In this episode, Jared Judge shares his reflections and aspirations from the scenic heights of a mountain in Scottsdale, Arizona. He delves into the challenges and achievements of the past year, including his relocation and the personal hurdles he faced. Jared candidly discusses his journey as a gigging musician in Denver, celebrating his successes while acknowledging areas for improvement. He emphasizes the importance of visibility and networking in the music industry, and introduces the innovative features of BookLive, a tool designed to connect musicians with event planners and venues. Jared also announces an exciting 31-day challenge for January, inviting listeners to join him in a concerted effort to boost their gigging careers. This episode is a blend of personal storytelling, practical advice, and motivational guidance for musicians looking to elevate their careers in the coming year.

"The biggest problem you face is obscurity, meaning people don't know that you exist. You could be the best musician in the world, but if nobody knows you exist, you have no chance of getting booked for any gig."

- 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 Secret To an Unlimited Stream of High-Paying Private Event Gigs …Without Spending a Fortune on Online Advertising or Having Any Connections!
- Fulltime Music Academy (Gig Vault): 24,665 High-End Venues + Event Planners: Use this directory to book your highest-paid gig to-date.

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

I'm excited to be joining you from the top of my mountain in Scottsdale, Arizona, which, of course, is not actually owned by me, but it's right by my parents' house.

I'm staying here for the Christmas holiday, and figured I'd take this opportunity to find it. And I call it my mountain, in case you haven't listened, way back into the archives of The Gigging Musician Podcast. I call it my mountain because when COVID hit my wife and I, we took a little retreat and stayed down here for, like, a month and a half.

And every morning, I would climb it. And when I got to the top, I would record a podcast episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. And so this place is awesome.

I don't know. I love this place. So, I'm here during Christmas, which is great.

And we are getting close to the end of the year, and it is a great time to reflect on the previous year and goals for the next year. And so that's kind of what I'd like to spend this episode doing while I'm here at the top of the mountain. And so this past year was okay.

I wouldn't rate it as an outstanding year for me. I feel like I could have done a lot better this year. Threw a bunch of curveballs at my wife and I, one of which being the house that we were renting, being sold from underneath us, and making our lives pretty difficult.

So we had to find a new place to, you know. The other big blow came to us when our cat Ozzy passed away unexpectedly. She was only, like, three years old, but she had kidney cancer, and as a result, I think I retreated as a musician instead of doing what I preach all the time, which is go out there, make more noise in the marketplace, market the heck out of your act as often as possible, be everywhere.

I did some of that, yes. I do take my own advice, but I think it was harder to overcome the resistance of staying inside my head and not reaching out to new venues, reaching out to new event planners. And so I don't take this as a loss, per se, but it is not my best, and I'm not taking the amounts of actions that I know are required.

So it was a five figure gigging year for me in a new city, which first full year as a gigging musician in the new city, making five figures is not something to scoff at. Like, there are many musicians who struggle to make four figures in the city they've been in for decades. So I am proud about that.

Right? That's pretty goal. What I want is six figures from one year, and I know I can do that. I think the biggest problem I still face here in Denver is obscurity.

People don't know me. They don't know that I'm capable of performing for their or their clients'events, and so I need to solve that problem by letting more people know.

Does anyone else identify with that being their biggest problem they face? Do you feel like enough people know you? Would you say that a majority of the event planners in your area know that you exist?

Would you say that a majority of the venue owners or managers know that you exist? Have you set your foot in the venues where these big, high budget private events take place? If the answer is no to any of those questions, then, well, congrats, you're normal.

But now you have the problem identified. That is the biggest problem I face, and it's probably the biggest problem you face. And together we are committed to changing that.

In fact, I was driving to my brother's place. He lives about 30 minutes away from my parents and the drive is beautiful. In fact, this whole Phoenix Scottsdale area is beautiful.

So many big cactuses or cacti and it's just a beautiful place to reflect. And I was thinking BookLive. The software is becoming so much more incredible.

We just started the public beta of the gig vault feature, which has all of your private event contacts inside. We have literally found all of the private event planners and venues in every area in the United States and we've put them all into BookLive so that you can take advantage of those, start to reach out to them and book some gigs because of them. And we launched the public beta of that recently and got some amazing feedback.

