make money

start looking again at progress in your career and your band and today I wanna talk about the money's so this week I've been doing some research and and looking into ways that you can either star or or progress with making some money with your band not as a musician but actually your originals Brandon ways that you can start to to fund what you do and let me tell you some of it is pretty scary some of it is not particularly about exciting news but the reason why I want to make this video is because I want to prove to you that the way forward is focusing on the audience and building and looking after the audience and not focusing on the music industry which still every single day I am watching bands do that and neglecting the audience and therefore the way I look at it is you are on a dead-end road it isn't gonna work so today come with me as we look at 10 ways to make money with your band number one streaming services and the biggest of all of the streaming services is Spotify and as you are probably aware or probably have heard or may even have seen from videos from my channel Spotify doesn't exactly splash the cash to the artists so to put it into perspective you need to hit to get minimum wage you need to hit 25,000 plays a day every day for the entire year that is a lot of plays can it be done I think over time it can be done but obviously this is not going to fund your band that's minimum wage for one person or what happens if you've got five people in the band so realistically with a lot of the things in this list this is one thing that you can start to work on just to start feeding some money into what I call buckets so every single one of these is a bucket that you're starting to feed so you can get money going into that bucket and you don't have one bucket you have lots of these small buckets which will all bring you in small amounts of money which allow you to fund the band and also fund your lifestyle individually number two Adsense or YouTube now if you think Spotify numbers are bad you want to go and check out YouTube's numbers because if Spotify means you have to hit 25 ish thousand plays every single day for you to be on minimum wage then YouTube is 60,000 average now these are average numbers but about 60,000 plays a day every day for you to be on a minimum wage which means realistically you've got a lot of building to do with your YouTube but again I do really think that this can be done now my YouTube is very small but I have been doing this for about a year and a half I make videos every single day and the curve is doing this whereas it was a nightmare to get that first hundred and it was really hard to get that first thousand now I'm getting five six hundred people a month and I know very very soon in a couple of months I'll be getting five hundred a week and all of a sudden it will grow into something that it's not gonna buy me a Ferrari but it will start to bring more money and even if it means putting that back into the project so again this is another bucket to start feeding and I really really am a big fan of YouTube for creatives and I don't see enough of you doing this so even if you're not doing it for the money which is tiny you should be doing it because this is a great search engine for people to actually find your band find your music and come with you on that journey number three patreon now if you don't know what patreon is patreon is a way that you can create content and your audience can sponsor it kind of in advance now patreon has been picking up some momentum especially because jack conte who who owns patreon just teamed up with Casey Neistat now Casey Neistat on YouTube is a big deal and so there's been some videos going backwards and forwards which you can check out on YouTube they're brilliant you should go and check them out but also in general patrons growing but just to put this into perspective I did some research last night and only 2% of patreon users patreon creatives are actually surviving fully solely from patreon so again this is another thing which is one bucket which you can actually start to to use to fill up to get paid for something it isn't gonna fund your entire band but this is a way that you can start to bring in more money and as you can see from all of these different things you start to get a little bit in each bucket and all of a sudden it can make up to one entire wage for the entire band and fund what you do so when you're uploading to YouTube or making pictures or whatever it is that you do and people are sponsoring you for those things they might put in a pound or two pounds per stake and they'll cap it over a month now most oh the average amount that people would spend on patreon is ten pounds or twelve dollars so that's your kind of average patreon sponsors spend on patreon on their favorite creator so while patreon isn't gonna buy a Ferrari it is another way that you can start filling up another bucket and definitely worth looking into number four influencer marketing something we've been talking about for quite a while but is it possible for you on the kind of micro end to be able to start making money from influence and marketing well the answer is yes because the stats are showing that micro influencer marketers are actually making certain amounts of money so I've got a few stats for you that want to run past but they're surprisingly good when you're looking at you know Kylie Jenner or Logan Paul or those high-end influencers yeah they make millions of pounds a year fantastic but what can you do well here's some stats whether you're on Instagram or YouTube which are the main two that I'm looking at the moment let's start with Instagram now you can