Jody Friedman:
You have to find a show that actually regularly uses what your music sounds like. And that takes a bit more than just the research on Tunefind. You then need to go watch the show and listen, listen instead of just watching, listen to the background music, recognize what's score and what's not score, recognize the genres, and Shazam it if you want. Use Shazam on your phone and listen to... It'll tell you exactly who the artist is, and then you can go deeper and research the artist and listen to their album and study what they do, and ask yourself that question, is my music similar to this? Does it fit into this world? And if it does, then you can present your music at that time.

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 of 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 Jody Friedman. Jody is the founder of License Your Music, which is an online platform that teaches musicians how to license their music, to film, TV, ads and trailers. So working in the music business for 20 years now, as a songwriter, producer, composer, publisher, and music supervisor, a licensing over 10,000 songs from hundreds of artists securing over $1.75 million in license fees and over $500,000 in royalties. So today I thought it would be awesome to bring them on here live to talk about how as a musician, how can you leverage music licensing and how do you make the right connections? And really just how do you have the most success with licensing your music. So, Jody, thanks so much for taking the time to be here today.

Jody Friedman:
Happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Michael.

Michael Walker:
Heck yeah. Jody for anyone who this is their first time hearing about you or connecting with you, could you share a little bit about your story and how you got started with licenseyourmusic.com?

Jody Friedman:
Well, I grew up in a youth group and that's where I cut my teeth performing. And I started playing guitar when I was 14. Self-taught on a classical guitar and all my friends were picking up the guitar and obviously we all wanted to get the ladies. So that's why we all picked it up. And there were a few of us that really stuck with it and I took to it and I practiced every day for a year and I learned guitar. And then I started singing. And then in my youth group, there were people called song leaders that were elected. So I was an elected song leader to lead our youth group, thousands of kids in the Southeastern United States in these song sessions and services and whatnot. So, that's where I cut my teeth performing. And then I went to school for TV production.

Jody Friedman:
I could have gone to school for music, but it was important for me to have a job where I made money out of school because I didn't grow up with much. I didn't grow up with a lot of money. We were lower to middle class growing up. And it was just important to me. It was important that I had a job where I was comfortable and made money. So I didn't major in music because if you major in music, you're either playing in an orchestra or teaching. And there wasn't a lot of money there, at least so I thought. And at the time there were no courses in music supervision like there are today or music licensing. That was not a thing. So I majored in TV production and out of school I got a job at CNN. This was in Florida. I went to Florida State University, got a job at CNN out of school. And this is 2003.

Jody Friedman:
And CNN had... They wanted to put on a talent show, The International Talent Search, and they modeled it after American Idol because American Idol season one had just ended. So they called it CNN Idol internally, but it was really externally called the CNN International Talent Search. So I wrote a song called The Prompter Song about my job. I was a teleprompter operator. I was an audio op. I worked scripts and stage manager, floor director. So I wrote a song about that and it won first prize at the CNN talent show. So the prize was getting to perform it at the tabernacle in Georgia in front of all the company executives. And I mean, the whole company was like the holiday party. It was probably this week. I mean, gosh, 20 years ago now, close to that. What? 18, 19 years ago now.

Jody Friedman:
So the next day the president of CNN called me into his office. My manager came and got me off in between shows and said, "Hey, Jim Walton wants to see you." So I went and met with Jim and he sat me down and told me how great it was and how much everyone really loved it. And they actually, Michael, they... This is something I don't usually tell. They had a photo of me with a cowboy hat on because some guy in the audience gave me his cowboy hat during the event and they hung it on the wall in the newsroom and this is totally random and off topic, but it's funny. So then a year went by and, or two actually went by and I was emailing with Chuck Roberts. He's one of the anchors there. And he said he had trouble explaining to the Chinese diplomats what that picture meant.

Jody Friedman:
So he was trying to explain like, they're asking, "What is this? Why is this kid on stage here in the newsroom?" And I just thought that was really funny. So anyway, so the song got me the meeting with Jim Walton in his office and then the song, he said, "I see you applied for a job in New York. How would you like to go to New York?" So that song got me to New York. Right? So I always frame it like that because I'm a songwriter first. I learned guitar. I started writing songs and there's such power in a great song. And that song got me into his office. It got me to New York. And while I was in New York working on all the various CNN shows like Anderson Cooper and Paulison and Lou Dobbs and Nancy Grace, the executive producers stopped me in the hall.

