Frank Nelson:
One of the big things they did was they developed a brand identity. They decided, "Okay, if we're The Piano Guys, who are we? And what makes us tick?" And they decided the thing that we love is making music videos that uplift and inspire people. So that kind of became their mission statement, create music and videos to uplift and inspire people. That was something they could get behind, they could feel good about. And it also kind of helped direct what kind of music they would cover and what songs they would write.

Michael Walker:
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Michael Walker:
All right, so I'm super excited to be here today with Frank Nelson. Frank is the business manager for The Piano Guys. If you haven't heard The Piano Guys yet, you definitely should. Just Google the piano guys or go to YouTube and check them out. There are an American musical group that combines piano and cello with really elaborate cinematic videos, and it's really impressive. If you watch a couple of videos, it's breathtaking, it's really beautiful. They've gotten over two billion views on YouTube, billion with a B, with 6.9 million subscribers and a really inspiring story. So I think today we're just going to dive into from Frank's point of view, being able to be there really early on to watch this growth and watch this transformation with The Piano Guys, to kind of dig into building up from the ground up on YouTube, also their email strategy sounds like it's been a really key component of their success. And also just the mindsets and the transformation that they went through there. So Frank, thanks so much for taking the time to be here today.

Frank Nelson:
Yeah. Hey, thanks Michael, I appreciate you. So I'll give you a little bit of the building blocks of The Piano Guys. Just kind of the grassroots, really. So they didn't start out as a music band per se. Although all of The Piano Guys do play the piano and they're musically inclined. Steven Sharp Nelson has two master's degrees, one is in music and the other one is in nonprofit management, he was a venture capitalist. John Schmidt has again, he has two degrees, one in English. He wanted to be a teacher and one in music. And he actually took off as a piano player right out of college, people kept hiring him to accompany music and stuff. And he made more money doing that. And he started cutting albums and touring, writing sheet music, teaching people to play, and never got to use that English degree, it just hangs on the wall.

Frank Nelson:
Paul owned a piano store. Now he didn't have any educational background, but he does play the piano. But he was trying to find more conventional ways to sell pianos. Incidentally, I started with Paul as one of his movers, moving pianos. And I recall the yellow pages, I don't even know if you would know what this is, you're probably too young. It's like what the cell phone used to be a long time ago, right? Yellow pages is how people found out about stores. And he would put his ad in the yellow pages. And they came in one year, it was like 2009 and they wanted so much more than they did in the past for the ads. And he shut them down, he was like, "Nope, I'm just going to go to radio." Radio wanted too much. He was like, "What is happening in my little town of St. George?"

Frank Nelson:
And YouTube was just kind of started to grow. It was a bit of an enigma back then, a little bit of the wild wild West sort of like Tik Tok today. Nobody really knew what it was, but it started forming into this channel where people had videos. A few music videos were on there and he thought, if I put my pianos, if I could get a piano player and film them and show them how awesome this piano is, everybody will want to buy one, we can sell them that way. That's how it started. Incidentally, the name of his piano store was The Piano Guys. That's where the name comes from.

Michael Walker:
Nice.

Frank Nelson:
So right after we'd had this discussion, John Schmidt, who was performing in town at a college, and he'd stopped into our store, we always kept one of our best pianos tuned up in the event that he would stop in and want to practice. So he would rehearse there while they were setting the stage, it was just a quiet place for him to practice piano. And Paul was like, "Hey, John, I've got this idea. Let me film you playing the piano and it'll get your music out there, you'll get exposure, people will want to buy my pianos and we're going to put it on this new platform called YouTube and we're going to sell tons of pianos." And John was like, "Okay. Yeah, I'll do it." It seemed like a good collaboration there.

Frank Nelson:
We filmed our first music video was actually Game Day, and it did pretty good. And John was like, "Do you know what we're missing?" He says, "I have a guy that plays on the stage with me, his name is Steven Sharp Nelson, he's a cellist." He was like, "Let's get him in the next video, and I know it'll do well." So they get Steve, they get John, and we filmed Michael meets Mozart. And at the time, Paul had to get people on his email list. He's all about the email list for selling pianos.

