In this episode, Jared Judge shares the exciting follow-up to the networking event he played recently. He discusses his experience at Venue Hub, a local company in Denver that connects people with event venues. Jared sponsored the event and networked with venue owners and event planners, emphasizing the importance of networking for musicians. He shares an interesting encounter with the owner of a unique venue centered around a giant ant farm and their discussion about playing "space music" for a mushroom party. Jared then dives into a specific opportunity that arose from the networking event. He received an email from Kyle, who works at a hotel in downtown Denver, expressing interest in booking Jared for their Christmas in July event. Jared highlights the power of networking with non-musicians and the effectiveness of having a contact form on his website. He also reveals a time-saving technique by using AI tools to craft quick and tailored responses.

"Your first step is to grab the Gig Vault, which is your list of people to reach out to, plus get a free 30-day trial of Fulltime Music Academy with the exact email templates to send out to them, training on how the conversations go. And why you don't really need to be an extrovert to do this because I am not an extrovert. But I figured out how to use the power of music to make the conversation easier."

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

I'm on my way back from that bridal show, he was at a really cool venue in Estes Park, Colorado called Venue On The Rocks, which was also a coffee shop called Coffee On The Rocks that they recently like turned into a wedding venue, in addition to a coffee shop.

So really cool, interesting stuff. The show went great. I played the whole time, I had a lot of people come up and ask me questions. Got a lot of leads. Although I will be honest with you, I made a huge mistake.

And I forgot to actually have a formal lead capture system at a wedding expo, which I committed the cardinal mistake that I that I teach against. So that was kind of silly.

But hey, I was getting used to the situation, it was an hour and a half away from my house. And I don't know, it still went great. In fact, you know, at the end of the show, a couple of really cool things happened.

One of which was I got invited to come back and play for the coffee shop, they said that they do have live music. So another public gig is in the works, which I told you last episode a couple episodes ago that I'm interested in doing some more of those.

But then the more important part for me is the person who organized the show actually said, I'm going to put you on our preferred vendor list. And I didn't even have to ask them to do it. So that was awesome.

She asked me for a bunch of my fliers and gave them to her. And yeah, so the main like lesson from today's thing, today's Expo was like Don't let perfectionism get in the way of doing what you do. Right?

Like as musicians, I've talked about this before. But we are so hyper critical of ourselves, that oftentimes we pull our punches, we don't go all in we don't like let ourselves be free.

And as a result, we might be holding back and not have as great a performance as rather than if we eliminate and quiet the voices of perfectionism in our minds. And I say that because during this expo, I think I did a great job of quieting my perfectionism inside my mind.

I had a bunch of tunes that I did prepare. In fact, I used a lot of the same setlist from that concert, the summer concert series that I did a couple days ago. So it used basically the same setlist, which gave me about two hours worth of music.

But this was a four hour show. So I had a lot of extra things to do a lot of extra time. And instead of repeating my setlist because I didn't want to do that, although I totally could have, I decided to just throw on Spotify with a top 40s playlist and just jam along.

And so I treated this as like a practice session. Even though it was a very real, like public performance, people were listening, got tons of compliments.

And actually, despite the fact that I was treating this as a practice session, it went awesome. Like, I was just literally grooving I was using a lot of so you know, I play electric violin.

So I was using a lot of Tracy Silverman's strum bowing technique, which is a technique for violinists to treat their right arms as a guitarist treats their right arm.

So it could play a lot of grooves and chop and sound really, really cool like a guitar. So I was trying to do a lot of that. And I was making some mistakes. Heck, yeah, I wasn't making mistakes. But I didn't care.

I was like, I felt very free. I felt liberated. I was having an amazing time. And I actually noticed that I got a lot of great response, like they were people dancing, bobbing their heads. The other vendors like they were as florists and wedding planners.

They were all like dancing and like looking over and coming, just giving me compliments saying like, Oh, your music was beautiful. It was awesome.

And I think it was because I quieted the voices of perfectionism in me, and treated it like a practice session, which when I played that concert series on Friday, with the IBM's in my ears, it felt like I was at a practice session.

Anyway, I did not use IBM's at this particular Expo because I wanted to be able to talk and hear people, but it still felt like a practice session that I just let people in on. It was really sweet.

There was this one elderly gentleman, I think it was in the 70s or 80s. And he came up to me when I was playing, and he just said this is beautiful. And then he asked, do I sell CDs, which I had never gotten that before and nobody's ever asked me do you sell CDs?

And I said no, I actually haven't really recorded anything is like oh, you totally should I would buy it. And he also said, there are quite a few shops in this town that I think would love to carry your CDs. But I was like, that's so sweet.

I wouldn't be honest with you, my listeners of the gigging musician podcast. I don't think I've bought a CD in like 10 years. You know, tell me if you guys still buy CDs, does like Target and Best Buy?

Do they still sell CDs because that was where I used to buy my CDs way back in the day. But I don't know. I mean, it's just it's a sweet sentiment, I really appreciated his feedback.

And he left me a nice tip, I did put my case Oh, kind of like a busker. And people did tip I think I made 40 or so dollars of tips. There was a stone fired Pizza Grill pizza oven. And they were selling pizzas.

Very expensive pizzas, like 13 bucks for a personal pizza. But hey, I made some tip money, I was like, I'm going to treat myself to some pizza, I deserve it. So I didn't.

So I hope that this inspires you that like public performances, can feel like practice sessions. And what it enables you to do is if you quiet that voice of perfectionism, you can take more risks, and be okay that you might fail, you might make a wrong note for me, you know, I made plenty of wrong notes.

Top 40s music there singers just singing random keys, like I was playing a lot in D major, F sharp major keys that were in a way not comfortable. And sometimes I couldn't even figure out what key I was in. But it did not matter.

Because I think I sold it. Like, I was just so comfortable doing it. That it people really dug it and nobody really noticed my mistakes, or if they did, you know is the excitement of live performance.

So yeah, take some risks, quiet your voices of perfectionism, like people do not care, they want to see you do your best, they are rooting for you to do your best and I'm rooting for you to do your best.

And they want you to feel comfortable on stage and off stage. And I think that eliminating that voice of perfection in your mind is the way to do that.

Because if you are able to sell yourself more in your performance, like it just gives you so much more confidence that you can sell your music, which lets you actually make more money with your music.

Like I think everything is related like all of these concepts. They're not just in isolation from each other. You know, when you learn a scale on your instrument like that helps you play a song that's not isolated work.

And same for this like if you're able to quiet your voice of perfectionism in your performance. That also will quiet your voice of perfectionism in the way that you market and sell your music. Because you're on the gigging musician podcast.

Remember, your music won't sell itself. So, go out there, make some mistakes, have fun, and go and market your music. Alright, thanks for listening to another episode of The gigging musician podcast.

By the way, if you want a shortcut to getting on preferred vendor lists and finding opportunities like the wedding expo that I just played at, I really encourage you to get the gig vault.

The gig vault is a treasure trove of over 26,000 venue and event planner contacts across the country that you can use to find event planners and venues in your own backyard that have opportunities like this, and can throw you some of the highest paying gigs of your life.

So go and get your free copy at FulltimeMusicAcademy.com/venues And remember, "Your music won't market itself!".