Jody Friedman:
I had my guitar on my back heading to a gig and I was doing the grind. I mean, I was going to play in all the bars and coffee houses. I even hurt my leg. I was on crutches going to play coffee shop. I was determined because at the time I thought that that was the only way to make it as a musician, was to be a touring artist signed to a record label. So back to the executive producer, he stopped me in the hall. He said that we need a new song for the show, a new theme song for a Nancy Grace. So I went home and I threw some loops together in garage band. And I put together this theme song, which became the theme for Nancy Grace, not the theme, but a theme in the show. They had multiple themes throughout the show. It was called The All Points Bulletin theme.

Jody Friedman:
So again, the song got me, it moved my career forward, right? And the music just conversing about music with this executive producer, just we were talking about bands and music, "Where are you headed?" "I'm going to play a show." And that led to him giving me this opportunity. So, on my breaks, I would go to Borders because it was in Pine Warner Center in Columbus Circle and there was Borders bookstore. So I went to Borders and I started reading books on publishing. And I learned that you can make money from music without having to perform live shows, without having to do this grind, this hustle that hanging up flyers, stapling them to the light posts, like what we all have been through, taking the stickers and putting them on each CD one at a time and mailing it out to fans and mailing out your demos.

Jody Friedman:
It is such a hustle, it is such a grind. And usually, I mean 99% of the time there's no return for that grind. I'm very little to no return for that grind. So started learning about publishing and I fell in love with this idea that you could make money from songs, because publishing is all about the song. So my wife and I actually left our jobs in New York. This was 2006 now. And my theme song been airing for, I don't know, maybe like a year at that point. I hadn't received any payment of any sort for it. But we decided we were done with New York. We had a dog, we wanted more space, so we headed out west. And on the trip out west, I got my first royalty check for the theme song and it was 15,000 for the publishing and 15,000 for the writers.

Jody Friedman:
So I got a $30,000 check from this theme song. I thought that every quarter I was going to get another 30,000 and another 30,000 and another 30,000. I learned when the next quarter came that wasn't the case, for various reasons I won't go into here, but as cap, they educated me on why that's not how it worked with CNN. So here I am out in LA, I had $30,000 in some savings, not a lot, but I knew that I was going to do music full time. And that's what I wanted to do. Music licensing for that matter. I decided that I want to do more of this. I want to play songs and TV shows or in films, and I'm heading out to LA. So why not do that? And with the support of my wife, I wouldn't be able to do any of this without my wife. But with the support of her, I was able to start pitching and calling up supervisors and go up to LA and take meetings.

Jody Friedman:
It was a hustle too. It was a grind. It was sales. I mean, there's a lot of sales involved. And I learned quickly that I couldn't just pitch Jody, the songwriter, composer, Jody Aaron, the artist. And I started signing other talent. I started finding other talent and asking them if they would allow me to rep them, doing a license fee split with them. And after about two years of doing this, the song and dance with taking music supervisors out to eat or out for a drink or out for coffee and sending them music ideas, after two years I got my first good placement with Gary Coleman on True Blood season two. I'll always, always think Gary for that because he really... He was one of the first meetings I ever took back in 2007. 2007, yeah.

Jody Friedman:
It's one of the first meetings I ever took where I went to his office and I met with him and Allison. And you basically DJ'd for him while they were saying what they're working on. You played songs from your iTunes. So he gave me my first decent placement, and the way it works in the licensing business is when you start getting placements other people take notice and it was like, "Well, Gary is licensing from Jody. Maybe I should listen to what Jody has going on." And then it snowballs from there. Right? So it's been 13... No, it's 2008. So yeah, it's been 13 years since that first good placement. The CNN was a good placement without a doubt, but I guess my first... after CNN's placement into the Hollywood licensing world and it's been amazing.

Jody Friedman:
I've had a lot of luck, a lot of success. I've been able to nurture my relationships and I've got placements across, as you mentioned across all sorts of media, like film, TV, ads, trailers, video games. And it's been fun. It's been a lot of fun. It led me to License Your Music. Okay. Your question was about License Your Music, right? So I started License Your Music a year ago, a little over a year ago. It's 2021 now, December 2021. And it was at COVID. It was September of 2020 when Hollywood froze. And I'm looking at my business thinking, okay, well... I mean, I have business going on. My business wasn't going to go under. I'm thinking, what else can I do to diversify what I do a bit here? And I learned about this online course space, actually from my wife, she works for a company called Kajabi. And she said, "This online course space is a good space and you'd be a great teacher. Why don't you think about doing that?"