One of our members, Ken, posted a comment saying, like, BookLive is going to be the live music tool of 2024 because no other platform lets you find and book gigs in the way that BookLive does, which I think is awesome.

And then I am testing out a new feature that adds on to that feature that will let basically, the app is going to tell you it's going to help you set a schedule of when to reach out and follow up with these private event planners, which is awesome.

I don't know of any other tool that actually does this, but basically you can set up a rhythm, otherwise known as a sales cadence, for when to reach out and follow up with certain people.

Like day one, send them an email later that day, follow them on Instagram later that day, call them on the phone, and it'll manage that. So BookLive will have a way to tell you what to do based on the most effective sales principles so that you actually make the most out of your efforts. Most musicians just reach out once and when they don't hear back while they give up.

And that's unfortunate because the fortune is made in the follow up. And so I am testing out that feature on my own test software version of BookLive, and I'm hoping that we're going to release it by the end of the year, which is coming up pretty quickly here, like a couple of days. So I think I'm going to do a January challenge.

I'm not sure if we're going to open it up to everyone or if it's just going to be me. I kind of want to open it up to everybody where for every day in January, we're going to log in to BookLive at the same time and find new contacts in BookLive and then run them through the "Sales Cadence".

So you're going to literally spend a half hour day with me and the other members of Fulltime Music Academy, and we're just going to reach out, put some explosive energy into the universe in January, specifically in the events industry, so that you're setting yourself up for a killer year.

I'm going to be doing this for myself regardless, but I think I do want to make it a challenge for our Fulltime Music Academy members because when you're feeling supported doing things together, to me, that's when the magic happens. And we have an amazing community in Fulltime Music Academy. So let's do it.

I'm going to make it official. We're going to do a 30 day challenge in January, actually. How many days does January? I have 31 days.

Right. So 31 day challenge, it's not going to be similar to the other challenges I've done, because the other challenges I've done recently have just been like an hour of training each day with homework. Now, this is going to be like 30 minutes of us working side by side.

I will put the details in an email so that we're all clear, and then every day I'll send an email reminding everybody of the time. We'll probably do it on Zoom, and then we're just going to work together for 30 minutes every day in January. Of course, I might not be able to make every single day, depending on if I've got gigs or something else going on, but we'll make it as close to every day in January.

Every I'd say weekday. Give yourselves the weekend if you want to not do anything, especially because the event planners are probably busy running their events on the weekend. So that's all I got to say about that.

So 2024 is poised to be my biggest year yet as a gigging musician. I think I've already established some very solid relationships in Denver, the ones that I'm most excited about. There is one destination management company who has been giving me lots of gigs this past year.

We've got several gigs in the pipeline for next year that the budgets will finally resolve in early 2024, so we'll know if it's a go ahead for me to get booked for them. I've made strong partnerships with three dj companies, all of whom hire live musicians to play alongside a dj. I recently played one of those gigs in the Boncos stadium and paid me a grand, which was pretty nice.

And then I've got relationships building with wedding planners and event planners, some corporate planners in Denver as well. All of which I'm digging a gigantic well before I'm thirsty. So that when the time comes, I'm going to have gushes of water in 2024.

So that's my reflection of the year that 2023 I could have done better, but I was coping with a couple of things. 2024, I finally have the right tools. I e BookLive in place to make this an easy job.

Like a thoughtless job. Like you don't have to think to really have massive growth as a gigging musician. So by the way, if you want to join this challenge, if you're not a Fulltime music Academy member, Fulltime Music Academy comes free with every BookLive membership.

You can get a free 14 day trial of BookLive by just going to BookLive.com and signing up and you get a free 14 day trial. So you get half of the challenge covered.

And hey, if you book one gig during the challenge, then you've basically paid for an entire year for BookLive. So go to BookLive.com, grab your free 14 day trial and I will see you on our challenge.

All right, thank you so much for tuning into another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. I'm not sure if I'll do another one before the end of the year. If not, Happy New Year.

Hope you've had a wonderful holiday season with friends and family, and here is to making 2024 your biggest year ever as a gigging musician.

So thanks for tuning in and remember, "Your music still won't market itself in 2024!", so join join me in our BookLive 30-day challenge. All right.

Bye, everybody. Happy New Year.