As you may of guessed from my earlier article this week, February 2019 as of yesterday had been one of my most depressing months so far. However now it turns out that it’s going to be one of my best.

Financially, mentally & with my health.

The point I want to make to you in this article, is that what can appear to be a big dip in your growth as an artist or producer, can actually be one of the biggest growth points for you - only if you do one thing. Remove any emotional attachment from the failure.

Nothing good comes to those who expect it overnight, good things come to those who put in the work, so if you don’t like results that take a while to kick in but are effective this article isn’t for you.

A big problem that a lot of my producer consultation clients come back to me with, is ‘the rappers I’m speaking to don’t invest in themselves’. There’s one of two problems here, I say to them…

You’re either not implementing the sales cycle I gave you, which would’ve weeded out any time wasters in the beginning, OR you’re speaking to someone who literally never had any intention of buying from you. This is where identifying who your ideal lead is, it will save you plenty of time in the future, and will give you confidence that your business is running and fluid...

Understandably, most people when it comes to creating a career out of music, people become scared, uncertain, and anxious. If you’re like this, I know where you’re at - I use to be the same. And in todays podcast, I wanted to speak to my younger self as if I could change some of my mentality when I first started out...

After my previous article, asking you as to whether you do or do not have a vision, I’ve been spending the last couple of days thinking about what mine is…

What’s the life that you envision for yourself in another 5 years time? What about another 10? Or another 15? Where do you really see yourself?

Now, the problem is that with most people is that the big vision they have for themselves doesn’t equate to what they’re doing right now.

For example, I consider myself a hard working person - of course I have days that are slower than others, and sometimes but very rarely, I go out into London for a couple drinks. But just because I have a great work ethic, and get results quickly, does not mean that I’ll be a billionaire in two years time. Yeah, I might be lucky and stumble across something, it IS possible - but not a vision which actually gets me excited. Why? Because 9.9 times out of 10, it simply isn’t achievable.

I got to sit down with Music Producer Mikey Beasley AKA @MikeyBBeats and talk about the music business and the producer community!

A lot of the ‘influencers’ you see on social media nowadays always have an immense amount of confidence not only in their music, but also in themselves. They believe in the vision they share with you. They also have an immense amount of charisma, charm, and an ability to win you over to their ways of thinking.

You might see this in the way that I present myself, a lot of the content I release on my Instagram feed, the live streams, the snapchat stories - I’m always confident in what I’m doing. But it wasn’t always like that.

One year ago I can tell you with full honesty that I was an extreme introvert, I didn’t know how to speak to girls, I didn’t know how to appear confident on social media, I didn’t even really WANT to put myself out there. If you’ve been following me for a while now, whether it be 2016 or 2017, you must of seen this growth.

“DSB, how do I make more sales on my beats?” Is one of the most frequent and wide scoping questions I ever get asked. There are so many different moving parts to sales, it seems that many producers believe there is a magic pill that they can take, and all of a sudden rappers will be pouring into their website buying beats left right and centre.

This school of thought is inexperienced, if you have rappers in your DM right now but are unable to sell them, wouldn’t you agree that you’re clearly lacking sales skills?

If the worlds top sales person from a multi-billion dollar company was going to take control of your DM’s, don’t you think you’d sell more?

And this is exactly where you’re going wrong, the person that’s controlling your DM at the moment has no experience in sales, and ultimately does not know how to identify pain points and solve those pains using the product (leases) you sell.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with him for an hour to discuss how he started his #Marketing agency Climb Online, how he turned over £1.5 Million in his first year, and ultimately how we as#Artists & #Producers can become better and more productive within the 24 hour days we have.

Yep, you read that right. I full time producer just told you that the very product he’s selling is no longer valuable to his customer base. And I’m not joking either, the fact is, beats ARE no longer valuable.

The market is ‘saturated’ nowadays with producers, but more importantly than that, producers with beats that are all really high quality and have an amazing sound. So the fact that a rapper has to PAY you for the same beat that he can get on YouTube for free, would simply just be what we call a fucking dumb investment.

Why would I PAY for my water and electric bill if it was made available to me for free?

I wouldn’t, it’s money that I ‘have’ to spend every quarter.

And your potential clients, producers, are in the same boat with me. They don’t want to pay you.

I’ve spoken to hundreds, maybe even thousands of artists and producers in my music career. Along with other struggles that the community faces such as motivation, having the right marketing knowledge, and knowing the ultimate success formula to making it a full time career - the topic of negative friends and family members also rears it’s ugly head, too. 

Moving out of my mums house at 18 was one of the best ‘investments’ I have ever made in myself. Not in the stock market, and not even in my business. 

Investing to be surrounded by a new category of person was it.

For the first time in my life, I was physically miles away from the negativity of the past. Whether it be bad past life events, or just negative influences in general, being in an entire new city living in an affluent area has made me look at my personal and business life in a new way.

In fact, it has changed my life.