Primary Blog/Gigging Musician Podcast/Episode 271 - From Fear to Flourishing: Breaking Out of Your Comfort Zone to Book More Gigs

Episode 271 - From Fear to Flourishing: Breaking Out of Your Comfort Zone to Book More Gigs

Saturday, January 18, 2025

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Episode Recap

In this episode, Jared reflects on a corporate holiday gig and shares a game-changing marketing tip to get authentic video reviews that build trust with future clients. He also dives deep into overcoming the fear of networking and stepping out of your comfort zone to grow your music business. Using a powerful analogy, Jared explains why growth only happens when you expose yourself to new opportunities and make meaningful connections in the event industry.

Best Quote

"Growth doesn’t happen in your comfort zone—it happens when you push yourself to connect with people and seize new opportunities."

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Transcript

What's up, renegade musicians? Welcome back to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. I'm your host, Jared Judge, and I'm on my way home from a corporate holiday party gig.

It is Friday, December 13th, lucky Friday the 13th.

And I live streamed this gig in our Business Tips for Gigging Musicians Facebook group. So if you're not a member of that look up ‘Business Tips for Gigging Musicians’ in Facebook, join it and scroll back to Friday 13th December and you'll see the beginning of this gig.

And I gotta say, this was probably one of the best executed gigs from a marketing standpoint I've ever done.

Not that you have to market corporate gigs, by the way. I mean, you have to market yourself to get the gigs, but once you get the gig, you don't make flyers inviting people to it. That's what I'm saying.

That would be wildly inappropriate for you to invite somebody to a corporate holiday party that's not your company. Anyway, what I meant by this was one of the best executed corporate gigs from a marketing standpoint was I think I did a really good job performing.

Like people were bopping and having a great time and coming up to me afterwards saying that they liked it.

But then immediately after, this is going to be like a game changing tip for you if you have 0 reviews of your music. But you gotta get reviews because that's why people trust you enough to hire you without having seen you live before.

All right, so immediately after the gig, the person who hired me, Rachel, and her colleague came up to me and Rachel was so happy with my performance that she gave me a hug.

She's like, that was so amazing. I enjoyed every song you played. And her colleague was like, yeah, every song you played was just a banger.

And we had so much fun listening to you, which is always great to hear that feedback. Right? That's kind of why we, one of the reasons we do this. But then I just spur the moment, have this idea because I haven't done this in a while.

And I'm so glad I did because I actually tried a tweak to this process that gets an authentic video review from somebody who just hired you telling future clients why you're amazing and why that they should hire you too. And so I said, I thank them. I said, thank you so much.

I'm so glad you had me. And they just kept going on and on. I could tell, like they, they would do almost anything I asked of them.

And so I figured I was going to ask them something pretty big, which was I said to them, hey, I have a favor to ask. And then I always give a reason before I ask this, right? You don't just want to ask without giving a reason, because otherwise they won't understand.

So I said, I'm looking to break into more corporate events and play more of these lovely events, and seems like you guys really enjoyed it.

One of the things that I'm having a hard time doing is marketing it because I don't have reviews of people who hired me.

So if you like this so much, would you be willing to take a selfie video talking about who you are and the fact that you hired me and what you thought of the performance? And they had to think about it for a while. I said, no pressure.

In fact, if it makes it easier, let me just hand you my phone and give you some privacy and you guys can record it, you know, without me watching. And that was the tweak that I think was a brilliant move. Not to, like, pat my back or give me a medal, but it was a good move because I think I'm gonna get a.

An authentic, really good review from them. I haven't watched the video yet, so that's the only caveat is I actually don't know if the review was good, but I'm assuming it was good.

And I also assume by handing them my phone and saying, I'll give you some privacy, that almost kind of forced them to do it because, like, now they have my phone.

Like, who just leaves their phone with somebody else? But the fact that they have it means, like, oh, you know, we should leave him a review. And. And they did.

So I'm pumped about that. And I think, you know, it's going to be a good review, so I just have to watch it when I get home and finish this. This podcast.

All right, so, yeah, this. This gig was great. It came from a recommendation through my network, which, as you all know, that's the biggest thing that I preach, the thing that I love the most, because I didn't spend a dime on advertising to get this gig right.

If you spend money on Geek Salad, which I do, I spend money on geek salad and thumbtack and all those. In fact, last week on Thumbtack, I've had my thumbtack profile paused for a while. I just turned it off because I was tired of low ballers and ghosters.

And the big issue with thumbtack and bark.com, which is very similar to thumbtack, is that anytime somebody reaches out to you, even if they don't hire you, they charge you money.

Thumbtack actually does charge you money, anywhere between like 10 and $50 for that one person contacting you.

Even if they don't hire you, Bark does it slightly differently. They do it with credits. Like, you purchase credits, and then you spend credits on these leads, even if they don't book you either.

So it's not a great business model, but it's one of the ones that exists, and people do use it. So I have gotten gigs off of both of those platforms. However, for both of those platforms, when you get a lead, you are charged money, which is crazy.

But if you're on Gig Salad and the Bash and Wedding Wire and the Knot, which are like the competitors, they have a slightly different model. It's more a monthly subscription where, you know, you also are basically charged by the lead. The thing is that that amount that you're charged is divided by the number of leads that you get each month.

So it's like your subscription fee divided by the number of leads, and that's your cost per lead, which is a good marketing metric.

And so regardless of which of these platforms you're on, you are paying per lead. You're spending money whenever you get a lead, and that lead is not guaranteed to turn into a gig.

