Kristen Mirelle:
Every artist has a story, whether it has to do with just their life, or has to do with their music. And it's thinking about things that appeal to people's emotions, right? And it can make people mad, that's fine. It could inspire people, it could make people feel like laugh. It can use comedy, it can do something like that. It can be sexy, just anything that's going to elicit some sort of emotion. But I have found that, that has been the just biggest connector to everyone, media, fans, just about everything. And so it's like looking back at what are some of those things that are going to make people connect with me.

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 really excited to be here with Kristine Mirelle today. Kristine is an independent artist-

Kristen Mirelle:
Hey there.

Michael Walker:
Hey, Kristine. So she made it into the top 10 finalists on the hit show, The X Factor. She performed on major commercials for Mercedes Benz, Heineken, performed the national anthem at the LA Dodgers stadium, been featured on media outlets like Fox, NBC, CW, Maxim. And really what we wanted to focus on today is her method for one, as an artist, creating your story, honing in on how do you communicate that in a way that's compelling, that really allows someone who's a relatively normal person to be able to get featured on media outlets on Fox, and NBC, and to be able to have these opportunities to get a lot of exposure for being yourself and knowing how to frame your story. So, Kristine, I'm really excited to talk today and thanks for taking the time to be here.

Kristen Mirelle:
Yeah, thank you for having me on here. I'm excited to talk about this.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, you got it. And I remember, so we met for the first time a couple of weeks ago and we talked for probably about 15 minutes, we kicked out at the beginning about Elon Musk and see, I've got this outer space kind of set up here. So I have a feeling that we're probably going to dig into some tangents on the call today, in the best possible way. But we'll try to hold ourselves back and keep things on focus. So, Kristine, I'd love to hear just a little bit about your story and how you kind of got to this point and how you accomplished some of those things that we just talked about.

Kristen Mirelle:
Yeah, I think a lot of musicians, they're kind of in this mentality that they're waiting for someone to discover them, or waiting for someone to reach out to them, to include them on whether it be the news, or whether it be blogs or magazines, and that sort of thing. But where I come from, I come from a really small town in New Mexico, where there was like 8,000 people. I didn't know anybody in the music industry, I didn't have any resources, I didn't know anyone that even made a living from music or any of that sort of thing. So I had to really just kind of experiment with figuring out how to get some exposure to my music. And at the time, oh my God, I'm going to date myself, there wasn't a whole lot of internet stuff. Even going through school, there wasn't social media and that sort of thing. So I had to get real creative with figuring out how to even get my name out there, or to get my music heard, or to start doing shows and that sort of thing.

Kristen Mirelle:
And so going back to where a lot of musicians kind of going to in this mentality where they sit around and wait. I loved music so much, and I knew that I didn't want to do anything else, that I was like, "I got to figure this out. I got to figure this out now." And so I went out and I was really proactive. And I think that's really the big difference in what helped me to get on these major networks, is that I reached out to them. They didn't reach out to me. Almost none of them actually did. I reached out to plenty of people, and a lot of people go, "How do you do that?" And it's like a lot of it's just asking questions. A big thing for me is, ask questions as a musician. And as I grew up, and we didn't have resources or even money to record, or just all the opportunities that maybe some people have, or even living in a big city, the opportunities you have to get exposure.

Kristen Mirelle:
I didn't have those things, so I had to ask a lot of questions. How do I get heard? How do I get my music on the radio? How do I get on podcasts? How do I get on TV? So I asked a lot of questions. I didn't have any pride when it came to that. And I think a lot musicians are like, "No, I got to look like I made it big right out the bat. People don't know about me. I'm the next big thing," or whatever. And that could very well be true, but if you're not proactive in your career, it's really hard to build it. And that's really the difference because there's a million talented people out there, more talented than me and less talented than me. But everyone has the opportunity to get on media, to get published, to get in magazines, to be in blogs and websites, and that sort of thing if they just kind of know the process of how to do it.

Michael Walker:
That's so good, that's so good. Asking questions versus just talking about yourself, or kind of amping yourself up is just yeah, that's really powerful. Now if I remember right, part of your story was that you literally went door-to-door and met people and sharing your music, right?

Kristen Mirelle:
Yeah, that was a big part of my career, and I think, also what built my resiliency. Everyone could be like, "No, I hate you, you suck." And I'm like, "All right, next person." So when I was younger, I actually started when I was 10. So I used to just sell random things, going door-to-door because I wanted to be able to afford certain types of clothing and just have my own money. And so once I got older, when I was about 16, or 17, I recorded my first album in a closet on this like little rinky-dink recorder. It was one of those things where you can buy like a studio in a box, and it's like $300 for the whole thing. So I recorded the album and then I duplicated, burned the CDs, and then I would knock on people's doors.

Kristen Mirelle:
So I would literally just knock on people's doors, and introduce myself and be like, "Hey, I'm Kristine. I'm a singer, just trying to chase my dreams. I was wondering if you'd be interested in buying a CD." And through this, I networked with a lot of people, I met a lot of people. But to be honest, nine out of 10 people, they hated that I was knocking on their door. I'm a door-to-door salesman, nobody likes door-to-door salesmen. And so people would slam doors in my face, I got chased by dogs. I had just a bunch of really weird experiences, people yelling at me because I woke up their children or whatever. But one in 10 would say yes. And so I kind of did the math. I'm like, "Okay, well if I can knock on 100 doors a day, then I can sell 10 CDs."

Kristen Mirelle:
And I was selling each CD for $10. So I was like, "Okay, I can make $100 a day. I can live off of that. I can survive." So, that's what I did.So I kind of did the math, and I kind of kept that mentality as I continued on in my career. I was like, "Okay, if I can ask 10 outlets, or if I can 10 producers to collaborate, or if I can ask 10 song writers, one person is bound to say yes." And I think a lot of people stop at like two or three. And again, going back to that pride thing, where you just don't want to hear no, you don't want to be told that you can't, that someone doesn't want to work with you because that hurts a little bit. But for me, I was like, "All right, next one, next one, next one. It's just a matter of time before someone says yes."

Michael Walker:
That's so good, that's so powerful too. And great way to look at it in terms of acknowledging and realizing that when you ask for something, that it's okay if people say no. But doing the math and knowing one out of 10 people you reach out to, hearing back, that's amazing. And also, well one, it kind of reminds me of our story with tour hacking and meeting people and how I was a super shy, awkward kid and it didn't come naturally at all. But there is a certain sense of willingness to face rejection and to be okay with that. And I think you're right, that one thing that it seems like holds back a lot of people and a lot of musicians is a fear of asking because they don't want to be rejected or they don't want someone to say no, or to not like them.

