Sales

Clients Love It When You Do These 5 Things: How To Get Paid More

As an audio engineer, it’s in your control to help your clients look good. If you want more audio engineer jobs then your #1 priority is getting new clients and keeping them happy.

You’d be surprised how many times I hear my new clients complain about how unreliable other engineers and studios they’ve worked with before are.

Luckily, I’ve learned some things over the years to keep clients happy, help them every way I can, and provide so much value that they never hesitate to rely on me when they need work done.

I made myself indispensable to them and became the go-to-guy to hire when they need audio engineering services.

Today we’ll uncover 5 tactics you can use today to make your clients happy, keep them booked in your studio, and keep that stream of income overflowing in your pockets.

If you ever wondered why some of your clients have hired you for one project and then disappeared on the next one to go work with someone else then you probably didn’t do these 5 things.

Lets dig a little deeper into the clients head.

Clients have bosses. Whether it’s their fans, record labels, production managers, or whoever, they are working for somebody. They have to impress them. They have to look good in front of their bosses.

They have to deliver their album to their fans that they promised would come out on New Years Day.

They have to sound just as good on stage as they did on their studio album.

And they hired you to help them look good in front of their bosses.

You want your clients to look good in front of their bosses.

How do you do it? Simple:

1). Do What They Say.

This is pretty straightforward. Did they ask you to turn the delay on the vocals down? Did you do it? Even if you think it sounds better turned up. You better friggin do it.

I learned this the hard way early on when I just did what I wanted in the mix ALL the time. Clients would get pissed at me because it’s not what they wanted and it would create tension in the sessions and they would just stop hiring me.

It’s not about you, it’s about them.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s okay to suggest your input and make recommendations, but ultimately the client is YOUR BOSS. So do what they say.

Some clients will trust you enough to allow you do anything you want. That will take some time and after you build enough rapport and make them happy in prior jobs, then you can take that reign.

But for now….

Do what they say.

2) Do it on time.

Did you show up late?

Get the fa-heck out of here…

This industry is sooo competitive and there are thousands of other engineers that can replace you.

People depend on you to deliver on time.
We all know what happened to that guy that showed up late all the time……..NOTHING!

So have the discussion with the client…ask them, “When is this project due?”

Get the date. And do it on time.

Clients will look good if they promise a single to their fans to be released and it shows up on schedule.

Clients will love you when you are on time.

In the music industry, alot of my clients show up late to sessions. That’s okay though. They are paying you. They are the boss. They do what they want.

But you…….SHOULD……..ALWAYS……..

DO IT ON TIME.

3) Do a little extra to surprise them.

Do you have a twitter or facebook account? Share their music or project on your profiles.
You don’t owe them this. But you should do it anyways.

Will they pay you extra? Can you bill them?

Of course not.

They don’t expect you to do this.

But when you do, they will be surprised, and they will get excited, and they will know you are invested in their success and will definitely hire you when the next project comes around.

Another thing I do for my clients is I take photos of them in the studio while they’re working.

I then edit them with some crafty instagram type filter and make it look good and send it to them or post it up on my social media accounts.

Tag em and do a quick post on what they worked on.

Clients love the extra publicity! It makes them feel important.

This both helps the client look good to their bosses and also promotes you as an engineer. Having photos of clients you’ve worked with helps create social proof and improves your credibility when a prospect stumbles upon it or researches you online.

Even if you’re not the best skilled engineer out there, the social proof factor goes way further in getting you hired than technical skills can.

What else can you do a little extra to surprise them? Do it….

4) Give them ideas for how their jobs can even be better.

Never forget sales rule #1: Your best future clients are your current clients.

I always suggest ways my clients can improve.

For instance, I worked with a young singer-songwriter whose dream was to become a writer and work in Nashville.

She booked me for an 8 hour session to make a 2 song demo.

She had some decent experience and her songs were really good. They sounded like Taylor Swift pop hits.

But she couldn’t sing and didn’t have the right energy to justify the perfectly written songs she created. And on top of that, she didn’t know how to reach her target audience.