Frank Nelson:
So to get people on his email list, he would, Facebook was relatively new at the time too. He would, if you join up, liked him on Facebook, entered your email, he would give away an iPad a week for anybody that walked through the store, if he could gather your information. So he would do road shows, he would do these huge conventions, all kinds of stuff. So he had a pretty good email campaign and he just started blasting this video out to all of his fans. He's like, "Hey, check out this new video. You like piano, see what you think."

Frank Nelson:
And within a week we had a million views. We didn't even know what that meant. We just knew that it was just taking off. And they're like, "Holy cow, this video has gone viral." We still didn't know what it means. John still goes to work performing pianos and writing sheet music, Steve goes back to his venture capitalist job. But Paul, he caught this vision. He's like, "Holy cow, a million views on YouTube." He's like, "That means something big. That's big and I know it is. So guys let's regroup and let's film another video."

Frank Nelson:
Well, he saw that a good formula from what he saw, just looking around other people's channels was about a video a week. So they set up on this crazy pace of doing a video a week, just trying to stay relevant on YouTube. And it started kind of taking a toll on their day jobs. So at the time they weren't actually making any money, they were just exhausting themselves. At night they're filming videos and writing music. And during the day they're trying to do their day job.

Frank Nelson:
And I remember kind of the pivotal point from my perspective, I was out on a piano delivery one day, my partner and I, we'd come back. It was 2:00 PM in the afternoon, the doors were locked to the store. There were people waiting outside looking through the window to see if anybody's in there. So we unlocked the door and let him in and we go to Paul's office, and it's locked. And we're like, "Hey Paul." And he's like, "Shh, I'm trying to edit these videos." We're like, "Okay, so you're making music videos so you can sell pianos, right?" And he was like, "Yeah." And we're like, "And you're locking the door to your store because people keep coming in." And were like, "Something here is kind of broken."

Frank Nelson:
And he's like, "Oh man, I don't know. Something about these videos has got me just," he's like, "I'm so jazzed about it." So then we became these salesman, the delivery slash salesman, trying to sell these pianos. And I remember wondering like, "What in the world? What happened here?" And it wasn't until a few weeks later, YouTube actually called up Paul and they're like, "Hey, we want you at VidCon." And he was like, "Why?" They're like, "We love your videos. We want you to play your What Makes You Beautiful at VidCon." He was like, "Okay."

Frank Nelson:
So he got the guys together, they played there. They met up with a manager, David [inaudible 00:08:05], who said, "Hey, you guys, you have enough videos to literally make an album. All you have to do is just sign on with-," He's like, "I know Sony, and I think I can get you in with them. If you were to just sign up, you would have an album, you would start making money." And at the time guys were like, "We like doing these videos. We don't know if we're ready for that step."

Frank Nelson:
So different than a lot of the musicians that are listening to your podcast, for sure. But I do remember one of the building blocks, the major things that I think was really important in the beginning when they first signed on to the label, and then they actually started writing music. The guys quit their day jobs and they were trying to find themselves. And one thing that I want to share is one of the big things they did was they developed a brand identity. They decided, "Okay, if we're The Piano Guys who are, and what makes us tick?"

Frank Nelson:
And there they're all Christian guys, they're all family guys. And they didn't want to do the hardcore tour all the time road life. And they did for the first year, it was really, really rough on their families and their careers. And they decided we've got to put family first, so we need to kind of come up with this brand identity. What is it? Who are we? And they decided the thing that we love is making music videos that uplift and inspire people. So that kind of became their mission statement, create music and videos to uplift and inspire people. That was something they could get behind, they could feel good about. And it also kind of helped direct what kind of music they would cover and what songs they would write.

Frank Nelson:
So having that in mind really kind of started to shape The Piano Guys, their brand identity, which is huge. Another thing that they did was they were constantly staying educated on YouTube. Now, there wasn't really like a course in college on YouTube, but I'm telling you, Paul has what I would call a YouTube doctorates degree. He would spend hundreds of hours watching other people's videos. He would call them up, he would talk to people, finding mentors, just other people that were in the field. And there were a lot of YouTubers that were more than happy to answer questions. And some of them would say, "Why are you calling me? You actually have a bigger channel." And he was like, "Because I want to keep growing it, right?" It's like, if you want to grow a tree, you're going to feed it, you're going to water it.