Jody Friedman:
And I said, "That's a great idea," because it took me back to when I was song leading. Part of being a song leader was teaching song classes at camps and whatnot and leadership academy. And it was a lot of teaching. So it made sense for me to do it. And people, artists were constantly still constantly reaching out saying, "Hey, how can you help me?" When someone sends you a link to their music they're asking for help, right? Whatever it is, can you place it? Can you help me get it out there some way? So I thought, how can I serve them? I can't immediately place every song that someone sends me. Nope. Nobody can, no supervisor can do that. But there's other ways that I can help them and I can teach them what I've learned since doing this all the way back to 2006.

Jody Friedman:
So I started License Your Music to teach artists how to license their music and how to earn a consistent income without having to spend all those years of networking and also without having to build a fan base or a tour or do any of that. So that was the impetus for launching License Your Music.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. That definitely helps understand what you've been doing over the past 20 years and what led you to creating License Your Music. And I think it's awesome, I mean, like being in this space, like the music mentor space and investing in my own mentors and really just like observing the most successful people, it seems like one thing they all have in common is that they all search and find mentors. They find people who are already successful doing the thing that they want to do as models. And they learn from them because they realize that that can really shortcut their progress, like it can save them years and years and sometimes tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. So I think it's awesome whenever there's someone who's had success in their life who takes that step and says, "I want to pay it forward and I want to help other people do that."

Michael Walker:
So, I think it's super cool what you're doing. And I also think that just music licensing as an opportunity is such a great opportunity for almost everyone who's going to be listening to this right now as a musician, even if your goal is to build an original fan base and tour successfully and have an audience of people listening to music. Man, having some of your songs placed and having a consistent income stream from that is going to really, really benefit you. So I know that over the past 20 years, really, you've been doing this yourself, you built this successful career, and now you're a little bit newer in the space when it comes to teaching other people. But I know that you have been calculating with a lot of artists and teaching them now this process that you've learned over the past couple of decades. What's some of the biggest challenges or most common mistakes that you see artists making when it comes to licensing their music?

Jody Friedman:
I mean, there's so much to it. It's try to hone in on one big thing I think is the pitch, actually pitching. I think that it's very easy to get excited about... The ego takes over and you, not only do you see dollar signs, but you see this opportunity to be on your favorite TV show or your favorite film or in this Apple commercial or whatever it is. And when ego is really present like that, I think that we all have blinders on. And that ego can be blinding to the truth. And most of the time the truth is, you shouldn't be pitching to that project, right? You should really think about... First off, you should listen to what you're watching, what you're wanting to pitch to. And listen without the thought that, I wonder if my music fits this. Listen with the thought of what type of music are they using? What type of music are they fitting into this show? Why are they making the decisions that they make?

Jody Friedman:
And after you do that exercise then you feel like, you know what, my music really happens to sound like a lot of these songs without thinking, I need this placement, I have to get this placement, because again, that's the blinders taking over. So it's being... I always mix up subjective and objective. I think it's being objective about your music. Is that right? Am I getting that right?

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Being objective, like you need to be objective about your music.

Jody Friedman:
Yeah, exactly. It's hard to separate yourself from your music and look at it from a 30,000 foot view and saying, "Is this piece of music?" Forget it being yours, "Is this piece of music right for this project?" And being able to do that, it's a very tough thing. I very rarely even pitch my own stuff for that reason. But if you can figure that out then I think that you'll start getting more success with getting placements. Because if you're objective about it, you'll be able to say, "I shouldn't pitch to this project. I shouldn't pitch to that project. But this one, I should pitch to." And I think that's a big mistake, I think that even as a song plugger I still make sometimes, especially when you get the request in, that's like $300,000 payday. You're like, "Oh my gosh, this is a huge opportunity." And you can get excited.

Jody Friedman:
I always have to tell myself, take a minute, don't pitch right now, come back to it in an hour. And then pay close attention to the brief. And when you get a brief too there's a whole process for interpreting and understanding briefs. And it's part of my training that I go into in License Your Music. And I pitch program, and my masterclass program is really that process of interpreting and understanding a brief. If you can master that, then you'll also see more placements. There's so much to it. The pitch is only one aspect, right? You also got to understand the business. You got to understand the fundamentals of the business. And if you don't do that, then people won't want to work with you because professionals like working with other professionals, it's really important. Even if you do understand the business and even if you do...