So I suggested 2 things to make her job better:

Take a few vocal lessons to learn how to project the right mojo
Create social media accounts to reach out to the fans she wanted

These were very obvious things that you would think to do as an up and coming songwriter, but she just didn’t know about it.

The results of her doing my little suggestions:
She booked me again for an even bigger session and I made an extra $1,500 and she had 1,000 fans on on her social media profile and made an amazing demo.

She got one step closer to her dreams.

All because I gave her an idea to make her better.

Figure out ideas for you clients to look better in front of her boss.

What can you do? Ask them what their goals are. Ask them what challenges they face. Then figure out a solution.

5) Make their lives better.

Listen to them. Go to their shows and events. Introduce them to new jobs.

I connect my music clients to local show promoters and get them booked to perform. This is something highly valuable you can do to make your clients lives better.

If you can make your client money, they’ll stick around with you for a long time.

You have a birds eye view of the entire job landscape in their industry.

I connect my clients with my other clients to do collaborations.

Your client might need a singer for a part in a rap song.

Hire your client that sings! These are not just your clients of the month: these are your clients for life.

You are getting paid to serve them and make their lives better. And of all the lives you save, they’ll stick with you to the end.

Now let’s get to work.

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Robots Took Our Jerrrrrrbs

1:17 pm by Tony Leave a Comment

The Machines Are Taking Overrrrrr….

Automation, robots, and high tech software are advancing the progression of humans and how we get shit done.

Like Tesla’s INSANELY AMAZZZING robot factory where they make their stylish electric cars.

Or Landr’s cloud based software that could replace audio engineers.

WAIT……WHAT?

Landr created an online service claiming that their software automates the mastering process of music, usually done by a seasoned engineer with impeccable ears, with an algorithm that emulates the human ear and adapts to users’ tastes and preferences.

It developed out of research conducted at Queen Mary University of London that set out to demystify mastering and understanding it on a tangible, scientific level.

The results are top secret, but anyone can make use of the finished product by dragging and dropping a sound file onto LANDR’s website. Wait a few minutes, and out comes a mastered version of your home recording.
Why should you care?Well with this type of technology, the clients that could’ve paid you do this job can now go online and get free masters of their music.
Your job could be over, or not. That’s why it is critical to make yourself indispensable in your industry to where clients will pay for the expertise and experience of working with you.

I’ve tested Landr out with some decent results.

I uploaded a song to Landr that I mixed (singer song writer type stuff with just basic acoustic gtr and vocals) and then it shat out a mastered version and sent it to my email.

It’s actually kinda cool how it works. It allows you to a/b compare the unmastered and mastered versions instantly. And also allows you change the intensity of the limiting and compression.

Is This Good or Bad?

There’s two ways to look at this:

You can decide that the future of audio engineering is over and change careers…or
Adapt, bob, and weave.

I’ll go for the latter. This could be an opportunity for you to use services like Landr as a tool to help you earn more.

For instance, you could charge recording clients extra to have their songs mastered at a lower rate. Maybe they never planned on getting their stuff mastered. But if you tell them they can get a mastered version for an small extra fee, this could add more profits for you AND make the client happy because they got a great deal.

You could use this service and just give away free masters as part of your pricing. Adding deliverables like this to your pricing package will make you more attractive when clients are comparing you to other engineers.

Here’s a preview of what Landr’s interface looks like:

Watch Landr master a song in minutes:

Here’s a link to an interview of the creators of Landr:

Will Landr Replace Audio Engineers?

I like making my life easier.

What would you do with services like this?

Will you use it to your advantage?

Or will you do nothing and let the robots take over?

Let me know how you could make money with this in the comments.

The Hassle Free Way To Get Clients In Your Door (and not be annoying)

11:39 am by Tony 3 Comments

Find audio engineering jobs you're passionate about. — Smart Audio Income helps audio engineers get paid.

I’m writing this post for you at a wine bar. It’s 12:30 in the afternoon. This is one of the great benefits of being a freelance audio engineer! Freedom to do what I want, work from anywhere, and make my own work schedule. I have clients later tonight recording with me so hopefully I won’t get too hammered on this sunny day in Florida.