Frank Nelson:
And It was really cool. He had a handful of friends that really helped him out. So I would say building that brand identity, making a mission statement, whatever works for you and your band, that's going to work, but stick with it because that shapes who you are.

Michael Walker:
Leading up to this interview, I went to your guys' website and looked at it. And the brand identity is just so strong, and the values are right there front and center. That's something that really stuck out. And I'm actually personally working on a new music project right now, and you guys were a role model for us in cultivating our own brand identity and some of those principles. So one of the things we did on our last meeting on Sunday was we actually wrote down a bunch of core values. And I've done this for Modern Musician too, but it was something that is so front and center. And you can tell that that's something that is really at the roots of what the piano guys have built. So that's awesome to hear that, that was one of the first things that they really were able to dig inside and establish who are we and how do we want to impact people?

Frank Nelson:
Cool. Yeah, that's awesome. That's really cool that actually you caught and you're implementing that. So the other note was just getting educated. It doesn't have to be a formal education, but get educated. This is me right now is this the, [inaudible 00:11:49]. I'm sure probably everybody's read that book except for me, I'm getting there guys. But just on the music business, knowing everything about it, there's just a lot of insight in there talking to people that have been in the business, right? You're going to want to find out pitfalls, things that other people struggled with. They say a smart man learns from his own mistakes but a wise man learns from the mistakes of others, right? So learn from others.

Michael Walker:
So good.

Frank Nelson:
And then finding a mentor, right? Like how Paul found these mentors on YouTube, find somebody that you trust that's already successful that's willing to talk to you. And if they're not, keep looking, keep knocking on doors, there's going to be somebody that will sit down and say, "Hey, you know what? I like your style. I like what you're doing. Let's talk." So always find a mentor. But that being said always mentor others, because there's always others looking for a mentor. Right? And you can learn from anybody, you can learn like when Paul found this other YouTuber that was like, "Why are you talking to me? You have a bigger channel." Right? You can learn even from those you mentor, so I would say that's another big key is the education and finding a mentor.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. I was just going to say that's something that is a common pattern I see reflected across all my mentors and all the people that I see having the most success is that they all have this common theme of really valuing their own education and growing and being humble and being willing to learn and continually learning, finding mentors. And even in every blockbuster story, in every quote-unquote hero's journey there's always that kind of mentor, that wise like Yoda or the Dumbledore, there's that character.

Frank Nelson:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
And I think the reason there's that character is because it's so true in our own human perspective is that having a mentor is incredibly important. And it's kind of like Abraham Lincoln, his quote about sharpening the saw, if you give them three hours to cut down a tree, he's going to spend the first two hours sharpening the saw.

Michael Walker:
And I think that's one of the benefits of having a mentor is that you could go and you could figure all of this stuff out yourself and you absolutely can, but it's really a shortcut, it's going to save a lot of time and energy and just make it so much easier to get to your destination if you have some sort of map in order to get there. So yeah, that's awesome, that sounds like that was really a part of the core of The Piano Guys success as well was just being open-minded and always continually learning and finding mentors.

Frank Nelson:
Yeah, absolutely. And then one thing that I've noticed about music writing, just kind of jumping into the next note that I had in my head was I watched the guys write the music and it's funny, they have something they call chills up. It's funny, but it's a term they use all the time, it's like if you're watching a horror movie and you get that chills down your spine kind of a feeling like, "Oh no." It's the opposite of that. It's when you're writing something and you get this chills up your spine, just from the base of your spine all the way to the tip of your head. And you're like, "Oh my gosh, this is it. Right?"