So, you see, the problem is that you're spending a lot of money per lead, and you're spending even more money per gig if you divide how many gigs you get by your monthly subscription or the amount you've spent on leads in a given month.

So all that to say is that leads that come through your network are entirely free. Zero dollars and zero cents.

Which is awesome, because if you don't have a lot of cash up front, then you're not spending any cash up front. You can keep that in your pocket, spend it on some new guitar strings, or upgrade your setup, get an iPad for your backing tracks. Whatever you need to do, pay rent with it.

And that's why I'm. I'm such a huge advocate for building up your network. And, you know, I was chatting with a musician recently whom was just so fearful in starting that process of reaching out to people, and they couldn't get over that mental block.

And I get that, because when I first started this, like, I had no freaking clue what I was doing. It was scary. I just had this gut feeling that that's the work that I needed to do.

But I'm a musician. I'm an introvert. I don't like talking to people.

I just like to play my Instrument. I'm also a software developer too. Like that's why I built BookLive.

Both of those are introvert personality types. So talking to people is super uncomfortable for me and especially when I hadn't. Didn't have the practice of doing it with hundreds of people that I, that I have now.

But there was this gut feeling, this thing driving inside of me saying, I know that this is the path forward. There is no other logical path forward to get these gigs without reaching out and talking to people, getting out of my comfort zone. And so I pushed myself.

I literally like said, you're going to do it anyway. It's going to suck. You're going to hate it and you're going to leave it feeling like, uh, I failed.

But that's okay because everybody sucks at new things their first time. So just kind of accepting that it's going to suck, it's going to be painful because once you rip off that bandaid, the second time you do it, it's going to suck less. The third time, it's going to suck even less.

And by now I've probably chatted with over a thousand people in the events industry between Milwaukee and Denver. And at this point it's kind of comfortable. I still kind of like dread going to the larger networking events where I have to talk to a lot of them all at the same time.

But in my opinion, doing this one on one is a lot easier because you're not, you know, being uncomfortable in front of a large amount of people. It's. It's kind of like when you're performing a large concert, it's much scary to perform in front of 10,000 people than it is for like five people.

So yeah, I understand it is scary and you're right to feel that way because I felt that way too. But I promise you, it is the path that like your gut telling you that's the thing that you need to do. Your gut is absolutely right.

Trust your gut and then prepare yourself for the fact that your first time you reach out to somebody and talk to them in person, it's to be uncomfortable and you're going to feel like a failure afterwards. I promise you, you're not. You are making progress.

I think there's a quote that says something like, growth does not happen in your comfort zone. So think about that. Growth does not happen in your comfort zone.

There's. I don't know, there's an. You can make an analogy of like planting a tree, right? So say that you are the soil and you know people you plant a seed inside the soil, but your comfort zone is that soil.

If you stay within your comfort zone, that seed has no chance of breaking through the soil. The growth happens outside of the soil. That's where it gets exposed to the sun and the nutrients and the things that it needs to grow.

So we have to break out of the soil and expose ourselves to the real world. It's actually kind of a good analogy, like, get out there in the real world, in the fresh air, make contact with the other plants and animals in the ecosystem, and only through that will we get enough nutrients to grow and thrive and will we actually have space to thrive. So that's kind of my rant for today.

I am just pulling into my alleyway and I'm going to unload my equipment from my corporate holiday party. So thanks for bearing with me. I hope that this inspires some of you to get out of your comfort zone, break through that soil, and be the flourishing tree or cactus or flower that you were meant to be.

Because you guys are amazing and I believe in you. You got the musical talent. The growth does not happen in the practice room anymore for you.

It happens in front of event planners and venue owners. All right, thanks for tuning into another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast.

By the way, if you would like a free breakthrough strategy session where I can coach you on this and figure out if I'm able to actually help with your situation, go to fulltimemusicacademy.com/call and book your free strategy session with me now.

All right, thanks for tuning in. Have a great holiday, and remember, "Your music will not market itself!".

​Bye, everybody.

Episode 272 - Making 2025 Your Year of High-End Gigs: Reflect, Refocus, and Rise

Episode 271 - From Fear to Flourishing: Breaking Out of Your Comfort Zone to Book More Gigs

Episode 270 - Scam Alert: How to Spot and Avoid Fake Gig Inquiries

Episode 269 - The Power of Strategic Free Gigs: Unlocking High-End Opportunities

Episode 268 - Revolutionizing Strings: Mark Wood on Innovation, Business, and Breaking Boundaries

Episode 266 - From Bass to Solo Act: Steve Lyon’s Journey to High-End Gigs

Episode 265 - How Jenny Peters Built Chicago Elegant Piano and Booked Her First Gig

Episode 264 - How to Book High-End Gigs Through Venue Tours and Strategic Sponsorships

Episode 263 - Getting Paid What You’re Worth: Booking High-End Gigs and Smart Relationship Building

Episode 262 - 5 Gigs, One Weekend: Booking High-End Events and Building Relationships in the Music Industry

Episode 261 - Why Most Musicians Struggle to Make Real Money (And How to Break the Cycle)

Episode 260 - Get Featured on The Gigging Musician Podcast: Share Your Story & Amplify Your Reach!

Episode 259 - Landing High-Paying Gigs: Breaking $3K Solo Performances & Booking Holiday Shows

Episode 258 - Navigating Gig Challenges and Maximizing Opportunities at High-End Events

Episode 257 - New Gear, Big Gigs, and Building Corporate Event Connections

Episode 256 - Building Relationships and Delivering Excellence at High-End Gigs

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