Today I’m going to share with you an insider tactic to help you get clients. This will be for the engineers that don’t have that much confidence to sell your service. For the engineers that don’t want to be annoying when approaching potential leads.

There’s a way I get potential clients into my studio and sales funnel to pitch them my audio engineering service. It’s a guaranteed way to get the sale and earn that precious income. And so far, since the 5 years I’ve been using this tactic, I’ve had a 97% closing ratio. Nearly everybody that I pitch my engineering work to with this strategy ends up hiring me.

Enter the:
Free 30 Minute Consultation

What is it?

The 30-minute consultation is getting your potential client to a private meeting with you or your associates and finding out what problems they face and how you can HELP solve it for them.

It’s designed to increase your income, and get more clients.

It’s a one-on-one meeting. You ask the prospect questions and you LISTEN. Talk LESS. Build rapport and figure out what their biggest dreams, goals, hopes, and fears are.

Once you know what the prospects pain points are, you can customize your pitch catered to their needs, wants and desires, and close them on the sale.

This is sales 101 at it’s finest. And the BEST businesses and audio engineers know this and use it everyday to stay booked and earn a living.

Before we get into the tactics and mechanics on how this works, let’s first touch base on the most important takeaway from the consultation:

-This is all designed to EARN INCOME.
-The only way to earn income in this biz is to get your customer to TRUST you 100% that you can solve their problems.

What are some common problems of audio engineer customers?
I mainly work in the indie music business and here are the common challenges my customers have:

Getting their name out there
Creating a BUZZ
Sounding great
Building a fan base
Direction and guidance on what sounds good
How to record and structure their song arrangements

These are just a few common problems most artists face. Notice it’s not that technical. It’s more abstract.

They don’t care if you have the greatest engineering know-how. Recording artists are creative people. And creative people need help with direction and what to do with their art.

So a deep understanding of their needs, wants, and fears will instantly set you apart from everybody else and get you paid more because you’ll know exactly what they need and how to help them.

Engineering these artists is only half the work. There’s lots of psychology and people skills involved with this.

How can you help them?

To begin with, you’ll need to customize your pitch for every consultation you do. It’ll never be the same. But having templates, systems, and guidelines in your supply to help you streamline the process will make things hassle free.

The top performers have systems.

Some common scripts and templates I’ll use:

“I understand how you feel. Most of the clients I work with face the same challenges. I can help create your buzz by helping you make amazing, professional sounding music you can share, promote, and sell.

You’ll be able to connect with and build your fan base with this music project. First, we’ll brainstorm your project and lay out a game plan for the production process. Second, we’ll start production and I’ll help guide you every step of the way on what sounds good and throw in some creative ideas to help make an excellent recording.

Having a professionally recorded project will help you get your name out there because people will take you serious when you sound like the pros. I suggest we start by booking a 4 hour recording session and then go from there.

After recording is done, I’ll mix the songs and make them sound the best! It’ll cost you (your pricing fees) and what you get is the studio, engineer, recording, editing, mixing, burned cd, mp3s, pro tools files, and 3 amazing songs you can promote, etc? I have times available this Saturday and Sunday.

Which day works best for you?”

This is my exact script on what I’ll say based on the consultation.

Notice the wording, how I talk about THEM. And notice how I tell them everything my price includes and what they can expect from me. (This creates high value when customers know exactly what they’re paying for). Notice I give them options on which day to book. Always give them choices: “This or that”

When I started implementing this tactic my business skyrocketed. I went from being afraid to pitch my service, to making it easy to win and using a system with word scripts to help deliver value and close more clients. And I’m able to close 97% of the prospects I give consultations to.

This one little thing you do can increase your income immensely!

This is the magic approach! The hassle free way to get new audio engineering jobs and not be annoying.

I guarantee this will work for you. I’ve been teaching this to friends, students, and studios and they’ve been getting huge success.