Jody Friedman:
what I mean to say is, even if you do plan to have managers or sync agents or publishers or record labels working for you, you still need to take the time to learn the business because you have to, you're going to get taken advantage of if you don't. And people just won't want to work with you when you're talking to them. You need to be able to converse with them in a way that's confident, that says, okay, this person knows what they're talking about. I'll take them seriously. Even if it's you saying you should talk to my sync agent, at least you establish that rapport with the person you're talking with that they think, okay, you know the business, you get it. I trust that you understand what you're doing and you're not going to sandbag me. Because that happens a lot. When people don't understand the business they'll pitch stuff they don't have the rights to, or they don't know if they have the rights to it or not.

Jody Friedman:
And our job as gatekeepers, so to speak, for when I'm usually supervising, because I do that as well. Our job is protect our client. So, if we sense anything's off, we stay very clear from that individual. And when I say off, I mean, they clearly don't know what they're doing by the way they presented themselves, the way they spoke about their music or the rights that they have. And we know the questions to ask and most supervisors, not all, but most supervisors have been doing this enough long enough where we're very quick to pick up on red flags and steer clear. So it can't stress enough how important it is to learn the business of music licensing, whether it's through my program or someone else's. It's incredibly important.

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 mentor coaching program. And if you sign up in the show notes below, you're going to get access to our entire music mentor content vault for free. The vault is organized into four different content pillars. The first being the music, then the artist, the fans, and the last but not least the business.

Michael Walker:
When you sign up, you unlock our best in-depth master classes from a network of world class musicians and industry experts on the most cutting edge strategies right now for growing your music business. On top of that, you'll get access to our weekly live masterminds, where our highest level of modern musician coaches teach you exactly what they're doing to make an income and an impact with their music. Then once a month, we're going to have our music mentor spotlight series. And that's what we're going to bring on some of the world's biggest and best artist coaches and successful musicians to teach you what's working right now. And one of the most amazing parts is that you can get your questions answered live by these top music mentors. So a lot of the people that you hear right here on the podcast, but they're live interacting with you personally.

Michael Walker:
So imagine being able to connect with them directly. On top of all that you'll get access to our private music mentor community. And this is definitely one of my favorite parts of music mentor and maybe the most valuable, is that you're going to have this community where you can network with other artists and link up, collaborate, ask questions, get support, and discuss everything related to your music career. So if you're curious and you want to take advantage of the free trial, then go click on the link and the show notes right now, you can sign up for free. From there you can check out all of the amazing contents connected with the community and sign up for the live master classes that happen every week. This is a gift for listening to our podcast, supporting the show. So don't miss it out, go sign up for free now and let's get back to our interview.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. That totally makes sense. So it sounds like what you're saying is that one of the biggest mistakes that people make is when it comes to the pitching process, that because they're... When we're starting out and inexperienced and don't really know how to communicate or pitch properly, then what happens is that we end up in a lot of cases, just wasting a lot of time getting ignored because they're reaching out to a lot of people and submitting for opportunities that aren't really a good fit for their music. So if they can instead take an approach of not necessarily what's in it for me, but how can I make sure that I'm really focusing on the person I'm pitching to and making sure that I'm a good fit, and that I have something valuable for them, then that's going to be something that allows them to communicate and to pitch a lot more effectively.

Michael Walker:
But even so, there's a lot of nuances, a lot of pieces of the communication that really, if you're looking to start pitching to supervisors, then it would be very beneficial to find some guidance and find out, like to understand the business so that you can pitch in the right way.

Jody Friedman:
Yeah. You almost need a year of study before you start pitching. And I know that doesn't sound... That's unfortunate, but if you take that time to really understand what you're doing and really... And I've seen people come through my program and other programs that are doing this, and now they're having success. They take the time to learn and study and understand all the aspects of licensing and then they start pitching it and then they start placing. It does take, the number is usually two years, it's like anything that you really dedicate yourself to, any business they say to give it two years, they say this on Shark Tank too. Give it two years and if you're still not making any money, then maybe it's more of a hobby. And there's some truth to that as long as you are investing yourself in that, your time into that business. You don't have to invest money. You at least have to invest time.

Jody Friedman:
So if you're not willing to, or wanting to purchase courses online, then you better be spending a lot of time reading books, studying, listen to podcasts, doing all the research you can to make sure that you understand what you're doing. Because 100% what you said, you have one chance to make a first impression. And if you pitch something that's way off, or if you send something to a show that uses hip hop and you send them country, that supervisor will never take you seriously again. They'll see your name pop in their inbox. You think they don't remember people, but they do. They get a lot of emails, but if they take the time to listen to what you send, if they take the time and they listen to it and it's way off base, then they're going to say, "I'm not going to listen to this person the next time," because they don't have time.