Frank Nelson:
And I don't write music, but I've been in the room during the creation process and I can feel it too. Like everybody is just like, "Okay, this, this is it." I remember being on a tour bus and Al had just finished mixing something and he puts these headphones on my head and it says, "Tell me what you think." I just closed my eyes and I was listening to Limitless for the first time, the song Limitless. And I just felt like I was just on this bike trail, I love to bike. I was just having this bike trail, just cruising, it took me through a journey. I was completely elevated, I was taken out of where I was sitting in this cramped tour bus cruising down the Highway. And I was just on this trip, on this journey. And after I listened to it, I was like, "That was just the most elevating song I've listened to." And he was like, "Awesome, right?" I was like, "It was chills up."

Frank Nelson:
And that's that chills up. And the reason I mentioned this is what I've discovered from the guys is that they try to write music that's from the soul. Now they don't have lyrics to most of their songs, it's instrumental, but still they write from the soul. They write something that moves them. And I would say that I would attribute that to a lot of their success of their music. Your YouTube channel will get you so far, but the music is the core of it. It has to absolutely be the epicenter of being a musician. If you want to be successful on YouTube or whatnot, it's got to be about the music and you want your music to be astounding. It absolutely has to be chills up. It's got to be something that moves you, if it doesn't, it's not going to move others.

Frank Nelson:
And so I've seen that again and again with the guys, they'll hash something out, sometimes they'll spend way too long, writing a song, but they work on it until it's chills up. So that was the last note I noticed what I would attribute to the success of The Piano Guys from my experience.

Michael Walker:
What's up guys. So quick intermission from the podcast so I can tell you about an awesome free gift that I have for you. I wanted to share something that's not normally available to the public. They are normally reserved for our $5000 clients that we work with personally. This is a presentation called Six Steps To Explode Your Fanbase and Make A Profit With Your Music Online. And specifically, we're going to walk through how to build a paid traffic and automated funnel that's going to allow you to grow your fan base online. And the system is designed to get you to your first $5000 a month with your music. We've invested over $130000 in the past year to test out different traffic sources and different offers, and really see what's working best right now for musicians. And so I think it's going to be hugely valuable for you.

Michael Walker:
And so if that's something you're interested in, in the description, there should be a little link that you can click on to go get that. And the other thing I wanted to mention is if you want to do us a huge favor, one thing that really makes a big difference early on when you're creating new podcast is if people click subscribe, then it basically lets the algorithm know that this is something that's new and noteworthy and that people actually want to hear. And so that'll help us reach a lot more people. So if you're getting value from this and you get value from the free trainings, then if you want do us a favor, I'd really appreciate you clicking the subscribe button. All right, let's get back to the podcast.

Michael Walker:
Oh, I love that man. Chills up. I've never heard that before, but it's funny literally, as you were describing chills up, I got goosebumps. I felt the chills and it's something I've noticed, I actually looked it up because I was like, I get like goosebumps a lot when I'm having conversations with people who say something that just rings true, there's just like this resonance to it and I'm just like, like, "Oh man, like I felt that, I got goosebumps." And apparently there's a word, a French word called frisson, which is like musical chills. And it is basically describing what you're talking about, like chills up. And sometimes it happens when you're listening to like a song or something hits you, it's just so beautiful. It's just like goosebumps or chills up. And for me it's become like a gut indicator where usually when I'm having conversation with someone and I get the chills up experience or I get goosebumps, I'm like, "Okay, there's some magic happening here." Or there's something good happening here.

Michael Walker:
So what a great reminder too, for anyone who's listening to this right now as a musician there's an internal and everyone probably has the experience, right? Like if you're a musician growing up, listening to songs, like you've had songs just resonate to your core. And there's something about that that's like, it gives you the goosebumps and that's great to use as a mechanism to say, is that happening? Is this magical? Do I feel that enthusiasm, that movement, is it coming from my soul as a way to determine a kind of course correct. And see, are we on the right track here? So I feel like we can just end the interview right now and I've got like three major gold nuggets to put in the arsenal. But one thing I guess I'd be curious to dig a little bit into is, like with every journey there's, there's always ups and downs and the challenges. And so I guess I'm kind of curious, what are some of the biggest challenges that The Piano Guys struggled with when they were getting started?