Michael Walker:
And it just is so much easier when you acknowledge like yeah, not everyone's going to say yes. But if you don't ask, then that means that there's going to be no one. And so there is a lot of power in asking. Awesome. So I know that you've worked with a lot of musicians at this point and you have a lot of experience with telling your story, and getting placements on these different media outlets in the art of asking. I'm curious what you've noticed have been some of the biggest challenges or mistakes that the artists are struggling with when they first start working with you?

Kristen Mirelle:
Before they reach out to media outlets, that's the biggest thing, is having a story. And most people think that the music itself is a story, right? Because I work mostly with people who already have music. So by the time I start working one-on-one with people, they already have music, they already have a single, or a music video, or a album, and that sort of thing. So they're at that point, and they think, "Okay, now that I have an album, I just need to reach out to these people," if they're even at that point where they're even being proactive, if they've gotten to that point or they're still in the mental state where they think that they have to wait for media outlets to reach out to them.

Kristen Mirelle:
But let's say they've watched some of my videos and they're like, "Yeah. Yeah, Kristine says we can reach out and be proactive." But there's a whole process beforehand, that they have to get ready for because there has to be something to present to the media outlets. Calling them up and saying, "I have the next hit song that everybody's going to love. It's such a great song." It's not a story, and that's the big thing is we have to create something that's media worthy because we're not talking about just getting a song played on the radio.

Kristen Mirelle:
We're talking about how I mentioned earlier, or how you were mentioning earlier, how I've gotten on Fox, and NBC, and CBS, and all these things. This was before, and a lot of people think, "Well, you were on X Factor, so of course you got on that." I got on all of that before I was on X Factor. Before I was on any of those things, I was already doing hundreds of shows and all kinds of cool stuff. But that was based on this process that I always give to artists. And really, it's when you start thinking about television and when you start thinking about when people have options to change the channel, what's going to keep a viewer watching you? Is it going to be, "Oh wow, they can sing pretty good,"? That might, but they have a million other things that they can look at.

Kristen Mirelle:
So if you ever watch American Idol or The Voice, there's always this story. American Idols like the triumphant single dad that just got back from Iraq and there's just all these things. And he could be just as talented, or less talented, or more talented than the next person. But because he has this awesome story, everyone wants to watch. And the TV show wants to include him. So what's important mostly is, most artists don't think about what makes them newsworthy. And I don't care where anyone's from, or what their background is, everyone has something interesting about them. So for me, when I reach out to media outlets, one good story is that I went door-to-door. People love that, especially if it's like a podcast about the grind of the music industry, and hustling, and that sort of thing. They're going to love that I did that because that's not normal for a female and it's mostly rappers that sell their music out of the trunk.

Kristen Mirelle:
So that's a really great story, or that I'm a single mom, and I'm still doing music despite COVID. That's a story, or hey, I recorded an album in a van when I was living in a van. That's a story. And then people want to hear the music. But the story isn't Bob Smith releases a new album, that's not a story. And so that's really the biggest change I think, is people have to get into this mentality of, I am an entertainer, I'm not just a musician, I'm not just a song writer, I'm not just a creative. I'm also an entertainer. Now, if you don't want to be on TV, you don't want to be doing those things, then you don't have to worry about that kind of stuff. But I think most of us, we're spending so much time creating our music, we spend so much time to perfect our craft, we want people to hear it.

Kristen Mirelle:
And sharing our story is really great and how we pair it with certain media outlets. Like maybe if there's a particular news media outlet that's always talking about COVID for example, that's a big relevant thing right now, at the time of this podcast, right? So I had a student who went through my training, and within a week he got on CW. And what he did was, he talked about how despite COVID, he was still making music. But he was also donating masks to the hospitals. So that was a big thing, CW wanted to say, "This musician's out of a job, he's out of work, but he's making music and donating masks to the local hospital." It's relevant to what's going on right now, and it's a story. So it's pairing that up with the right media outlets, the right story, at the right time. I think that's the biggest challenge, getting in that mentality.

Michael Walker:
That's so good. And you're totally right, that yeah, it seems like on all the game shows, that a huge part of it is telling their back story and being able to relate with those people. So I guess one thing I'd be curious to dig into, is what you've noticed in terms of the most compelling stories. What are the elements, or what makes a story compelling for musicians? And also, do you ever recommend that the artists, that they kind of proactively do things, or they create things that become stories, or does it have to kind of come from something they've already done, or what are your thoughts about that?

Kristen Mirelle:
So yes, they can do both, which is great. I do a lot of both. I plan things ahead of time, knowing that I could then get media from it. So that's a really great way to just ensure that you are going to get media because if not, there's two things that you're either going to have to do, you're either going to have to spend a lot of money to get on these media outlets, or you can have a really great story and not have to spend a lot of money. So for me, I'm like, "I don't really want to spend a lot of money." So it's coming up with a great story.

Kristen Mirelle:
In terms of elements, what they want is, as an artist, you need to kind of take a look at your life. Whether it be a story of your life, and it doesn't even always have to do with music. It could be that you were born on a kitchen table in the middle of a cabin, in the mountains. That's a pretty cool thing, and for us, we didn't have cable, and we didn't have a lot of things. All I had was a piano, so I had to play piano all day. I worked in a tortilla factory growing up. All this is really funny stuff that we can talk about.

Michael Walker:
You probably made the tortillas, the peanut butter tortillas that my band made when we were living in our van and eating peanut butter plus tortillas every meal. That probably came from you, wow.

Kristen Mirelle:
I was the one making them and selling them, door-to-door. So it's really coming up with a few things. Every artist has a story, whether it has to do with just their life, or has to do with their music. And it's thinking about things that appeal to people's emotions, right? It can make people mad, that's fine. It could inspire people, it could make people feel like laugh, it can use comedy, it can do something like that. It can be sexy, just anything that's going to elicit something sort of emotion. And especially like I think a lot of people do get scared to be transparent, to be transparent about their life, or be transparent about the struggles they've been through.

