Day:
I love your mind maps.

Michael Walker:
... brain, little inner connections.

Wendy Day:
Exactly. And it gave me insight as to how you think, which has made it easy to come on here and be more of a conversation than an interview. Because I think conversations are more comfortable. And I think that's also something that I want to say to anybody that's listening to this, that it's really about engagement. It's not about talking at somebody or having somebody talk at you. It's really about listening and applying one of the great things that you're doing is you're spitting back to me what I'm saying to you. And I love that because it tells me not only have you heard it, but you're putting it in words that I know your listeners are going to understand because they're comfortable with you and they're on this journey with you. They're on the ride with you and they don't necessarily know me or how I think or how I speak. So you're making it so that it's crystal clear to them how to do this. And I love that.

Michael Walker:
Well, thank you. I never really thought about that before, but that's a really cool way to describe it.

Wendy Day:
It's really very special. One of the things that I've learned as somebody who teaches artists, how to make money with their music is it's not how it's thrown, it's how it's caught. So I can say something to them, but if they don't understand and I can see it in their face, then I have to come from another angle. I can't just keep repeating myself hoping that they'll get it or even worse raising my voice. Maybe if I say it louder, they'll understand. No, you've got to reach people the way they're able to understand it. And you have to do it when they're ready to accept it. And not everybody is at the same levels. So you've got to really have some skills. And this is true with building a band base too. You've got to have enough skill to know where are they in the discovery process and what do they need from you as the artist to get all the way on board.

Wendy Day:
Do they need to hear the story of why you do this? Do they need to know that you're somebody that's a giving person and you do charitable work or are they just very simply, how do you look and how do you dress? Maybe they're a little bit more superficial and they just care about who does your hair? Or if you're female who does your makeup? Or what gym do you work out? Where do you buy your clothes? So you need to find out what the connection could be and then offer that connection to people.

Wendy Day:
So on your social media, you should always be talking about who you are and what you like and why you do this. And where you grew up and where you went to high school, were you a good student or a bad student? What do you do when you're not making music? What's your favorite part of this? Do you prefer recording or do you love when you're performing at a show? When you go to a show, do you have any rituals that you do? Do you pray before you stage? Do sleep with groupies afterwards? Who are you and what are you all about? I think people want to know that. Thank you social media.

Michael Walker:
That is great. Yeah.

Wendy Day:
A blessing and a curse.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. I think for sure with each of those, I mean, and all those were such great. I hope people are taking notes. They're just like different ideas. As you're describing all those just ways to express yourself and express what is meaningful to you and those things that... If there's something that you strongly identify with, and it's a big part of who you are then likely you're not alone. You're not the only person who strongly identifies with that thing. And if you can find, and you can connect with those other people that feel the same way, then the neurons are interconnecting.

Wendy Day:
And that's the greatest feeling when you're able to connect with somebody and you feel like you were separated at birth. And you feel that simpatico that's the most amazing feeling because it's just, nature's way of telling us we're not as weird and alone as we think that we are. There's a lot to be said for that.

Michael Walker:
That has just gave me goosebumps. Boom. Another mic drop moment. Awesome. Well, hey Wendy, I super appreciate you coming on here live so that we can have a conversation.

Wendy Day:
I'm so happy to do this.

Michael Walker:
So our neurons could bounce back-

Wendy Day:
They could meet.

Michael Walker:
... and forth so they could meet. So for anyone... I'm way overdoing this neuron analogy right now. But for anyone who is listening to this right now, who would love to connect more and to interconnect neurons and electronic signals from our brains. So definitely the weirdest way I've ever expressed this part of the conversation.

Wendy Day:
I'm just really glad you didn't use the analogy of a dog with fleas and the flees jump from one dog to another. I'm just glad you chose neurons.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. The neurons is definitely a little bit better than flees jumping from dog to dog. But for anyone here who is interested in learning more, connecting more with you, where would be the best place for them to go to connect more?

Wendy Day:
There's probably three ways. One is my website, wendyday.com. The great thing about that site is it gives you access to everything that I do. It's like my central holding company, and it gives you access to everything and tells you who I am and what I do. Social media, I'm an Instagram person more than any other platform. So connecting with me on Instagram, DMing me is not the best way because I don't check my DMs, but people that have conversations with me right out there in public, I usually respond back. And then the last thing is I have a YouTube channel that has a lot of educational videos about the music industry and that's youtube.com/this is Wendy day.

Wendy Day:
And somebody who's really into it will notice that if they scroll way down in the caption, my email address is there and I answer all my emails. So if somebody really wanted to find me and connect with me directly, that's probably the best way. But if not, that's fine too. The free videos are there. Don't just take my word for, go get at as much information and knowledge as you can research everything. Don't take anything verbatim, study it yourself and learn and then do what's right for you.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Well, we'll do like always, we'll put all the links in the show notes, so easy access to it to check those out. And please, if you and you should, I mean, if you're listening this right now, especially if you're a hip hop artist or you're someone that has resonated with this interview, then there's no excuse, you absolutely should be using this opportunity to connect personally with Wendy, but please, if you do follow the advice that we talked about on the interview, so you'll watch.

Wendy Day:
Yeah. Don't spam me with music.

Michael Walker:
Well, watch the videos, learn more and definitely reach out and connect with her personally, either through Instagram, on the comments or even secret email a little bit down on the description on YouTube.

Wendy Day:
Exactly.

Michael Walker:
It's awesome. Cool. Well, Wendy, you're awesome. I remember the first we just met.

Wendy Day:
Thank you for having me, I'm so I'm so humbled to be here. I love what you are doing. Please keep it up. It's just amazing. I love who you are and I love what you're doing.

Michael Walker:
Wow. Thank you. I really appreciate that.

Wendy Day:
You're really awesome.

Michael Walker:
You're awesome. I remember meeting you like what? Like a week and a half ago, but I remember we just had an instant, instant connection, instant like great glance and we were goofing off and talking about some stuff, but I really-

Wendy Day:
You were talking about entrepreneurialism in music and so many people don't get that.

Michael Walker:
Absolutely.

Wendy Day:
They just think you make music and that's it. Your job is done and it's just beginning.

Michael Walker:
Right. Absolutely. I mean, immediately the first session that we had, I could just sense your heart and really-

Wendy Day:
Thank you.

Michael Walker:
... was driving you for what you do so awesome to have you on here. Thanks for taking the time. And I-

Wendy Day:
Thank you.

Michael Walker:
... definitely either recommend anyone who's listening or watch this right now. Go check out the show notes. If you want to check more with Wendy and hope you have a great rest of your day.

Wendy Day:
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

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 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 who want to take the music career to the next level. It's time to be in Modern Musician now. And I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.