actually start making money off Instagram as an Instagram influencer with less than 10,000 followers now think about it that's doable that's quite inspiring because a lot of you've got between two and five thousand followers and with a bit of work on growing it actually putting some time and effort into it and at the same point making sure your audience is quite refined then you can start to maybe make a bit of money from Instagram and so to put it into perspective with money that under 10,000 followers if they refined if there is a demographic you could be making between fifty and a hundred pounds per post that's realistic and achievable and you know you did a couple of them a month or even a couple of week you start to make some decent money the next category would be about 10 to 20 thousand followers of which you'd be making between sort of a hundred and two hundred dollars / pounds then after that you go twenty-five to fifty thousand and then you start to make sort of 250 to 500 pounds 250 to 500 dollars just for one post you know all of a sudden when you get to that point you're making some decent money for doing two or three posts a week and to put it into perspective again I did a talk not so long back with a bunch of Instagram influencers and their problem was actually having too many people wanting to use them as influences and they were turning down 90% of of the offers that came through so there is some really good money for micro influencing at the moment now if we compare that with YouTube YouTube is a bit harder so with YouTube you need to start off at about fifty to a hundred thousand subscribers yes that is a lot but again it isn't Logan Paul with his seventeen million subscribers and this is something that if you put time and effort in over a period of time you can work on and once you do get to that point instead of making fifty to a hundred pounds with Instagram you'll be making between 500 and a thousand pounds for one sort of sponsored YouTube influence the next bracket will be more kind of a hundred thousand to five hundred thousand now what we were getting into big big numbers but you could make between a thousand and three thousand pounds slash dollars for one YouTube shout-out effectively now you can see how it can start to really mount up if you can get to that level and again there's no reason why you can't if you work at it over a period of time let's not forget your creatives that's what these platforms are built around they're built around you whether it's built around you and your story and your skill set the fact that you can trigger emotion as a musician with photos with videos this is perfectly set up for you if you actually focus on the right areas in order to build number-5 merch or merchandise something that a lot of you are actually dipping your toe in the water but I don't think it's enough if you compare modern-day youtubers with modern-day bands youtubers feel like they're getting this right this week PewDiePie who is the biggest youtuber of all made a video where he actually said I'm actually a hat salesman because I make more money selling hat merch than he does from the Adsense on the millions and millions of plays he gets every single week on his YouTube and that makes total sense that's why when you see these youtubers they're constantly halfway through a video saying don't forget my merch don't don't forget to go to the shop and buy the merch and when you go to their their shop their merch shop it's not a t-shirt there's many t-shirts it's like their own fashion brand and it goes alongside the brand it goes alongside what they're doing whereas when I see bands they go we've got a new t-shirt and that's it it's just one t-shirt maybe it'll be in two different colors but the reality is is there's a very very different game that's been played on youtubers and if you look at it who's making the money who's doing this really really well it's youtubers they've really got the hang of this this Shopify thing and if you go and find a bunch of of youtubers from this country if you go look at you know Dodie or Emma blackery or or any of those kind of those of real high-end level youtubers they are making more money from their merch than they are from their Adsense it makes sense so I would love to see more bands actually take the merch game seriously now you can buy a t-shirt if you're buying t-shirts in bulk from a merch business there's one down below a friend of mine has a merch company called T Merck you can go and get some prices from from them and they look after you've they're brilliant but someone like like them they'll make you it's a one-off t-shirt for you know fiver and you can do you can actually buy in bulk and actually reduce that price now if you're selling it for 15 quid or more if you want to you're making a 10 a profit now you start making two or three sales a day depending whether you're touring or depending whether you're you're playing this game of making content making videos and promoting what you and actually taking pride in the product you can actually start making some decent money from merch so start to look at the youtubers way of doing it and less at the big bands way of doing it because this is very old-fashioned and this is very modern number six sponsorship now this is less about making money and more about funding something whether it's a single or an album or at all or some merch this is a way that you can actually get someone else to fund the thing that you want to do now look at the time that we are living in influence reach distribution these now play a bigger factor than they ever have before because it's harder to get those things because of the amount of noise