Jody Friedman:
Listening is unfortunately not a huge part of the job for supervisors. A big part is making sure their clients are happy, the producers, the directors, the editors, and watching the project and making creative suggestions for them and budgeting. There's a lot more that goes into being supervision where like, meanwhile, while they're trying to keep their job and keep their clients happy, they're getting hit at by the artists and the labels and the publishers and the sync agents and the libraries. So that's just a small part of what they do.

Michael Walker:
That totally makes sense. Yeah. And to your point, I think it's not necessarily the most sexy thing to talk about because... But it's the truth is that anything worthwhile is going to take hard work and it's going to take time, it's going to take investments and you can either invest your money or you can invest your time. And it's like planting a seed. Like a tree doesn't just grow from nothing. It grows from planting a seed and from nurturing that seed and it takes time and it takes persistence, but that's just the way it is. But that being said, I would love to zoom out a bit and I know you've created a really great program that basically just walks through step by step how to go on this process, learning how to successfully license your music. Could you just give us, if we were looking at a bird's eye view, maybe, I don't know, the top three to five steps or phases that an artist needs to go through when it comes to licensing their music successfully, which it might be like an outline of your course.

Jody Friedman:
Sure.

Michael Walker:
What do the steps look like?

Jody Friedman:
Yeah. I mean the first thing is mindset and having mental clarity about what you want to do and how you're going to achieve that. So I actually take them through a training called elevate and it's the way I've lived my life. And you can apply this elevate philosophy to anything you do from writing a song, to taking a pitch meeting. I mean, just signing up, committing to signing up for a course is part of that transformation that you go through. But then it's knowing how you can learn this philosophy. And I have some students who tape it up to the wall and they're applying it in everything they do and it works. So the first thing I do is take them through that training. And then we talk about the fundamentals, music licensing fundamentals. We talk about representation and rate cards, the different types of representation that exists, all the various rate carts out there so what types of fees to expect.

Jody Friedman:
Then we go into who all the gatekeepers are, and kind of what we just spoke about more in depth about what the day to day looks like for music supervisors, music coordinators, clearance houses. Then we talk about how to pitch your music. So I have a whole module dedicated at pitching and there's so much that goes into it from getting your metadata right towards again, mental clarity going into that pitch meeting. One thing is knowing that you're not going to win them all, and that's okay. Important thing is that you do it and you do it right. So that's the who, we talk about the what, we talk about the why, and we talk about the how. And then I go behind the scenes, I actually take them behind the scenes with me on a film that I supervised in 2017 for focused features called Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Jody Friedman:
So I show them everything I just taught them. In the end of the course we go behind the scenes on that project and I show them that implementation. So what it was like to clear a song for that project, and I take them step by step through it. So they see what happens on the other side of it. So any business when you are trying to sell, and that's what you're doing in licensing, you're selling, you're selling, it's sales. So I know people think that sales has... A lot of people think that has some dirty connotation. Like you go right to the used car salesman, but it's not what it is. A lot of sales is just being yourself and explaining why what you have is of value to your client. So when you do that, like you pointed out earlier, you have to be of service to them. And the best way to do that is to understand them and how they think.

Jody Friedman:
So I take my students through that from the perspective of a music supervisor as well. It's actually a lot of the courses focused on it. It goes back and forth between the perspective of a publisher, which I am. I'm a music publisher and a music supervisor because publisher exploits music, and pitches, and the supervisors receive music. So you got the publisher as the seller and the supervisors are the buyers. So in basic sales terms, that's essentially what they are. So you want to understand the whole picture.

Michael Walker:
Thanks for walking through that. That awesome. And I love the way that you described the sales process and how important that is. And I think you're totally right that sales can have a negative connotation when it comes to, almost like we're trying to, I don't know, manipulate or convince someone to do something against what's in their best interest. But really sales is this universal thing that we're almost always doing. And it really has a very powerful, like it's almost a sacred type of role to be able to serve people. You can't really provide a full service without being able to focus on the sales process. And the sales process at its finest is really about figuring out what is most valuable to the other person. And like you said, understanding them and figuring out how to position, how to offer it so that you provide value to that person.

Michael Walker:
So I think it's awesome that you have that perspective as a music supervisor, as a publisher, even be able to understand them. What is valuable to them? What are they looking for so that you can actually properly create something that is valuable for them? So, one thing that I would love to dig a little bit deeper into is module one or the first thing that you talked about around your elevate mindset. That's something that is so important. I feel like all my mentors, the most successful people that I know recognize how important the right mindset is, and so it's like the foundation of everything. So maybe we could talk a little bit about that elevate mindset principles, and what are some of your core frameworks or understandings when it comes to mindset in order to be successful, both in music licensing, but also just in everyday life?