Kristen Mirelle:
But I have found that, that has been the just biggest connector to everyone, media, fans, just about everything. If you wrote a song because your aunt was passing away and this was her last wish of you, "Hey, sweetie, I want you to go pursue your dreams." That's the story, because there's going to be a lot of people out there that are going to relate. They're going to go, Man..." And the story may not be about music, but in they could in their hearts go, "Well my grandfather always wanted me to pursue my carpentry," or whatever it is. They're going to relate in different ways, by you sharing that, by you sharing those things that maybe sometimes you're not always comfortable to share.

Kristen Mirelle:
And so it's like looking back at what are some of those things that are going to make people connect with me? Inspirational stories. You find a lot of that on American Idol and that sort of thing. Where a lot of it's like, "So and so drove across the country." What was it, Anastasia? I remember when she went, she had like no money, but she got in her car and she drove across the country. And she had gone through, I think, it was like physical abuse and all kinds of stuff. That was her story. And so every episode, they dig a little deeper into her background. So it's like figuring out what is it about your story?

Kristen Mirelle:
And I remember reading, I don't know if you remember Marilyn Manson, and this was something that they did. This was all PR. His team set up a anti-Marilyn Manson campaign and it was them. And they created this anti-Marilyn Manson campaign. And when he would show into cities for concerts, they already had this whole community of people that hated him. And they would post stuff like, "He supports killing puppies on the highway." I don't know what it was, but it was just ridiculous stuff. And that was something that made people angry, but it worked for him. Now, I'm not saying you'd have to come up with something that's going to really be that crazy. But that's a really extreme example.

Michael Walker:
Okay. Yeah, that's a story that you don't necessarily want to make come true.

Kristen Mirelle:
Yeah, that's a really extreme example.

Michael Walker:
Killing puppies, oh, it's so sad.

Kristen Mirelle:
I know. But that was what they used. They just came up with these. And they weren't even real stories, that wasn't even real. They weren't doing anything like that. But just coming up with things that made people go, "Oh, that makes me mad." But then there's also the, if you watched American Idol, there's the, "So and so just leaked sexy photos out of her phone." And now everybody's like, "Oh my God, there's these lingerie photos of such and such, an American Idol artist." That's a story and she may have leaked those herself, someone may have grabbed them. My guess is, either way, it doesn't really matter, but it's a story. And then it leads into music and that's what I'm saying, it doesn't always have to do with music. Now, those are kind of more on the controversial.

Kristen Mirelle:
On the inspirational side, that's a huge one, like I mentioned earlier. A single father, a person who grew up with nothing. For me, I always tell my story of how I went door-to-door, how I used to burritos. I used to sell cappuccinos, I used to sell caramel apple suckers, chocolate. I would skip school and I would go sell clocks and I would buy things from The Dollar Store and they would give it to me at cost. So I would buy about 50 cents for candles and I would go sell them for $5. And then I'd use that money to buy me a piano, and then to record my album. So something like that's really inspiring. And then there's also the very interesting things, like I mentioned, "Hey, you recorded your album in a van, or you recorded your album while you were on tour, couch surfing, sleeping on stranger's couches." That's all a story.

Kristen Mirelle:
So I did a 25 city tour, where I did a lot of charity. I was performing for students in the day, like kids and that sort of thing. And it was kind of like a motivational concert, where I would talk to them about following their dreams and then also would perform for them. And then at night, I would perform at like casinos and that type of thing, to help pay for the tour because it's expensive obviously, and I went all around the United States. Now, that was a story, I have this thing for children, I love working with children. But also, on a business aspect, looking at it aside from that, I thought, "Okay, if I reach out to all these local media outlets where I'm going, they're going to want me to be on their show." That was one of the ways that I got on like Fox, and NBC, and CBS, and all those really big major networks. Is that pairing it together in the right way is such a big thing.

Kristen Mirelle:
So I'll give you an example. I'm in New Mexico right now, so if I was performing at a local school here, am I going to reach out to a media outlet in Canada, and be like, "Hey, you should cover my story, I'm performing in schools here in New Mexico,"? I could, and maybe they might want to cover that, but I have a higher probability of reaching out to the local stations here because it has to do with local news. And their local that are listening are going to want to hear about that because really, at the end of the day you're only trying to help this media outlet get great ratings. Because if they don't have ratings, they don't have a station any more. It's very expensive to have a TV station, it's very expensive to have those big antennaes, and those big satellites, and all those types of things.

Kristen Mirelle:
So they're looking for people who are going to help them get listeners or help them get viewers. So if I'm someone who's from here and I'm performing locally, they love that story. And then as I move into other places, if I go to Texas, hey, New Mexico girl comes into town to help our local children. That's a story. And so they're going to want to hear about that. And not only that, the whole time that I was doing this, I was couch surfing. So if people are not familiar with couch surfing, I wasn't staying in hotels, I wasn't doing that sort of thing. I was staying stranger's couches, sometimes sleeping on floors.

Kristen Mirelle:
So, that's a story too. Hey, girl from New Mexico sleeps on floors to be able to perform shows for our local children. And see how you can kind of pile up those elements of what you're doing, and what you're sacrificing, and what you're doing to make it happen. So I reached out in every city that I was going to, I reached out to every media outlet and I was able to get on different shows, and different podcasts, and different radio stations, and newspapers, and all those types of things, on a local level throughout the country, by doing that. By pairing my story of something that inspired the community with the community that I would be performing at during that time.

Michael Walker:
That's so smart. So a quick shout out to Couch Surfing as well. Couch Surfing is a really cool platform community, and I'm sure a lot of people listening to this right now, if you haven't heard of Couch Surfing yet, but you're an artist who wants to save money, and even like aside from just the fact that you can couch surf for free, it's a really cool way to meet people, and connect with them. And you want to make sure that you're being safe, that you kind of check into the people that you're staying with and whatnot. But it is a really cool platform, so definitely worth checking out for anyone who hasn't heard of that before. So one thing I want to ask you, if we can dig into, is so it sounds like what you're saying is that step one is really about clarifying, figuring out what is your story?

Michael Walker:
What do you have that's compelling, and especially like what is it that you have that is emotionally compelling is a great place to start. It's kind of figuring out like a story that inspires people, or that moves them in some way. It's a lot like your music, it's all about transmitting emotion. So let's say that someone has sort of dialed in and they have a story that they think would be a really good fit. It's really inspiring, it's a good fit for one of these local stations. What does your process look like in terms of actually reaching out to those people? Do they just like show up on the front door and just knock on the door, or they email them? What does your process look like in terms of starting to connect with those stations?