that's out there so everyone is looking attaching their brand to something cool as a collab or just a cool product and at the same point get more reach and distribution so yes as a small band you're not going to be able to approach Nike or Mercedes but there's no reason why you can't start approaching local businesses or local people local personalities to actually get a bit of a kind of a collab going on and in return you can say look this this tall that we're going to do for example is going to cost let's say 5,000 pounds and you approach a local motor bike shop because motor bikes are cool and motor bikes and music or hand in hand so you approach a local motor bike shop and you say look this is the deal we want five thousand pounds but in return what you get and then you list off what you think is is a fair deal for that five thousand pounds and it's not just going to be social media it's gonna be potentially on the tall you could have banners down the side with really cool motor bikes or you could have a massive big backdrop and it could have the band name and it could say sponsored by whatever the bike shop is this is a way that you can actually do deals and instead of trying to think of why this won't work because deals are a too far out of your reach with big companies this is the way that you can do it with small brands local to you so if you want to dip your toe in the water and just start with this why don't you take something very very simple one event maybe a singles launch or some kind of one-off local gig and go and approach 30 40 50 local bands that you think will fit in with your band with your products and see if you can do a collab deal a sponsorship deal and be realistic with what you asked for and be realistic with what you can give but you can't give a lot more than you think and you'd be surprised there are a lot more companies out there that will take you seriously if the deal is right for them number seven crowdfunding now another way of funding something that you do as opposed to just funding ongoing life but this is a really clever one because if you take a company like pledge pledge music pledge is a way that you can say we are going to make an album and your audience will effectively fund that album before you make it and the way that you trigger it is you excite them by giving them lots of offers if you fund it beforehand you get a copy of the album but also you can buy into a lot of other things and it might be the you buy into a meet and greet or you buy into a one-off signed vinyl or things that you can be creative with and you can go on a pledge and you can see a load of examples but bigger and bigger bands are taking to pledge to say well I'm on a minute if you want this album let's work together and actually find the money so we can make it happen there are some massive massive worldwide bands that now do this on pledge and what's clever about it is not only will it fund the album but it will fund the album and then some so you've got more money than fought for promotion afterwards because it doesn't stop when you hit your your deadline it carries on going then the audience is putting money into it which allows you then to make the money and more this is a way that you can you can what Bruce calls inject a lot of energy into your audience to get them to do something before because it's a lot easier to do that rather than make something and then hold it up and go who wants that who wants this who wants this and by which point it's old news and they might listen to it on Spotify but that's kind of it so getting them into the idea before bringing them into the story pledge or Kickstarter or there are other ones out there is an amazing way for you to actually fund the thing that you want to build number 8 busking now not for everybody but before you poopoo we should look at some of the stats now a professional busking outfit could make up to a thousand pounds a day now obviously that takes into consideration everything it takes into consideration where you are time of day the weather and a million other things but you could make up to a thousand pounds a day that's crazy and again that's the top-end level but it's doable like the people in this office they know people that do this for a living in Franklin band called chasing deer moved from their hometown into London and they fund their lifestyle as a band and them personally from professional busking that's what they do all day every day can you imagine how much better they are getting as musicians and as performers by doing this every day and getting funded instead of having to go and work in a shop I think professional busking for me it was the next point which is commercial covers bands but for me that was the way I funded my way through college I wasn't gonna get a job why would I want to do that I wanted to fund myself as a musician I didn't see it as lowering myself I saw it as actually getting better and anything I could do with my bass in my hand when I was doing it right because I'd rather do that than the other option for me which would have been stacking shelves I didn't want to do that so anything I could do with my instrument in my hand I was prepared to do and it worked out just fine so have a think about professional busking but there's a big difference between you picking up your acoustic guitar and wandering into the street and just putting a hat on the floor and singing some songs and actually thinking about it thinking about all of the logistics and possibilities that will make this work so that you can actually maximize how much money that you can make per session or per day as a professional busker number 9 commercial covers bands gigs