Frank Nelson:
Yeah. So the first one I kind of alluded to a little bit, The Piano Store, right? When Paul had that store and they were making more videos than they were selling pianos, there became a little bit of a financial crux at that point where it's like, he's got all this inventory in the store and he's paying money to make videos, but money wasn't coming in yet. So there was this huge moment of faith. And I do remember that was that point where the guys were like do we bag it or do we keep going forward with it? And it was a huge leap of faith to say, let's move forward with this and leave what's comfortable and what's protected behind. So sometimes you do have to step out into the unknown. You have to step out to a point where it's uncomfortable.

Frank Nelson:
I'm trying to remember who said it, but the man who chases two rabbits catches neither one of them, right? And it's really hard to have that day job and then to try to advance this music career, at some point you're going to have to take that leap of faith. And I saw that when I was with them. The other point that I touched on was that first year with Sony and touring all the time being gone 300 days the first year. And just having that strain on their family. That's when they had to make the number that other course correction was, success can't ruin our family. And there's a quote that Steve uses all the time, and he says that, "No amount of success will ever compensate for the failure in the home." And so he's like, absolutely, we've got to be dads, we've got to be husbands and we've got to be successful in our families, or what are we doing here?

Frank Nelson:
So you have to remember that, although the music career is super important, so is your family, right? And your personal life, you have to make sure that doesn't pay the ultimate price or take the toll for it. But that was a big course correction, where they had a start, they sat down with their wives and they were like, "How long can we be gone at a time? What's comfortable for everybody?" They had a big meeting and they decided that two to three weeks on the road and then three to four weeks off was a good mix. And they were able to kind of correct that, that was a big course correction.

Frank Nelson:
Those are the major ones that I've seen. And then there's been just a little hiccups of the road life. Just the latest thing they did was on tour in 2019, they had two staple songs that were always in every show. One was Ants Marching, and the other one was What Makes You Beautiful? And it's all four guys playing around the piano at the same time.

Michael Walker:
When you say Ants Marching, are you talking about like, "The ants go marching one by one?"

Frank Nelson:
Dave Matthews.

Michael Walker:
Hurrah.

Frank Nelson:
Yeah, it's Dave Matthews with that. So it was pretty cool, but they realized, they're like, we have the four of us touring all the time and two of us are only in two songs. And it was a hard move to make, to say, what if we divide and conquer? And so the other two guys will continue to write music while John and Steve, the pianist and the cellist continue to tour, and then they just swap out those two songs and putting something else in the repertoire. I mean, they'd been playing those for four to five years. So although they were kind of staples, they needed to move those, but that was a hard decision to make. That was a real several meetings sit down and like, "Hey is this the right move?"

Frank Nelson:
But to divide and conquer was probably one of the most brilliant things they did because then they'd get off tour. And rather than being like, "Okay, we need to like jump right back into the studio and start recording." They would come back in and it would be like, "Hey guys, this is kind of what we're working on. Let's what you think. Maybe throw in a piano part here, and a cello part here, and let us know if we're wrong." And it was a way to just kind of step back into the studio and sort of pick up and continue, take the Baton and continue what the other guys were doing.

Frank Nelson:
And that was, I would say it was inspired for sure. And incidentally Paul at the time was having back issues, so tour was just really rough. It was really hard on him traveling down the road with his back issues. So yeah, so he could go back and start putting together the next production for the next video, Al would go back to the studio and start working on the next mix, get some ideas, or he would just continue finishing tracks. He's the studio engineer, but he plays like every instrument under the sun. I'm sure a lot of people listening to this are in the same boat, but that was, I would say that was the most recent and probably one of the most supporting decisions they made was to divide and conquer, to continue to move the career forward without burning themselves out.

Michael Walker:
One thing that really sticks out as you just share their story is that it sounds like the communication between the band members is really strong. Very on the same page, the fact that, every organization, every group, every band has big decisions and turning points and disagreements and things to discuss. And it sounds like through that entire journey, one of the guys strength was it was really coming together and being able to get on the same page, both in terms of with their families and wives, and making sure that everything was aligned, but also in terms of making these decisions.

Michael Walker:
And that's something I hear a lot with bands sometimes struggling with having one or two members who are kind of serious or doing like most of the heavy lifting. And then disagreements or not being fully aligned. And it does kind of stand out that it sounds like all of the guys really got together and worked inwardly and really figured out the brand identity and the vision and are making these big decisions together. That's awesome.