Kristen Mirelle:
So the main thing is coming up with a press release, that's the start. So now that you have a story, now you figured out what it is that's going to make this media outlet want to interview you or share your music. You have to present it to them in a way that they're easily able to look at it because one thing you have to keep in mind is that they're getting a ton of submissions a day. And there's plenty of people who are willing to pay. And if you're going to get on there without paying and again, they're a business, so they have to make money. They have people on payroll, they got rent, they got these big satellites, so they have a lot things they have to cover. So if you're trying to get on there without paying, then you better have a story.

Kristen Mirelle:
So if you have that, then what you need to do is you need to put together a press release and what I tell everyone, the first thing is that headline, right? You have to come up with again, that like single dad records songs in the van that him and his son are living in or so and so was born on the table in the middle of a farm, but learns ukulele because that's all he has to do. There's nothing else to do. Something like that, that's a headline. So again, where I mentioned before, Bob Smith releases an album is not a headline, unless you know them, unless it's like a Beyonce or something, people just aren't really going to pay attention and most of the people who-

Michael Walker:
I'm imagining a newspaper article, you open up the newspaper, Bob Smith releases an album. Like that would just be most boring newspaper article ever.

Kristen Mirelle:
Right, exactly. And so that headline is the most important thing. And there's also like even whenever coming up with the press releases, where you kind of have suspense, that's another type of emotion that you can elicit, like single mom only survives listening to this song. The headline doesn't say exactly, or performing at this thing, or the one thing that kept this single mom doing music and surviving during COVID, right? Something like that, right, so there's a few different elements in that. But when you put this thing, sometimes people go, "Well, I wonder what that is." If you give them something where there's no way that they can figure out what it is, right? There's no way they can figure out, they have to read the article, or they have to watch the TV show, they have to.

Kristen Mirelle:
And now that I'm telling people this, they're going to notice when they look at the news online and anything, that they're going to see a lot of those elements, that they're going to see where people put this person said a racist comment and this is how she responded. It's things like that where you go, "Oh man, I got to watch this now." And that's another big thing right now, right, with all the things that are going on with Black Lives Matter. That sort of thing is okay, there's a really great song, I was watching a commercial. I forgot her name, but called Rise Up.

Kristen Mirelle:
(singing).

Kristen Mirelle:
Sorry, I forgot how it goes. But that song has been around for a long time, but it resurfaced because it's inspiring, and emotional, and it really pertains to what's going on in the Black Lives Matter movement. So her music became relevant again even though it's been many, many years. And a lot of artists can do that too, right? They can look back at, "Hey, I have this music that would be relevant to what's going on right now." So it doesn't have to be music that you created this year, it could be music from the past, that you could just use to get in news outlets. And mainly you just need once again, step one is just getting that headline that's really solid, that makes people either want to read the article that you're trying to get published in, or watch the TV show that you're trying to get on.

Kristen Mirelle:
So that's the first thing. And usually it's good to stay under 10 words if possible because you don't want it to be too long. But that's a really good way to do it. And actually, there's these really cool, if you type in Google and go to Headline Analyser, you can actually type in headlines and it will give you a score. And it'll score you based on the words that you use, based on the emotions that they elicit. Again, if you use certain things, like just certain words that are going to anger people or things that are sexy, or things that are funny, or whatever it is, it will actually give you a score. So anybody listening, if you're wondering if your headline is good, just Google Headline Analyser and you can start putting in different ideas and it'll actually give you some advice as well on why they scored you a certain way and what you can do better, to try to score higher.

Michael Walker:
That's so cool. What an awesome, so Headline Analyser on Google. Yeah, that idea, it reminds me of the idea of kind of creating an open loop, right? So it's kind of like with the headline, you create this open loop that feels this compelling, it wants to close like our minds, we don't handle open loops very well, like there's something inside of us that wants to resolve. I use this analogy all the time, but I really like this analogy, but it's kind of like you play conflicting chords, then there's something inside of you that just doesn't sit right with it. There's this pull towards resolving it, and I think that what you're describing with creating an open loop is kind of like intentionally creating that suspense, or intentionally creating that open loop that's resolved by this beautiful story, or by this article that you're going to share. Kind of the same way with like cliffhangers with TV shows, at the end of an episode there's like and like oh, now this thing is going to happen. But it really pulls you into the next thing. Awesome.

Kristen Mirelle:
Yup. Yeah.

Michael Walker:
One thing I want to revisit briefly is just for anyone who is listening to this right now, how do you recommend they get started kind of thinking about their stories? Do they just sit down with a blank notebook and just kind of write down and brainstorm, here's all potential story ideas based on what's emotionally driving me. What would that process look like?

Kristen Mirelle:
Yeah, that's a really great question. So yeah, when we start to write press releases that's exactly what we do. I tell everyone to either open a notebook or open Word document and start writing down things about your life that are interesting, or people that have meant something to you, or people that have inspired you because maybe sometimes I meet people that are like, you know what? I don't have any good stories about my life. I just create music and that's it. Well, I'm like what you can think about is, one, you can think about the people that have inspired you and why they've inspired you because maybe the story of your, let's say your parents, right?

Kristen Mirelle:
Let's say maybe your story, maybe there's not tons of huge elements, but let's say your parents, they are immigrants from Russia, or from other countries, or maybe they fled some sort of crazy situation out in some other country and they did something to get here and you're inspired by that, even that's a story. And so those types of things, kind of thinking about just your upbringing, the people that have inspired you, why you wrote each song. There was a gentleman who was like his best friend had cheated, or his girlfriend had cheated on him with his best friend, and that's why he wrote the song. Well, that's a really great story. Now I want to hear the song, whereas if someone was just, "Barry Smiley creates a great folk song." I don't really want to hear that.

Kristen Mirelle:
But if I know what the story's from, even if I don't particularly like the song, I'm going to listen to it because I want to hear the lyrics. Now that I know the back story, I want to listen to it. So really, it's people kind of going back to do I have anything very interesting about my childhood? Is there anything very interesting about the people who have inspired me? Is there anything interesting about how I became a song writer? A big thing for me is, I always tell everybody Jennifer Lopez changed my life because when I saw on magazines it was always white women and I'm Mexican and Latin and I never saw women in magazines. So I can talk about how she inspired me. So that would be a really great story for a Latin magazine, for a Latin outlet because they love Jennifer Lopez too.