Key takeaways:

I know what problems and challenges my clients face
I customize how I can specifically help them fix their problems.
I use a call to action (ask for the sale) with 2 options, now or later. (make it easy to choose)
It’s also a good idea to have multiple pricing options so clients have choices based on budgets

The biggest challenge most audio engineers have is they’re afraid to ask people to pay them. Don’t be! You are the doctor that can help the sick. Customers have pain. They need you. You can fix it. And you’re gonna charge for it! 🙂

This is getting deeply inside the head of the client and figuring out EXACTLY how you can help them.

How do you get potential clients to your consultations?

You ask people. Or you can put the free consultation ad on your website, email, text message, etc….

Here’s what I use on my website:

This is a couple of snapshots from my website. When clients find me they’ll see options to book the free 30 minute consultations. And I usually do the consultations first before I ever ask them to book time with me. This helps me qualify clients and ensures we are a good match financially and personally to work well together. The free 30-minute consultation will make your business easier by working with the right clients, and kindly turning down business that is not good for you.

And remember this, when you’re asking people to come to the consultation, never talk about money or pricing. What your selling is an appointment. If they insistently demand for price quotes, give it them. But you’ll have a greater success rate if you get in front of them first. If they ask for pricing right away, I’ll say things like “I have several pricing options based on individual budgets, let’s meet first and figure out which pricing option will work best for you”. I have different rates for pay by the hour, booking block time, and doing full albums. It’s really hard to give them an accurate quote unless you know what they need first, hence the free consultation.

A lot of times clients will call you and ask for price quotes and then compare you to the other engineers and go for the cheapest. But what we want to do is find out what they need first, tell them how you can solve their needs and deliver value with the best quote like how I did in my script.

The 30-minute consultation is always free. And psychologically, it’s something concrete that clients will get. They get 30-minutes with an expert engineer..

Sometimes you have to customize your pricing. But when you do it in this manner, you demonstrate high value. In the clients head, they’ll know you can help them do what they want. You tell them you’ll solve their problems. And at this point, they will pay whatever your fee is if they trust you and like you.

The smart and serious customer pays for value. And they usually won’t negate your fees when you start the sales process with a free 30-minute consultation. Getting high paying customers that don’t whine and complain is the Smart Audio Income philosophy.

Here’s a guideline on what kind of questions to ask clients in your consultation:

Tell me a about your project.
What is your greatest challenge?
What do yo think the solution is?
What is your ultimate goal?
How do you think you can reach that goal?

And you want to make this a relaxed interaction not an interrogation. Have music playing in the background. Offer snacks and beverages. Use a notepad and take notes.

Tell stories on how you helped similar customers with the same problems. This will put them at ease. The best trick I know is to smile. Smile a lot. It’s infectious. It’ll lighten up the mood and you’ll earn their trust. And when you earn trust, they’ll pay you. You have to be a great salesman.

Who do you know that’s a great salesman or is really outgoing and everybody loves them?

Most of these people types are like puppies that are excited to see you when you get home from work. They smile, they give you tons of attention, and they make you happy. Be that puppy in the consultation. These puppies are the engineers that get the most work. Clients love them.

Resources:

I recommend you read some books on sales, human behavior, and self-improvement. Invest in yourself. It’ll pay off HUGE!
One book I read a few years ago that resonated with me was:

Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions by Guy Kawasaki (who helped Apple’s success in the early days)

It’s a great easy read that’ll teach you how to be likable, get more friends, get more business, and make living a good life easy.

In summary, the Free 30-Minute consultation is a psychologically-engineered tactic to turn potential leads into paying audio engineer clients. It doesn’t matter what field your in. It works for all types of audio engineering jobs.

And remember I have a 97% closing ration using this.

If you want to increase your income, book more business, and get more audio engineering jobs, then you should implement this tactic into your daily regimen.

Action Steps:

Create a 30-minute consultation pitch and use it on your website, emails, etc.
Come up with 5-7 questions (or use mine) to ask your clients.
Make a list of 3 potential customers you can offer free consultations to and contact them today.
Remember to talk less and listen more. Then customize your sales pitch tailored to THEM and their needs.
ASK FOR THE SALE!
Rinse and Repeat.
Go grab a beverage and celebrate!