Jody Friedman:
Sure. Well, I mean the first step is in embracing who you are, and we see all these distractions around us and really just settling into and embracing who you are. And I mean, elevate for me was going back to when I was in New York, working at CNN and realizing that no matter what I did to try to get away from doing music for a job, it just kept coming back to me. So I finally was just able to embrace that this is what I want to do. I had a good paying job that I quit. Remember, before I got paid, I was making good money. And I said, you know what? I'm not happy. I'm not supposed to be doing this. I'm a creator and I need to embrace that. So the first step was embracing. It's embracing who you are.

Jody Friedman:
And the other part, the second step, which is where that ego gets in the way is being open to learning from others. And in music specifically, you get a lot of feedback right on your music. It's very easy to take offense to feedback. But if anyone is giving you feedback ever, it's because they want to help you. If they don't want to help you, they're not going to give you feedback. So, being receptive to that, being receptive to learning will allow you to grow. And by doing that you're empowered and you have this new framework for life that you've embraced who you are. And you're open to learning from others. I actually bounce back and forth between learn and listen, because listening is a part of it, being willing to take it in, listen and learn from others. And then being empowered so that now you can visualize your goals.

Jody Friedman:
And when you're able to visualize your goals, like literally say them out loud or write them down, and it could be multiple goals. It could be a 10 year goal, a five year goal, a two year goal, a one year goal, a one month goal, a one week goal. But if you can visualize those goals and achieve them, then you will be transformed. And that's the last step of elevate, is to enjoy the process because we get so caught up in the process that we forget I'm so guilty of this, forget to just look around and enjoy what you've done and enjoy the progress you've made. Even if it's from a year ago to today, six months to today, a week ago today, if you wrote a song this week, that's amazing. There's so many people in the world that would look at that and say, "I wish I could write a song this week."

Jody Friedman:
So it's that transformation that you go through from start to finish from before the song exists, did to now the song exists and you have to enjoy the process because if you're not enjoying it, then what's the point of it?

Michael Walker:
That's so good. Yeah. And such a great point too is, it's like that bottomless pit, right? Where it's like, no matter how successful you get, no matter how much you do, it's not enough on the material plane, but if you can really appreciate and enjoy what you're doing at every step of the way, then it just makes the journey a lot better, a lot more enjoyable, like you're saying. So that's awesome. It's great that you start with that so that it makes the challenge, it makes the journey a little bit easier to stay on that path, I think, if you have that in mind. And, man, that principle of being willing to learn and being willing to adapt and taking things as feedback but not necessarily making it personal, not making it personal about you makes sense that's something really on that foundational stage early on where if you can be objective like you're talking about and just see things as they are, it's not necessarily about you, it's about a learning process then. Yeah. That is the common characteristic of success.

Jody Friedman:
It's hard with art because it is, you pour yourself into your art. So, when you get feedback on that art, you do take it personal because you are part of that art. So it's hard to be able to separate yourself, but you have to learn that art, at least in the licensing business, it is a commodity. It is a commodity. It is to serve the project, it's to serve the production. So, while it is art and people love art and great art is great art without a doubt, but in licensing you may get feedback on something that maybe it works for you and your audience, but it doesn't mean it's going to work for sync licensing. A slang for licensing is sync, which came from synchronizing music to picture. You synchronize it together, music and film. So just because it works for radio, doesn't mean it's going to work for sync. That's not always the case. They don't go hand in hand. So it's a process.

Michael Walker:
One question I feel like I hear a lot and yeah, I'm not even the music sync licensing guy, but I hear this question a lot, is... And I think it's a good question because it correlates to not just sync licensing, but to a lot of different things, which is all about the reach out process and the pitch. Right? And how do you reach out and connect with the right people? So, what are some of the biggest, maybe you can give me worst case scenario and best case scenario. What are some of the worst pitches that you can imagine, like the stereotypical, like terrible pitch that you see commonly and then the stereotypical best pitch, like the one that's just like they do it totally right.

Jody Friedman:
Sure. Yeah. I mean, every day I get a message on LinkedIn or Instagram or my socials with just a link, so, "Yo check me out." That's the worst pitch. It's like, no, I'm busy. No, you're not going to take the time, put forth the effort to research what I'm working on to do your homework before you pitch to me. Then that means you're probably not taking the time and putting the effort into your music. So why should I listen to your music? It's going to waste your time. It's going to waste my time. So the worst pitch is just sending a link and usually there's no contact info, no phone number, no email address. And there's been instances where someone has sent me something that I listen to and then I want to contact them and there's no way to get in touch with them.