Kristen Mirelle:
So they're going to want to talk about it, and they are probably going to geek out on Jennifer Lopez for a minute. So, that would be a really good way to reach out to that particular outlet. So you start kind of going through what is it? Is this song that I wrote, is it really interesting because the drama that went behind it? I even remember when Chris Brown and Rihanna, when there was a incident in the car, the domestic violence and all that. I remember there was a group that came out with a song that was called F Chris Brown or something. And I remember it got radio play, and I remember thinking, "This is a terrible song." It was not a good song, but it was relevant to what was happening at that time. And all I could think of is, they absolutely did create that song because what was happening. They knew that they would be able to get media, because you asked earlier, should people create something that they know is going to help them get media?

Kristen Mirelle:
Well that was something they took advantage of because otherwise, and I don't remember the group's name, but they weren't relevant, nobody knew who they were. I just remember they were on radio, and I kind of looked them up and I'm like, "I've never even heard of these people." And they got radio play. Ownership they rode that for as long as they could, so they got a little extra media because of it. So start looking at what's relevant right now as well because maybe there's not a huge story behind what you have going on, but you can create one. Like the gentleman who started donating masks to the hospitals. Now he already had been donating masks to the hospital, but that's something that you can pair with.

Kristen Mirelle:
Most artists that I meet really are charitable people, I know it's kind of just who we are, I think we're like a bunch of hippies, really. Musicians are always like, "I want to change the world with my music, and I want to donate to kids in Africa." We all want to do something amazing for the world, most of us, think. And I think charity is a really good way to do that was well. So it's like looking at like okay, here's my background, my story, all the people that have inspired me. But then what else could I do to also create a story? So you could also look at and start writing down ideas, well you know what I always wanted? I did always want to volunteer at the local Boys and Girls Club. And I have this song about believing in yourself.

Kristen Mirelle:
So maybe I'll make a dream of volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club happen and then I'll take pictures, and I'll take all kinds of video. And so I get to help these children, and that's awesome, but at the same time I have this really great story I can share with the community. I can bring more attention to my cause and my dreams of helping people, and simultaneously bring attention to my music as well because now there's this really wonderful song that I'm singing to these kids about believing in yourself, or following your dreams and that sort of thing. So kind of looking at what you already have that exists, or what you can create to create a story. I think that's what you want to do, you just want to start writing down all those things and start brainstorming.

Michael Walker:
Hello, 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 share something that's normally available to the public, they're normally reserved for our $5,000 clients we work with personally. This is a presentation called Six Steps To Explode Your Fan Base 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 to you your first $5,000 a month with your music. We've invested over $130,000 the past year to test out different traffic sources, and different offers, and really see what's working best right now for musicians.

Michael Walker:
And so I think it's going to be hugely valuable for you. So if that's something you're interested in, in the description there should be a little link that you click on to go get that. And the other thing I want 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 a 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 will 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 to do us a favor, I'd really appreciate you clicking the subscribe button. All right, let's get back to the podcast.

Michael Walker:
Awesome, awesome. Really good. And so one thing that you talked about that I think is just like a magic word is relevancy. And how if we can think about what's relevant, because I mean even something that you might not necessarily consider relevant in the sense of like news still can be relevant to a certain person. Like what you talked about with Jennifer Lopez, that's relevant to a certain type of magazine. And what it kind of reminded me of too is, and I had a hard time wrapping my head around this, when I first heard about this idea. I'm like, "Really, this is a thing?" But people recording reaction videos to popular videos, where they're just watching a viral video and just filming themselves reacting to the video.

Michael Walker:
And yeah, I think it's a great example of sort of this phenomenon of relevancy and how that's actually, because the video, this viral video is relevant. And they're adding their perspective, they're adding who they are to the thing that's happening. And they're adding their response. So one question that I have for you is in terms of things of relevancy and in terms of being more proactive about identifying the trends, the opportunities for relevancy, do you have ideas or thoughts, or strategies for figuring out what is relevant right now? What are some upcoming trends that I can just kind of keep an eye on, so I know like, "Oh, this one really speaks to me. I have something to say about this specific topic that is relevant right now in the world." Do you any sort of systems or ideas for how you would stay plugged into that kind of relevancy?

Kristen Mirelle:
Yeah, it's actually pretty simple. I mean, we all have access to social media, right? And if your target audience is social media for example, Instagram, the primary users are ages up to 35, like 18 to 35, Facebook it's a little bit older. But if you're on Instagram, let's say that's your target audience, let's say you're making pop music or something that kind of feels more towards the younger crowd. You could easily go on social media, and even if it's not, both Instagram and Facebook, people are going to be posting what's trending. You're going to see what people have ideas on, their thoughts on, you're going to see what creates a reaction, even like with the political debate.

Kristen Mirelle:
I'm sure if someone wanted to release some sort of song about something having to do with politics, they could have definitely stirred up a reaction on either side. It wouldn't matter which side they were on. They could be on the Democratic side, the Republican side, they could create a song that appeals to whatever the core beliefs are of the Democratic system right there, or the Republican. And then reach out to the outlets that tend to post more stuff based on whether you're blue or red. So something like that. I just recommend the news, and then if you are on like what is that gossip site? There's so many gossip music sites, that sort of thing as well. Like the people that saw the moment that the Chris Brown, Rihanna thing came, you know that, that group right away went and started writing music because it's a process.

Kristen Mirelle:
It takes a little while for you to be able to create the music, get it mixed and mastered, write the music, create a press release, start reaching out to different people. But just kind of looking at what's trending on Twitter, they have that option where it shows you what's trending right now. It will show you what hashtags people are using. You can take a look at it and go, "Okay, well this is trending on Twitter, people are talking about it, people are having conversations about it. Let me take a look at this and see if any of it speaks to me right now because then I'll write those things down because those are things that you can create." Or you think about do I already have a song that is relevant to what is going on and what's trending right now?

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Yeah, and that's so good. And I love the idea too of, I think that this could be taken the wrong way, or it could be overdone if someone's like I don't know, just chasing the trends and totally losing their integrity or something and just like, you're just trying to chase what's popular as opposed to having your fingers on the pulse of what's relevant right now. And really looking and seeing what speaks to me and what do I have a unique angle on for one of these things that maybe hasn't been said before, or something that a lot of people are experiencing, or they feel the same way.

Michael Walker:
But they don't necessarily have a voice, they don't have a voice to express that yet and to be able to share that. Really powerful. So you started talking about the press releases, so it sounds like next step of like you've figured out what the story is, and one thing that's really important at the press release is having really strong headline. We got that tool that you can just analyze it and make sure that it's something that creates an open loop. What other things go into that press release in order to make it a compelling press release? And what's the process for reaching out to people and actually submitting the press release?