P.S. Got questions, recommendations, success stories? Comment below. I read every single one.

Turn Your Free Work Into Paying Clients

10:56 am by Tony 1 Comment

Herrrrrow my friends :),

First of all I’d like to thank the SAI subscribers that took the time to comment on my Reddit Post from the last email. You are amazing! So far it has something like 70 plus comments on what audio engineers aspire for in their career.

They say things like:
“I want music to be the center of my life.”
“I want to pay down debt and support my family.”
“I want to have enough status that clients seek me out instead of me seeking them out.”
“I just want to work on music projects I’m passionate about, and if it pays, hell yea!”

Any of these things sound familiar?
If you haven’t got a chance to check out what people are saying visit the link here:

What are your hopes and dreams as an audio engineer?

At Smart Audio Income, my mission is to help you reach your goals and beyond.

I’ve had so much fun in my career, from working in the studio with grammy winning artists, to living on a tour bus for 3 months and traveling with 3 top tier artists across the US for 40 plus shows, and even getting surprised by one of my favorite artists randomly showing up to the studio to record a song.

It’s mind boggling in hindsight writing this email and remembering all the crazy shit I’ve done.

This is a very creative and rewarding industry. And I want you to be successful in this crazy weird industry and get paid to DO WHAT YOU LOVE.

That’s why I started this. I want everyone to not have to wade through the bullshit side of this profession. It’s kind of a secret on how people get paid to do this. And I’ll uncover all the secrets I know to you. Just be patient, and trust my systems.

Nothing happens overnight, but if you stick with me, read this blog, subscribe to my private email list and invest time into improving yourself and learning, imagine where you’ll be 6 months, 12 months, 2 years from today.

Sound good?

Alright so let’s get to work!

I’ve recently asked my private email list: What’s The One Thing You Have Trouble With?

I got some really great responses. And I’m going to share with you what one reader had problems with.
I’ll edit out specific names, locations, etc.. because I don’t want to be a bozo put subscribers on the spot.

Today we’ll cover:
How To Turn Your Free Work Into Paid Work (just a few simple steps) and also….
How To Get Clients That Pay For Value And Trust Your Service

So What’s the MAIN problem you face earning a living as audio engineer?

Enter: Tim Baker

“I’ve been engineering and mixing for quite some time. Of course I was offering free services in the beginning until I recently had the confidence in my sound and quality from experience and getting my schooling in Arizona for Audio Engineering in multiple areas.

So I am in a transition stage to get paying clients and they still want it for free. I’m building a portfolio of music as I go of recent work. And I’m trying to use social networking to reach out to artist other than just local artist.

And another thing I find an issue with is the area I’m in isn’t so supportive of other artist in the area to better themselves and think they can do it all and are closed minded so it’s hard to get people to accept my services.

Any advice on what direction I could take would be great. And secondly turnaround time I feel is a big thing as well for mixes. How would you keep a consistent turnaround time with clientele changing on you?

And to answer the last question Yes I would be willing to invest in myself with a premium course if I feel like I’ll gain more from it than looking it up online. But yes I would invest.” -Tim

My response:

Hey Tim!

Thanks for your response.

It seems like you may be asking the wrong types of clients for your service if they expect it free.
I’d suggest to position yourself and your service as something premium that will attract only the serious artists that will gladly pay premium rates for value.

One quick fix I’d suggest that I did was to charge more. If your rate is $25/hour, bump it up to $50/hour.

Using human psychology, your higher rate will cause your prospect to perceive you as a top notch pro that’s able to command higher prices, and in turn, provide higher quality work.

The perceived value is “If I pay Jimmy $50/hr, I will get the best work done!” Versus, “Bob down the street only charges $20, I wonder what the quality is like?”

Think of Apple charging triple the amount for computers vs. windows based PC’s. PC’s have the same tech/specs if not better than Apple, but Apple has the perception of being top quality. “I’ll pay more for Apple because it’s better” But in fact, it’s the same technology.