Michael Walker:
So one thing, we briefly talked about this last time we talked about that, that this was a really valuable thing to be discussed a little bit is around kind of those early stages. It's easy after you reach the stage of success you guys are at now where it's just like, who you are speaks so loudly that, what was the quote? Was it Emerson or something like, "Who you are speaks so loudly that I can't hear what you're saying." But like the proof is in, you guys, there's so much success. And now it's very apparent outwardly, but early on, before that existed, before the success came I think that in the early stages, there's this almost precarious or kind of this seed that starts to sprout in the ground. And it hasn't built up into a formidable tree yet, and so it's really gentle and it's kind of fragile.

Michael Walker:
And what was your experience like in terms of the guys's mindsets, early on was there ever anything that they needed that they struggled with in terms of self doubt or self worth or value, or whether they were good enough or what was your experience with them as they've gone from before the success, along the path to building the outward success?

Frank Nelson:
I would say that that still exists to a degree. I mean, I'm sure it's hard to ever wrap your head around how others see you, right? And it's funny every once in a while in a meeting, we'll actually, one of our team members will just be like, "You're The Piano Guys, right? Inherently, you don't need to doubt so much about what others are going to think." But just as important, I think as self-doubt about what others might think, and about whether or not others really care. And I think that's why sometimes touring is super important because you get immediate feedback, right? You're getting that feedback from the show, but just as important is to not take yourself too serious. And I think the guys do a really good job about that, is they're pretty humble guys. They'll talk to anybody, they're really down to earth and they never seem to take themselves too serious, and they'll still joke all the time.

Frank Nelson:
Somebody once asked me in a meet and greet, I was checking people's passes at a meet and greet and letting them in. And they were just like, "Oh my gosh, these guys are so funny and they're so excited all the time. It must be great to spend time with them." I'm like, "Sometimes it's exhausting, because they're really like that." They're really like that, you get on the bus and they don't stop. They're just funny guys. So they just don't take themselves too serious. And I think that's kind of what helps that stage chemistry of them just being, like a lot of people think they're going to a classical show and they're disappointed, but they're, they're funny there's a lot of comedy to it.

Frank Nelson:
And within the first few songs, it's pretty funny. They have quite the comic routine, but it's because they're genuine and they're just down to earth, and they don't mind the self-deprecating humor, and it's just, they're funny guys. But I think that's important to not take yourself too serious, but at the same time, you do need to have that confidence to realize that others to take you serious. So that is a bit of a juggling act to see the guys play.

Michael Walker:
That is really good and I think you're right, there is sort of a bit of a paradox in there, but I think it's, it's also really important to realize the balance act of not caring versus caring, like ultimately you care a lot, but also at the same time, you don't necessarily derive your ego or your entire sense of self from the thing. It kind of reminds me of the paradox of being comfortable with being uncomfortable in a sense, how that sort of like a magic thing, if you're able become comfortable with being uncomfortable. And one thing that kind of speaks to that was earlier on when you said there was kind of that moment where they had to step into the unknown and it was scary. And I think that it takes a lot of courage and a lot of character and a lot of a deep, deep sense of confidence and something in your vision or in something bigger than yourself in order to take a step like that.

Michael Walker:
It is really interesting kind of that balance between really caring and putting as much into it as possible, but also having a humbleness and having a sense of awareness to be able to kind of detach from it and not necessarily derive your ultimate identity from that thing. So for anyone who's listening to this right now, we have a variety of, of people nodding and people who are just starting out who, you know, they've started to like kind of build their careers and hone their craft. And I think that for them, in a lot of cases, it is sort of this fear of am I good enough? And who's going to care about my music? How do I get people aside from just friends and family to care? Am I good enough?

Michael Walker:
And then also we have people who are going to be listening to this, who they've already built an established audience, and they're doing incredible things and they're just looking for ideas and ways to kind of reach the next level, but also can appreciate the fundamentals, the core things that lead to that. But do you have any final kind of parting words of advice, maybe for someone who is listening to this right now, in terms of what we talked about with the self-worth and just like who will care and having value and anything to speak to from that?