Kristen Mirelle:
Yeah, absolutely. So after you come up with the headline and I thought about something too when we were talking about relevant. If you remember, there was a big time period when bullying was a big thing, that's a big thing too, just kind of giving people some more ideas for, happy Billy, the bullied singer overcomes depression and releases album of uplifting songs or something like that is great. But moving onto what comes next in the press release. The next paragraph or the paragraph that I would say after you have this great headline, you do want to talk about what it is that you're doing and a little bit about you.

Kristen Mirelle:
You don't want to make it a biography, you don't want to make it like, "Kristine was born at 8 o'clock on August the 15th." You don't want to make it seem like something that a lot of fans, there's a difference between writing something for fans, because they care. They care about all the little things about you. But when you are reaching out to, or you're reaching out to a media outlet and you're trying to catch the attention of the mom who's cooking dinner, and answering the phone, and doing a million things at the same time, or the kids that are watching, or the random people that are watching this news station. It has to be attention grabbing, right?

Kristen Mirelle:
And so whenever you're reaching out to these media outlets, you need for them to look at this and go, "Hey, we got 100 submissions today, but this one..." If you can tell them your story within 30 seconds and it's compelling and interesting, then you got something really great. So you want to, right away, go right into what it is that you're doing. So when I was going on tour around the country, right away, I put, "Kristine Mirelle, pop singer, pianist..." I don't remember the exact words, I'm just going to kind of paraphrase it.

Kristen Mirelle:
But it goes on, "Independent tour, 25 cities around the country to perform for children in low income communities. She's sleeping on couches to make it happen. She's been doing crowdfunding, and she's been doing all kinds of different things." So in that first paragraph I put all the compelling elements that make this interesting right away. I don't put, "I was sitting at home and I was writing my album and it took me a month to finish it." I'm going to leave all of that out because we only have a few paragraphs to really grab them. And again, there's a bunch of other people that are really trying to get that spot. And so you want to get straight to the point right away, and you don't want to use too many words that are not facts.

Kristen Mirelle:
You don't want to be like, "She's really awesome, or fantastic, or the greatest rapper in the world." Because that's not real, that's all subjective, that's all opinion. You want to just put facts. You want to put, "Performing for veterans." If you know that Memorial Day is coming up, that's a great way if you have a song about respect towards people who have made certain types of sacrifices or something. That's a really great way to then take that subject matter and put it in that first paragraph. "So and so's grandfather served in Iraq, and no so and so is performing for the troops that are coming back from Iraq."

Kristen Mirelle:
That's a really great story, and it's relevant, and it's something that people that are going to read this, it's relevant to what's coming up in the news, in the holidays coming up. So that first paragraph, you just want to go straight into elaborating on the headline. So if you had said, back to what we were talking about where if we had kind of created some suspense when we said, "This is the one thing that kept this young, struggling, homeless singer alive," or whatever. Then you could elaborate on what that one thing was, at that point you want to clarify-

Michael Walker:
Peanut butter tortillas.

Kristen Mirelle:
Yeah, exactly, peanut butter tortillas. You can put it in at that point, so then you start elaborating on and you come to that resolve that you were talking about. Like sometimes there's those chords and you're like, "Just resolve it, please, so I can feel better." And then that's basically what you're doing. So whatever you're promoting a tour, whether you're promoting an album, whether you're just sharing news about the radio play that you're getting, this is where you want to share that, or if you've collaborated with anybody, if you've collaborated with certain artists or musicians that people might recognize, or if you're giving away free music to the readers, or you have any special accomplishments, notable achievements.

Kristen Mirelle:
There's just certain things you just want to like, it has to make sense with the headline, so you don't want to just start going like, "So and so did all this and that." You want it to just make sense as a continuation from the headline. So each person in each story is going to be very different. But just start asking yourself, if you're promoting a tour, "Hey, are there any special reasons that you're visiting certain cities on your tour? Do they hold some sort of sentimental value? Did you choose randomly, by a vote on your Facebook page?" That's a story too. "Hey, my fans chose the cities that I was going to." Or just all these types of things that are going to just clarify more about the headline.

Kristen Mirelle:
And these press releases have to be very short. They're very, very short, not more than a page long and again, very straight to the point. And after that, you want to go into paragraph three and that's where you're just going to start saying a little bit more about maybe anything that's notable about what you've done. Like maybe if you're on a tour for example, you could talk about some of the previous cities, or you can even mention a story about, hey, the last city that they went to, there was a young lady for example, in one of the cities that I performed at and she was really depressed. And she came to me and she said, "I've been really thinking about suicide."

Kristen Mirelle:
And that was a really sad thing because she was only 12 years old. And she said, "And this morning I didn't want to come to school." And she said, "But I heard that you were going to be here. I heard that there was going to be a singer." And she said, "And I just feel so much better." And we connected on Instagram, we stayed in touch and everything. It was a just a really experience for me and then that was really cool for me to share that in my press release because now that also brings more attention to my cause and what I'm trying to do. So it makes people interested in what I'm doing, these media outlets might talk about it. And then at that point, it can even raise awareness about helping to continue on the tour.

Kristen Mirelle:
Let's say I'm trying to add five more cities. Well now people that were looking at my crowdfunding campaign for example go, "Wow, she's actually making a difference, let's help her continue on and make this tour continue through other cities because she's helping these children." So kind of just thinking about okay, what's already been happening, what have I already done? Do I have any radio airplay? Do I have anything that's notable, that's going to now, kind of close my press release? That's kind of what you want to do in paragraph three and then have your website, and links, and that sort of thing. Maybe even some pictures, making it look pretty nice.

Michael Walker:
That's so awesome and I love how you're such a shining example of a lot of the lessons that you're teaching right now, and being able to hear your examples, how you've implemented them and where. It's always refreshing to see someone who is leading by example and yeah, that's awesome. So last question that I have for you is just digging a little bit deeper into the process of reaching out to, like let's say you created the press release, how do you find the right person to reach out to? And what does that initial message look like in terms of that initial email, or how do you recommend reaching out?

Kristen Mirelle:
Yeah, absolutely. So there's many different ways that you can do this. The first things first is to put it in a way that they can easily look at it and have access to it. You don't want to send attachments, you don't want to make it to where they're going to have to download anything. Imagine if you were an editor and you had 100 people send you stuff where you had to download things. That would get really tiresome. So you want to send it to them in the form of like a Dropbox folder or even a webpage, maybe both. If you're not familiar with Dropbox, and I'm assuming most people are, that you can create a folder, put your press release, high resolution photos. You can also put an additional biography that maybe breaks down a little bit more about who you are if they're interested.

