In this episode, Jared shares an exciting opportunity he recently came across—a chance to exhibit at a wedding expo for free. He discusses the strategy of exhibiting at bridal expos and the potential benefits it can bring to musicians. Jared explains how he found this opportunity through Facebook groups dedicated to weddings and connected with a venue owner who was still looking for vendors. He highlights the value of building relationships with other wedding vendors and the potential for future gig opportunities through these connections. Tune in to learn more about leveraging Facebook groups and making the most of wedding expos as a musician.

"Even if I don't book a wedding from it, I love building these relationships with all of the other wedding vendors at these expos. Because you never know who's going to hear you, see you, and find out, 'Oh, you're a great person to work with. I would love to have you play for this event, or I'm gonna recommend you to all of these weddings.' And so to me, already, that's worth it. And it was free."

- BookLive: Everything you need to start marketing and booking your act online (without having to hire or rely on a tech team!)​
- Your First Gig: Everything you need to book your first high-paying gig.
- Fulltime Music Masterclass: The Weird (Almost Backward) Gigging Secret …That Is Currently Being Used By An Underground Group Of Musicians To Book And Play As Many Of Your Favorite Gigs You Want!

Hey, what's up gigging pros! It's Jared judge welcome back to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast.

I'm excited last night, I went to a brewers game. I'm still in Milwaukee, we got a couple days left on our trip. It was a fun game. Brewers lost terribly. It was like 12, the one something like that. And yeah, it was his painful to watch.

But such a great time with the family, we also got to watch a drunk angry guy in the row in front of us take a fight with the people in front of him, which that was uncomfortable. So we, we kind of walked around the stadium for a while it was, it was a good time, we really enjoyed it.

Just hanging out with the family. Anyway, I wanted to chat with you all about something new that I just launched yesterday, for booking my my gigs for my electric violin act. And I know you're probably thinking this guy experiments a lot.

The answers, Heck, yeah, I do. That's how you play the game. And that's how you win the game. You know, don't just be stagnant, don't just be comfortable if you're not satisfied. So we keep trying to experiment new things.

And I am trying a new strategy that I learned from my marketing coaching program that I'm in, it is called an application funnel. And yes, it is a marketing funnel. But this one is different.

And it's actually already generated me two leads for my electric violin act at about seven bucks apiece, because I've been running some Facebook ad traffic to it. And, but this is different.

And I'm really excited to share with you the strategy and psychology of the application funnel, because I think I'm probably one of the only musicians in the world using it. And it's designed in a very specific way, psychologically speaking.

So the application funnel has a couple pages, I think it's about four or five pages. And it starts with an application opt in page.

The first page is designed to take somebody who doesn't know you, and then positions you as an exclusive, not a commodity, but like an exclusive search service provider that is so busy, that you literally can't take on any additional gigs.

And so you explain that to people, while also bombarding people with testimonials on that first page. And so on mine, if you check it out, you'll see like, you know, here's the secret to a memorable event.

And then there's a video of my performance, but it starts immediately with a testimonial video. So I kind of have it side by side, when half of the screen is me playing. The other half is somebody saying nice things about me, which that's the importance of collecting video testimonials to use it for things like this.

And it has a couple other testimonials in the video itself. And then below that, it has even more written testimonials, three of them to be precise. And then underneath that it has a letter written to the reader.

Talking about you know, if you want a memorable event, like then a live performance is the way to do that. But here's the catch is that I'm very in demand, I get over 92 requests to perform each month, which is true, I generate well over 92 leads every month.

So I say I can't accept everybody. Which is why if you want a chance of having me perform at your event, you have to start your application process by entering your email. And then inside the letter, there's also a couple of more testimonials.

You're noticing a theme here with testimonials and positioning me as very busy that I can't take every single person who wants me to play at their event. But so there is a form for them to fill out their email address.

And then the next page is the application itself. So they have to fill out an application to work with me. And it's simple. It's probably similar to the form that you might already have on your website.

But it asks for, you know, when's your event? What's the venue? What's your budget, and then it also asked them to describe their perfect event entertainment. And so they have to fill out that application.

And then the third page, once they finish filling out that application, they're redirected to what's called the homework page, where they have to complete some homework, which in my scenario is they have to watch another video.

And then they have to gather a bunch of details about their event. And then the homework page, tries to get them to schedule a sales call with me. I call it user consultation.

And so the point of the homework page is again to really build that connection and highlight how you know how impactful my performance is. their event will be, and also re emphasize that I don't work with everybody who comes to me.

So if you want a chance at that, then you'll want to schedule this appointment. So that is the first part of the funnel. Of course, once they get on the call with me, I chat with them, see if they're a good fit for my services, which is even just the way I said that, it's no longer if I'm a good fit for them, it's if they're a good fit.

For me, the whole positioning of the funnel is I am, you know, the wizard, and they have to apply to work with me, which totally changes the sales psychology behind it, it's gonna make the sales call a lot easier.

So at the end, I'll ask them, if you've seen how impactful my events are, would you? Are you ready to secure your date? And then after that, then it takes them into BookLive, so that they can pay their, you know, booking fee and signing the contract.

So that is the application funnel. It is amazing. I mentioned already generated two leads so far. I generated them overnight, so I haven't had a chance to see, did they fill in the application? Did they schedule an appointment?

I just checked into my Facebook ads account and saw two leads generated since you turned them on yesterday. Like yeah, that's pretty cool. We like that. So yeah, I'm really excited. You dig deep and see if they fill out the application.

The other thing is like, when they fill out different parts of the application funnel, there should be email sequences that go out to these people. But I'm in Wisconsin, kind of vacation.

So I haven't had time to put those email sequences in place. So that's only going to make this funnel work even better, once I have those email sequences in place. And by the way, when somebody goes through this funnel, I should have a hot buyer who is ready to book my services easier than any of the other things that I've tried so far.

But I've been really excited, like just testing out all these different ways of using paid traffic to get people into my funnels. It's an amazing strategy, like I've, I don't think I've launched a campaign yet that haven't generated a lead for them.

And paid traffic really is like a great way to get people to notice your stuff very quickly. And a lot of you know retailers and ecommerce brands use it. And it's a very, very valuable skill.

Like if you want to sell anything, if you want to make money online, you know, being able to run ads is a great way to do that. But without the the funnel building skills behind it, which that's where the application funnel is.

And that's why went and got certified in building those kinds of funnels. Without their skills, like you're just running paid traffic, you're basically sending a ton of darts at an empty wall instead of a dartboard.

And so what you're gonna wind up with is a ton of holes in your wall instead of a bullseye. So that's why I think pairing those two skills together is actually like, very incredibly valuable and can be used for for all kinds of things.

So I hope this inspires you to start to learn these things. And if you want a quick and easy way to learn them, check out Fulltime Music Academy, I teach you all of those things, and actually show you behind the scenes of what does it like look like to actually build these funnels in real time and run these ads in real time.

And if you get a free trial to BookLive, I will give you a trial to Fulltime Music Academy to so you get the courses and the software to book the gigs. So go to BookLivePro.com and get your free trial.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast.

Remember, "You are just one gig away!".