now something that I know a lot about because it's something that I've been doing since I was 19 I moved from where I'm from in Wales to to Guildford and I didn't have rich parents who could just pay for me to be there so I had to make my own money as a lot of you are in exactly the same boat but I was determined not to get a job I was determined to do I could to play my bass in order to make enough money to survive and it was tough but I can promise you something if you can run a commercial covers band you can run a multi-million pound business and why do I know this because I have done both and the reason why I could build a multi-million pound business and the reason why I carry on building business is ridiculous and ridiculous as it sounds is because I was able to build and manage a commercial band I was able to do the marketing the sales I was able to do the management like you know what it's like you guys are musicians predominant one who watches my channel is a musician like how hard is it to manage other musicians you guys are a nightmare as am i like we are creatives we want to do our own thing trying to manage musicians is so difficult but if you can do that you know managing the normal people that's pretty easy so commercial commerce bands is a way that as a band you can get together you can say look we're already in this we can get better we can spend more time together when we're on a gig we've got travel time we've got hang around time where we can actually be doing something something productive for our originals band at the same time this to me is a win-win and it stops you having to go get three four five different jobs amongst the band where you never see each other and then you start complaining to me and asking me questions like how do I become successful with no money in no time which is just so difficult so make it easy for yourself and this way to me is an amazing way of funding what you do as a band as well as a musician number 10 original band live shows now this is a weird one and hear me out I believe that bands can original bands can makes decent money from their original music going out on tour and I know a lot of you are shaking your head but the reason why I think it doesn't happen that much and I go and see a lot of original bands as harsh as this is aren't good enough yet they could be good enough but they're not working on the right bit they're not working on making this a touring band show that people say I want to come to the show again I want come and see you four times or five times when you go and play I want to travel around the country when you start getting to a point when that happens when you're good enough then you can actually start making some good money and at the moment people are looking at this in a way of I live in this city and how do I get people to come to see my band if I move to this city well the answer to that and I'm doing I'm saying it's for your own good is you get good you get really really good at it it's exactly the same as saying with these bands how do you actually get band like the band I stopped playing how'd you get a band that will play a hundred and forty paid gigs a year and I'm like what you just be better than everyone else it's as simple as that but people aren't concentrating on the right bits what they're concentrating on is they're concentrating on on themselves and then saying hey wouldn't be really fun if we took this out on tour well why not actually look at the consumption of what people want and there are certain bands out there who are so good live and it's such a great live show and they're making it into a show instead of just make it into you actually you get the pleasure of coming to see us live it's like no no we're gonna do everything that we can to make this such a good show that you'll be desperate to come and see our next show and if you look at big you know massive artists like Lady Gaga and there's the the classic story that she went bankrupt because she was putting so much money into her live shows what it paid off then it it went really really well and when I was in New York I saw a band called our khals who were a Canadian band and I'd never heard of them I was in New York I wanted to go and see a gig I went to the Berry ballrooms saw this band they they blew me away so much that anytime they play I'm gonna go and see them but they blew me away and I never I've never heard of them I'd never heard any of their songs but they blew me away not because of just the songs they blew me away because their live show they just shat on everybody else and they called themselves a touring live band and it absolutely can be done but people are focusing on the wrong bit so make your band so amazing live that people are terrified not to turn up to come and see you and if you can do that then jumping out of Manchester and jumping into London or jumping to another city becomes a lot easier because would will travel fast about your live show as opposed to just your music so that's it that's ten ways that you can make money as a band and some of them will make more than others and some of them are a little bit depressing but your job is to start thinking of all of them as a separate bucket so that when you start to fill up this bucket if you try and do all in one ain't gonna work but if you've got ten buckets and other things that you could possibly think of ten buckets or are starting to get filled up a little bit at a time then you can actually make this into a fundable project so have a think about it I want you to comment down below anything that I'm not thinking about any ways that you make money as a band not as a musician as a fully fledged original band