Kristen Mirelle:
And then you just send them the link. You can send them a link, in the Dropbox you could also have a folder that has links to the specific on SoundCloud. You might have the song that you're promoting or the album that you're promoting, or the music video that you're promoting available as a download. So then if it was like blogs or websites that you were trying to get published on, they could download that video and then upload it onto their server, upload it onto their website right away. What I will say changed everything for me, which made people say yes exponentially more, was creating a video. So I would say that a press release is great, that's how you grab their attention right away. And then when you really bring them in, is by creating a video.

Kristen Mirelle:
And I can give you the link to one that I did, and maybe you could share it maybe in the description or something, so people can take a look. But when I was setting up for my 25 city tour and this was again, it was based around charity. I mentioned that I love working with kids. I had done a lot of things around the world. I had volunteered in South Africa, and India, and a bunch of countries, Peru, and Thailand, and that sort of thing. So I had footage and photos from those things. I wanted to really touch people. And so I sat down on a chair and I put a camera in front of me, and I talked about when I five years old, when I used to watch those commercials, when I would see those children that didn't have food in Africa, and how sad it made me.

Kristen Mirelle:
I talked about my story, your story is so important, right? It's so important for you to gather people. Right away I say, "I used to watch those children and it made me sad." I used to take envelopes and put Cheetos in there and write like Africa on the envelope and put a whole bunch of stamps on there. And I'm like, "I love Cheetos, so these kids will love Cheetos too." So talking about that, and so I mentioned that, that was where it started. And then I showed some photos and videos from some of the countries that I went through. And then I said, "And this is why I am now going to do a 25 city tour around The United States. I want to work with children in schools, I want to perform for kids who normally wouldn't be able to afford to have live music. I'm doing all of these shows for free."

Kristen Mirelle:
And then I just, I go into then what I'm promoting. I don't start off right away with I'm a singer, a musician, anything like that. You can start of maybe with one line, but you want to go straight into the compelling story. And so I went into that. That was my story. And then I started sharing photos, and videos, and I had beautiful music in the background. I really created the emotion that I was trying to convey to whoever would be watching this. And then at the end, I had my call to action, right? My call to action was, go to this website so you can learn more about my tour, my cause, that sort of thing.

Kristen Mirelle:
And if someone's doing like, let's say someone's trying to bring attention to their crowdfunding campaign, that would be the call to action at the end, visit my crowdfunding campaign, where you can help me create this album, where we're donating X amount of dollars to St. Jude's Hospital or something here. And let's say it's not charity based, let's say you're raising money to finish your album, at that point, "Hey, come visit this link to help fund the album." Or, "Hey, check out this link where you'll buy tickets to my tour." Maybe you're just promoting a tour. I'm using the example because this particular tour was charity based. But people can do it for anything. They can do it for the tour that they're on, the album that they've created. Comedians can use this whole template. I mean, you can use it for absolutely anything.

Kristen Mirelle:
So having something like that first. Having that compelling story, having the ability for whatever editor, or whatever publisher is about to open your email for them to have easy access to that and a video is going to absolutely get them pulled in. And not only that, let's say you're reaching out to television, if you have shown that you're good on camera, that you speak well, that you know your stuff, whatever it is you're talking about. Then they're going to watch your video and they're going to go, "You know what? This pulled me in. So this is most likely going to pull in viewers as well." And they don't have to worry about whether you're going to freeze up on camera and that sort of thing.

Kristen Mirelle:
All that is, you're answering questions without them even having to ask. You're making it the easiest possible way for them to share your story because this is the other thing, if they're having to write a whole story on you, and having to look up your information and go to website and find interesting things. I mean, it can get very tiresome, and very time consuming. But if you've already given them the press release, you've already given them a video that answers all the questions they may have. It shows that you're personable, you're fun, you're outgoing or whatever it is, you have a story. And then you've sent it to them in an organized fashion, so they know that you're a professional.

Kristen Mirelle:
They know that you get the elements of what they're looking for. Then they don't have to ask those questions, and they don't have to keep going back and forth with you because the last thing that someone wants to do, is keep going back and forth with like the hundreds of people that submitted to them that day. You want to answer every question that they have, and you want to give them everything that they need right there in their hands. And the last thing that I do that I send them, and this is amazing thing, this makes it so easy. I send them a sheet and I just call it talking points. And I give questions that they can ask me because they don't know about me, so they don't even know what to ask half the time, right?

Kristen Mirelle:
But I want to give them something where if there is a interviewer and she hasn't even looked at my press release, let's say the editor looked at it and said, "She's awesome, let's put her on the show." The interviewer can just have the sheet in front of them, and it's going to ask them those key, interesting questions that I know the viewers are going to want to hear. So not only have I made it easy for them to get the press release, and the video, and everything. Now they have a sheet that says, "Hey, Kristine, we heard that you went on tour because you watched these commercials as a kid. Tell us a little bit more about that commercial that inspired you, or made you send those Cheetos to Africa. How did that happen?"

Kristen Mirelle:
So that way, there's a interviewer there and she may have had no time to research you whatsoever, but you're still going to be able to get your compelling story across because you've given her all the appropriate questions, the relevant questions. So you've done all the work for them and that's going to make you stand out. And you could be less interesting, you could be less interesting than the next person. But if that person requires that someone do a ton of research on them, people don't have time for that all the time. So answering your question, I'm sorry, I had to give that a kind of pre-thing because you have to have the right stuff to send them.

Kristen Mirelle:
Once you're ready to reach out to them, there's different ways that you can do it. I have resources, I think you've seen some of the commercials where I have just thousands of blogs, and websites, and that sort of thing. But back when I was first starting, I didn't have that, I hadn't done all that research. So I manually did it and I think that's a great way to do it. What I did was I made a list of all the cities, mine was a tour, I made a list of all the cities that I was going to. And in each of those cities I created a folder, and in each folder I separated it by newspapers, I looked up blogs. And this was all on Google, so if I was going to Phoenix, Arizona, I would just put local radio stations in Phoenix, Arizona, local college radio in Phoenix, Arizona because college radio will normally play independent music.