Jody Friedman:
So, and I'm talking about a phone number. There's some times where I don't have time to send you an email and wait for a response. I need to get you on the phone. And I think that's really important, is to put your dang contact info in there. I mean, there's no reason to keep it a secret from people in the industry that you are pitching to, that want to help you. So put that contact info in there when you pitch. The best type of pitch would be when someone does their homework. When they, if you reach out to a supervisor and say, "Hey, I noticed this episode of Riverdale has this bar and in the bar I noticed they're using these artists X, Y, and Z. And I think my music, excuse me, would fit perfectly into those artists because I've been told that I sound like these artists and here's a couple songs, a streaming link with an option to download and check them out. And thanks for your time.

Jody Friedman:
That's the perfect pitch because it's shows them that you're attentive, you've listened to the show, you've studied it. You recognize an actual venue that they're using in the show, like a bar that... In TV shows specifically, which is going to be the easiest sensory point for anybody in licensing, there are common scenes or sets that they go back to; someone's bedroom, a bar, a cabin, whatever it might be, they're going back to these scenes repeatedly. And if you notice there's themes and sounds that they use in these scenes that support the characters, because the music is there to support the picture. It's not the other way around. There's a saying that picture will not bend to music, but music will bend to picture. You can edit the music and you can change the music, but the picture's locked. You're not going to change the picture. So that's the best kind of pitch, is when you do your research and do your homework and you approach it that way.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. That's definitely helpful. So, it sounds like really one of the key, most important leverage points is doing your homework upfront and figuring out where's my music, the best fit for, like what types of shows, what types of movies or placements, like where does my music belong? Where would it provide the most value? So if someone was listening or watching this right now and they basically have that question, they're like, "Man, where do I even start? Where do I find those places that my music would belong?" Where would be a good starting point to do that research?

Jody Friedman:
Well, give you some links, but I'll mention that I have a training on my site called ow to get your music heard by music supervisors. It's my low ticket item. And it takes you through the process step by step. I also have pitch templates, email templates that you can use for pitching your music, but you want to always make your own, but I give you the templates to get you started. So the sites that you do your research on would be IMDb, Internet Movie Database, imdb.com. And then there's a site called Tunefind that you can go on Tunefind, and you can search any TV show or any artist. And it will spit out a list of what shows have used what songs. And you can actually listen right there. These did not exist when I was getting started.

Jody Friedman:
So you definitely want to utilize these, but just because I'm a living proof, really what you need to do is watch the shows and listen and pay attention because even Tunefind, it's not going to have everything. It's not going to have the context exactly of how the song was used. So if you watch, you look up a show on Tunefind and you write country music and you say, "Hey, they used this one country song in this episode five, but the rest of the show they didn't use any country songs." It doesn't necessarily mean that your music is going to fit the show. You have to find a show that actually regularly uses what your music sounds like. And that takes a bit more than just the research on Tunefind. You then need to go watch to the show and listen, listen instead of just watching, listen to the background music, recognize what's score and what's not score, recognize the genres, and Shazam it if you want. Use Shazam on your phone and listen to... It'll tell you exactly who the artist is.

Jody Friedman:
And then you can go deeper and research the artist and listen to their album and study what they do and ask yourself that question, is my music similar to this? Does it fit into this world? And if it does, then you can present your music at that time.

Michael Walker:
Super smart. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And I think it's a good practice, just in general, if you're a musician to have a big list like a database of similar artists or people that you'd like to go on tour with, people who are on the same size as you, or maybe slightly bigger that you can use for references, you follow them on social media, you see what kinds of things are they posting about, you see what kinds of songs they release and you use these as inspiration for you and specifically having that database, having that list, it sounds like you can use that to go research on Tunefind and find where are those artists? Where are they placed? And that's a good initial step to find out where your music might be a good fit for, but it's not the only thing. You'll need to go deeper, do some more research, watch the shows. Awesome.

Jody Friedman:
Yeah. There's so much music nowadays too. There's just so many artists getting licensed. There's so much room for people in music licensing because we're in this boom of streaming companies producing projects, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon. IMDb has their own network now. Apple TV, Disney Plus, HBO Max. There's so much content being made. And the industry is booming. There's just so much opportunity there for musicians and licensing.

Michael Walker:
Cool.