Frank Nelson:
Yeah, absolutely. The most important thing is that you care, right? When you ask who'll care, I mean, there's you and there's God, and that's really kind of all that matters, right? I mean, you care and remember that, and others will care too, as long as you care. But I'm telling you, man, people care, they really do. All you have to do is just like, seriously, you can go to the mailbox and just talk to whoever's at the mailbox cluster. And you're going to make friends with them, people really care, but they don't really care about you and your business and your success, they care about you as individuals. And just always remember that, we are our own worst enemies, self-doubt will inevitably kind of crowd our mind kind of like weeds in the yard. But if you just keep plucking those out and moving forward and just saying, you know what? I am good enough, and I do care.

Frank Nelson:
I want to give you just a tiny partying story, just to kind of support a few things. Finding a mentor will help with caring. Okay, that's going to help you. And I'll tell you kind of a quick, funny story, a little bit of my background. When I worked for The Piano Guys as their delivery guy, that was my part-time gig. I was a manager for a fortune 500 company. I did that for 14 years. And when Paul asked if I could join their team as a tour manager, I said, sure. And he was like, "Well, how are you going to learn the job?" And I said, "Well, the company I work at, they moved me, from area to area. And I'll look and I'll find whoever's the best in that area. And I'll study with them for two weeks. I'll just pick their brain and write everything down. I'm going to reread it, and I'm just going to constantly come up with questions. And then I know the job."

Frank Nelson:
And he was like, "Do you think you can [inaudible 00:32:57] tour management?" Oh man, I was way over confident. I'll tell you what, not as humble as the guys are. I was like, "Yeah, I can do it." So I bugged the industry, I talked to our general manager and I said, "Hey, who's the best tour manager in the industry?" And he hooked me up with a guy that had been a TM for AWOL and Cheech and Chong, and now works for Disney, and worked with him for two weeks, hired him to help me for two weeks. And it was like drinking water through a fire hose. It was kind of hard to grasp, I didn't really even know the music business.

Frank Nelson:
So then I would just go to venues and I would just, even in my area and just start asking people, "Hey who's who's the production manager here? Can I just hang out for a day and just tell me what that is in the sky." Right? Like, just tell me what all this, just learning the terminology and then just I had to be super vulnerable to the first promoter I ever talked to when I was advancing a show, I just said, "Okay, I know nothing about this." And she was this great lady that actually had been promoting for so long. She's just like, "I love that you don't know anything about this and that you're telling me that." She was like, "Let's talk."

Frank Nelson:
And then I stayed in communication with her probably longer than I did the tour manager that I hired, for like two or three weeks later, I was constantly emailing her or calling and asking questions. And she was just so quick to give me feedback. And I really appreciated that so much. And then when I found somebody else that I thought was doing better than me, again, I just started asking them.

Frank Nelson:
And that helped build my self worth, my self confidence, because I went through that. I was screaming in my head for a second, oh no, what am I doing? Like I went from a job that I knew so well for 14 and a half years to tour managing and I don't know this. But I've been helping others along the way since then and that will also help you with your self worth and who cares is when you're mentoring others, because they care. They're like, teach me everything you got. There's always somebody that knows more than you, there's always somebody that knows less than you. So those two things will help keep you centered where you don't feel so much like a failure and you're waiting for somebody to discover it. Right? But it will help you to realize that people care. Sorry, long answer.

Michael Walker:
It's so good. It's so good. I wish that I had a mic in my hand right now I could just drop. It's just fantastic. Well, hey Frank, thank you so much taking the time to be here. And it's such a great, like I was saying with that quote earlier, who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying. Everything I'm seeing from you and your camp is just like so much humility and also like continually learning, like the way that we got in touch, the fact that you were on one of our training presentations and reached out to me and I was like, "Whoa, like he's reached out to, The Piano Guys, they're massive." You guys are doing incredible thing. So it's awesome to talk with you and to, and thank you so much for, for sharing this to help the people who are also in the audience.

Frank Nelson:
Yeah. Appreciate your time Michael, thank you so much.

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