Kristen Mirelle:
I'll look up local TV stations in Phoenix, Arizona. Kind of going on, on blogs, websites, newspapers, radio stations, college radio. Everything that you can possibly think of that might be local, even local talk radio, those types of things, local talk radio is very specific to what's happening locally, so they're probably going to be very interested. I didn't reach out to as much to the huge national outlets because I knew it was going to be harder there. So I knew on a local level, I was more likely going to get PR and media from all those types of things. What else I did was I started looking up people that had organizations that had similar initiatives.

Kristen Mirelle:
So for me, my initiative, right, as inspiring children. I was going to schools, I wanted to tell them about following their dreams and it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks about you. I told my story. And I found that Michelle Obama had this charity, I can't even remember what it's called right now, it's evading my mind. But she had a charity that was really focused on helping kids get into college and just encouraging them to stay in school. So I reached out there and I said, "Hey, Michelle." It doesn't go straight to Michelle. But to the organization, reached out to them, told them what I was doing and they wanted to partner. So then I had this huge partnership with Michelle Obama, that was huge. And people see that, they go, "How in the world did you do that?"

Kristen Mirelle:
Well, these organizations, if they see that you are organized, you have something going on, that whole build and they will come. I'm not really like a build and they will come person. I'm like, build, pursue people, and they're going to join. They're going to want to join the movement. And so that's what I did. So I reached out to her charity. I Googled it, again, I just Googled school charities, or charities that promote staying in school and all these types of things came up. So depending on what you are doing, you're going to look up local media, you're going to look regional media, or even national media and something that's related to what you're doing.

Kristen Mirelle:
Like I told you with the gentleman that I worked with that just got on CW, his thing was COVID and he was local to Las Vegas. So he looked up Las Vegas media outlets and then started reaching out to them. And because he was donating to the local hospital, that was his story. So you can do it with a quick Goggle search. It's not hard to find and then as you go on the websites, a lot of these news stations, they have options, links to submit a story. And this goes back to like, if you don't have anything in the form of attachments because obviously most of those chat forms, you can't even send attachments.

Kristen Mirelle:
So you need to be able to send them to links. Give them a real quick paragraph of, "Hey, I'm coming through your city. I'm performing for disabled veterans," or whatever your story is, or, "I'm bringing awareness to this," or, "I'm sleeping on couches, and I'm just an indie musician trying to make my dream of being a rockstar come true." Whatever your story, whatever you decided that was. Put that real quick in a paragraph, here's a link to my video, here's my phone number, my email, and here's a Dropbox folder that has a lot more information if you're interested. So at that point you've kind of shown them that everything is in that first email, and they don't have to continue a conversation with you to be able to get the full gist of who you are because you don't want them to have to ask questions. You want them to have everything in that first email, everything in that first chat. So then they can then decide whether they want to have you on or not.

Kristen Mirelle:
So a lot of that you can find just by Googling, just by going to their website. A lot of them have how to submit a story. If they didn't have something like that on their website, I'll then find them on Instagram, I'll find them on Facebook. I'll reach out to them on every social media platform that they have. So I'll email them, I'll reach them on Instagram, Facebook, I'll tag them on Twitter. I will do everything I can to get their attention because in my head, I've created an awesome story, and why not? Why wouldn't they want to have me on there? I just need somebody that makes decisions to open that email and then I know that they'll have me on. So, that's kind of my process on how I find them. It's just kind of just like Googling really, in each city or each media outlet.

Michael Walker:
I love it, it's so good. And yeah, I feel like it's so valuable to just like, it's such a lifelong skill for everyone to cultivate, especially for artists, and musicians to become storytellers. And so it seems like through the process of doing what you talked about this entire interview, really kind of turning inward and reflecting, and figuring out what are the stories that I can tell. I mean look, it's going to probably take some time, especially if you haven't told a lot of stories before and you're kind of learning what does resonate with people and what's really connecting. And I'm sure just through the process, like what you've done, the stories that you shared on our conversation today, you can tell that they're well refined stories because you're a storyteller and you've told these stories a lot.

Michael Walker:
And I'm sure that over time, every single time you tell the story and you figure out some elements of it that really connect, or that land the plane, or make it more tangible, or understandable, the better you get at telling stories. So I think the whole process just is really brilliant. And yeah, I really appreciate you taking the time to be here today, and to share some of the lessons that you've learned. I know you've got a ton of resources for people in terms of PDFs and you have the resource of literally thousands of people, so they don't have to do the manual work necessarily of finding every single person. So for anyone that's watching or listening to this right now, what would be the best place for them to go to dive deeper into this topic?

Kristen Mirelle:
So I have lots of different things from resources like you said, with lists of media, blogs, Spotify play listers' websites and that sort of thing. So, if anyone would be interested in checking those out, they can go to musichustler.com. Not only that, I have this really great live webinar coming up, where I'll be walking everybody through the process of creating press releases and actually helping people create press releases live. And that's something I do every week, something I do for anyone that logs on every single week.

Kristen Mirelle:
We cover a lot of this again, but more in depth, with real examples, and actually talking to people and finding out what their story is. Because a lot of people have a hard time with that at first. They think, "I'm not interesting." And then I start asking questions and then I'm able to figure out five to 10 really interesting things about them, which is always fun. Everyone can reach all of this information by just going to musichustler.com. All of the links and everything is on there.

Michael Walker:
Awesome, beautiful. And we'll also, to make it as streamlined as possible, we'll put a link in the show notes, you can click on that and go check it out. I love that you're providing the service of actually giving debriefs and helping people directly because I had that experience with one of my mentors, Jeff Walker, who he's like a master at this, he calls it the hero's journey, is basically figuring out your story. And I remember being at one of his events and him being on stage and raising my hand really shyly. He was doing this channeling thing where he was basically channeling people's stories. And he's just a master at doing it.

Michael Walker:
But you're right that for me, and for a lot of people there, it's like, "Well, I don't really know. What is my story, or what's compelling about it?" And he just asked a few questions and then he tells the story from your point of view. And you're like, "How did you do that? You're a wizard." So I think it's super cool that you're doing something like that for musicians as well. So highly recommend anyone that has resonated with this, who would like to take a step further and start digging into this more, to go check that out. And, Kristine, you're awesome. Again, I really appreciate you being here, and doing what you do. And looking forward to talking again soon.

Kristen Mirelle:
Awesome. Thank you so much 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 guest today. And if you want to support the podcast, then there's a few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit subscribe then that'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends or on your social media, tag us, that really helps us out. And third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review, it's going to help 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.