Charge higher, position yourself as the best, attract better customers, that pay MORE.

Another interesting case you’ll find in charging higher rates is you’ll quickly filter out the serious artist from the fakes. You’ll have better clients, more money, and have more fun! These higher paying clients also complain less and you’ll have lesser challenges working with them. They are also usually smarter and will trust you to do your job.

Where as the lesser paying client will demand the WORLD, MOON, and STARS from you and complain a lot. I know this from personal experience and also from interviewing top performing engineers.

You might think, “if I charge more, I’ll lose out on more customers”. It’s okay to think this though.
You may miss out on a few low paying clients that will use you and never return, but you’ll gain a higher paying client that’ll will stick around and keep hiring you as long as you did a good first job.

And keeping these higher paying clients coming back will make up for the lost business of problematic cheapo flaky artists. The higher client is loyal and doesn’t want to have to find another engineer.

But when you charge a higher rate, be sure your prospect client knows EVERYTHING included in the price.

You DO have to justify why they are paying this price. I’ll teach more of this in the premium course I’m getting ready to launch.

Ask yourself, “Why am I this price?” “What value can I provide?” “Am I faster, do my mixes sound better, do I give the client more stuff than others?”

Most of the time, just understanding what problems the client has and being able to help them fix this problem will put you at the top of the ranks.

Remember, you’re solving the Artist problem of sounding radio ready and getting their music sounding so good it will impress their friends and make them stand out from the crowd.

They want to focus on the music while an engineer/producer works behind the scenes to ensure their vision comes out of the speakers properly.

When you pitch your service say things like this: “Artist, I can help you make your music sound amazing so you can promote it, sell it, and reach your fans. All you have to do is focus on the music, while I worry about all the tech/audio/wizardy”

Talking like this will make clients think of you as “Jimmy can really help solve my problems.”

One of the secrets to staying booked as an engineer is this subtle psychology that goes into making people comfortable with you enough to not only hire you, but pay you a lot of money.

It’s all about them not you. Talk endlessly about them and their music. Talk about their goals, dreams, and music. Get a good understanding of what they really NEED and then pitch them your service and explain HOW it fills their need. “My service will help you get famous by sounding professional.”

Hope this helps. I know It’s lot to digest. But digest it and you will get paying clients. I guarantee.

Oh and as far as mixing turnarounds. I have this problem a lot with new starting new sessions everyday and getting backed up with having to complete mixing on old sessions.

The trick to fix this is to don’t sleep and work everyday, lol. If you have this problem then it’s a good thing. Your booked solid!

Also, try using templates to speed up your workflow. I use a Pro Tools template for recording that’s also set up for mixing and mastering. All my tracks are routed to busses with all the plugins I need. So when I start a new session everything runs smooth, fast, and easy. I also do editing and rough mixes as I’m recording.

By the time everything is tracked, I’m about 60 percent done editing and mixing. This takes lots of practice and I’ve learned this from billboard chart topping engineers when I used to assist with them.

Do free work to develop relationships, build a demo reel and increase your credibility to shop for new paying clients. I talked about this in my ebook.

If you’re doing free work now for friends or whoever, that’s okay, you can use your finished work as your demo reel to share with the new clients that will ask for samples of your work. You can put the samples up on a website or soundcloud and prospect clients can hear that you know what you are doing.

Key Take Aways:

Increase your rate to seek better clients (value perception, remember Apple computers)
Understand your customers. What do they really want? What pain do they have that you can fix? Ask them.
It’s all about them (the customer). Most of them don’t care what gear you use. I’ve only been asked that a couple of times. Work relentlessly hard to uncover what your customer’s needs are and ALWAYS talk about them. Build rapport first, before you ask for the sale. Read books on persuasion and sales (it’ll help you become a better engineer) My favorite is Enchantment. It’s every popular book on relationships and business boiled down into one easy read.
Do free work to build up a portfolio of at least 3 finished projects that you can use in your marketing arsenal for reaching out to new paying clients.

Now go out and get to work!

Comments:

What’s worked for you? Have any success stories with these tactics? Please share with us in the comments.

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