Jody Friedman:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
One question for you. How important do you think it is for an artist, I mean, I know there's different routes that you can go to getting your music license, whether it's you're trying to do everything DIY and trying to reach out and make these connections yourself or finding a publisher to be able to pitch your music for you. What would your recommendation be for most artists, if they're just getting started and they haven't really explored the music licensing world? But let's assume that they have invested into recording some really high quality music. And let's say that somewhere there's going to be a market for that music, but they don't have a publisher. They haven't built any relationship with music supervisors. Do you think that it's smarter for them to pursue building these relationships themselves? Or they should be looking for the right publisher or?

Jody Friedman:
I think they should look for either a publisher or a sync agent also called a licensing rep or a music library. If you are going to do it yourself, if you are going to go it alone, then you can do it. But I think it takes a certain personality and you have to have a lot of drive and you have to have a lot of patience, but it can be done. It's just, it's going to take a lot longer to build that trust and what sync agents and publishers and labels they've already done, they spent years building a reputation and trust. So they've done the work for you. So, I definitely recommend finding representation, especially now it's become really saturated. If this was six, seven years ago, I would be more inclined to say, "No, you can just do it yourself. You don't need a rep." But it's just become so saturated.

Jody Friedman:
I think it's really important to find good representation for your music. And that way you can also just focus on your art and your craft and the music and let the reps or the libraries or the publishers do the work for you.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. That definitely makes sense. And I'm guessing that your recommendation for finding those people would probably be along the same routes as what we talked about in terms of researching and finding out where does your music belong. So finding those artists and seeing, okay, they're getting placements, who are their agents? And then reaching out to the agents directly like that.

Jody Friedman:
Absolutely. Absolutely. You can use Google. There's so many resources out there to find sync licensing reps. Sometimes if you find a rep that has music like yours, it means that you're not filling a void for them. So that can actually be a way to rule people out. And it doesn't hurt to reach out. I mean, look, as of right now, the answer is no, right? So, if you don't reach out, you don't know what's going to happen. And if anything, you're going to get a no and you already knew the answer was no. So if you reach out then the best case scenario is you get a yes. And just like anything, you don't know until you ask. So, a lot of people have been asking for a list of licensing reps and agents, and I'm working on that. It's hard for me to put that out there because by putting that out there, I just have to make it clear that I don't endorse all these people, or I put out a list of people that I do endorse, so I haven't quite done that yet.

Jody Friedman:
But there's so many, and I'd hate someone to get a recommendation from me and then say, "Jody had a terrible experience with this person." That's like, sorry, I'm not them. But there's ways to find reps on your own. If you're willing to put in the time and do the research and reverse engineer it, like you just explained, then you'll be able to find somebody if the music is good enough. Music has to be good.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That totally makes sense. And yeah, and I think to your point too, when it comes to reaching out and if you don't reach out it's a no already. It's like you don't lose as much from reaching out and getting a no, as you do from not doing anything right. There is this like network effect. Right? And when you reach out to someone, even if it's not an immediate, yes, you can plant these seeds. And maybe at some point down the line that seed germinates, it starts to blossom. Right? And sometimes they don't have the space, but they know someone who they can connect you with. So, I think you're right that it takes courage, I think, to put yourself out there and to reach out to people. But man, that's such a huge part of the game, it's just building relationships, reaching out to people and doing it consistently. Awesome.

Michael Walker:
Well, hey man, it's been a lot of fun. Thank you for coming out here and sharing your experience. So for anyone who is listening or watching this right now who would like to dig deeper and learn more about you and your free trainings and your courses and dig a little deeper, what would be the best place for them to go to learn more?

Jody Friedman:
Yeah. You can go to licenseyourmusic.com. And we also have a free Facebook group. Facebook group is called License Your Music with Jody Friedman. And yeah, that's... I have a YouTube channel. I don't have a custom URL yet, but if you look up License Your Music, Jody, you'll find our YouTube channel and there's a lot of free content on there.

Michael Walker:
Cool. Thanks, man. We'll throw all the links in the description so we get easy access to dig deeper. But yeah, man, this is super valuable. And I really appreciate you. You didn't have to take everything you learned and pay it forward and share it with other people. So I think that what you're doing is really needed and helpful for the music industry as a whole. So I appreciate you. You're not just bottling in and holding in your knowledge for yourself, but actually you're sharing it with other people.

Jody Friedman:
Thanks, Michael. 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 or on your social media and tag us, that really helps us out. And third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review it's going to help us reach more musicians like you who want to take the music careers to the next level. It's time to be modern musicians now, and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode.