My Sales Call Process as a Songwriter/Producer

Friedemann: for many producers, the hardest part of the business is selling yourself in sales calls. So they've heard about you, they've set up a Zoom meeting with you, and now you have like an hour of time to convince them that you are the right person for the job. If that idea alone stresses you out immensely, let me take some load off your shoulder by showing you exactly how I do it, what I do before the call, what I do during, and what I do after. So hopefully next time you go through this situation, it will be a lot less stressful. So first of all, let's talk about marketing. This is going to be a lesson on marketing. What is marketing? I think your definition is extremely important here. I like to distinguish marketing from selling. when I think of selling, I think of movies like Wolf of Wall Street, people, you foot in the door marketing, people on the phone being super aggressive, like you have to close now, or you know, this deal is gonna be gone forever. where selling to me is about getting them to buy whatever the cost. marketing for me. is about helping the other person make a good decision. What that means is your job as a marketer is to give them all the information they need, good and bad. you can always relativize bad things, but you should tell them about potential risks. You don't want things to Come around to bite you in the ass later on and they get a refund later. You want to be upfront about things that might be considered a risk. And you'll see exactly how I do that later in the video. Now in general, I believe in being kind. I believe in being professional. I believe in reciprocity. I spend my time with you and I'm fully listening to you on your call. And I see it as your call, right? And I believe in letting the songs speak for themselves. I don't have to push really hard. I'm just gonna tell you what I do, and then you can listen to the songs and decide for yourself whether it's a good fit or not. So at the end of the day, I think marketing is really about knowing what your product is and how to put your best foot forward with that product. So have a product worth selling is the biggest and most important step of marketing that a lot of people miss. And so this doesn't just pertain to you being a good producer. It also means being professional on the call, being a social person who is interested in the other person, who is good at communicating and working together, right? There's a lot of things that feed into this. And I want to show you how I communicate those ideas in this first Zoom call. but before we get to the Zoom call, I want to sh make sure that the other person, what they call a lead in marketing, again, one of those awful terms that you know dehumanizes people, but that this other person is qualified, as they say, to get to speak with me. I want to make sure. That I'm not just talking to anybody and you know, after I've given an hour speech, basically, they go, you know what? I only have like two hundred bucks to make this production, right? I wanna make sure that I'm working with people who are very serious about their craft, who know that this is going to cost something, and who know who I am. so the first thing I'll do is send out a questionnaire. I just use Google Forms, that's free. It's very easy to do. And for the questions I basically just ask myself, if I were the artist, what kind of questions would I want to answer? What are things that are important to me that I definitely would like my producer to know about? And then, of course, I'll have to ask them stuff that I need to know about. What is their name? What is their email address? What is their telephone number? Stuff like that. What is their address? can they come to my studio so we can work together in person? What is their artist identity? Here, I have a lot of questions that pertain to my particular writing style. So I have a lot of questions about storytelling here, for example, and about creating a character for them. marketing, positioning. how is this song going to be released? do they have a following online? What is the song going to look like specifically? Are they looking for something specific when they're writing the song? What should I know about your skills? This is one of my favorite questions. Is there something you can do with your voice that is very unique? Like, can you do like a whistle voice? Can you beatbox? Whatever. Because I always want to know those things, because we might put that into the song, right? Those are the things that make you unique as an artist. I always want to know about those. at the end of the questionnaire, I will give them a little to-do list of things that they will eventually have to do. Not before a first Zoom call necessarily. But things that I expect from them before we start writing together. And these are things like a mood board. I like to have some visuals while I'm writing. I think that's very useful. A Spotify playlist of reference songs that they want me to hear, things that they're excited about, music that they love. And finally, I want them to send in some voice notes. So if they have ideas for songs that they've been toying around with that they're interested in, I want them to send as much of that over as possible. So why do I give them this questionnaire? It seems like a lot of hoops I'm asking them to jump through before we even get to meet in person. Why not just ask them on the Zoom call? Because my time is valuable as well. I want to weed out the artists who aren't serious about working with me. Also, by spending time filling in this questionnaire, they have just invested a lot of effort into working with me, whether they know it or not. if they want to talk to me, they have to go through this thing. And think about this. If if I'm an artist and have two producers in front of me, one I've already spent a lot of time and effort with, and the other one I barely know, you know, who am I gonna go with, more likely? So this is a little one of those marketing techniques that can help. with the sale a little bit later on in the call, if you want to call it that. I don't really like calling it a sale, but this is the marketing lingo a lot of people use, right? I think the the most important part about this questionnaire, though, is ultimately that it's it has an I see you quality. I see what you're doing. I I care about you. You are important to me. This is not, you know, you are not a nameless puppet to me. I don't have a process that I go through exactly the same way every single time. And you new artist, who's he? Okay, go. Blah blah blah. You know, I want to make sure that they know I'm listening to them, and this is specifically a song that I'm writing just for them, and it's gonna be different from all the other songs I've written before. now if you're noticing that not a lot of people are showing up to your Zoom calls, you can ask for a deposit of a hundred bucks. So they have to pay a hundred bucks right now that shows you they are serious and they are willing to show up to this Zoom call. They can get a refund if they don't, but It's it's an added thing, right? If they have paid you a little bit of money, that helps. Also, $100 shows this is gonna cost money. I'm aware that this is not gonna be cheap. If you find that pricing tends to be an issue during your Zoom calls, you might also put like a little disclaimer here where you already hint at what your price is. You might say something like, A lot of man hours go into this. I'm doing everything custom just for you. So I just want to make clear that this is not gonna be like a 500 euro production, 500 production. This will cost you some money. Are you fine with that? And they have to check yes if they want to continue. but hopefully after they fill in the questionnaire, they are ready to have a Zoom call with you. And for this, I use an app called TidyCal, T-I-D-Y-C-A-L, which is a one-time purchase and allows them to. automatically book a call with you and it sets up the Zoom session. Everything is ready for you. On the Zoom call, we will both be looking at a Google Doc because I get a little nervous looking at another person sometimes through Zoom, much more than I am in person. So I like looking at a Google Doc. And I think some people feel the same way. So it kind of takes off the stress a little bit. And in that document, which I also send out to them after the call is over, by the way. we go through everything that I want them to know. And this is again marketing is getting them to understand what it is that that I am selling essentially, who it is that I am and what I do so they can make a good decision whether they should work with me or not. So I always start with a who am I section. I want to introduce myself formally. They might have seen me on YouTube, they might have already a relationship with me, but I want to make sure that they understand where I'm coming from when I'm writing music. so I start with my story. I think knowing somebody's story goes a long way to becoming friends with them. And that's really what this is, right? It is a relationship at the end of the day. I want them To like me, I want to like them. So I start by explaining, here's where I'm coming from. if you are writing a story like this, try to phrase this a little bit like a rags to riches story. For me, my and and obviously don't lie, it should be a real story. But for me, the story is I was bullied a lot in school because of my name and I had long hair. and so music was my way out of that. when I found music and I started my band at 15. that really helped give me a lot of confidence, and suddenly I stopped caring about what other people said, and it was my way out of my teenage depression. And so music in a very real sense saved my life back then. And music, therefore, still to this day holds a very special place in my heart because it feels like it is necessary for survival. I talk about this sometimes, the you got to sound gefährlich idea, right? You have to sound dangerous. that's what music is to me. music is my way of of surviving hardships. so it's very serious to me. It's not just a hobby that I do. It's not just something fun I do off the side. No, this is something that is integral to my personality and who I am as a artist. and also talk about how I went from being a nerdy outside kid to now having married the love of my life, having an awesome son, working on stuff that I'm genuinely excited about, and being a hit songwriter as well. Now, that's something I obviously want to mention early on in the call. I have written some songs that have seen some great commercial successes. That is obviously a big selling point. I want to put that in as well, but it is also part of my story. I also want to talk about my strengths, which in my case is my systemic understanding of how music works due to me having done a lot of analyses and a lot of work coaching people how to write better songs. Then I talk about what makes me unique as an artist to work with, which in my case is my storytelling. I have written a book, I've written several video games and board games that all have stories to them. So I've written a lot of stories, and that's something I definitely bring into songwriting with me. Finally, I will end on talking about the business side of things. I will tell them that I am a YouTuber and I've done do my own marketing and I've built my business with holistic songwriting, just to let them know I also know business. I am not purely an artist, which is great, but I also want to make make sure that they understand that I also have an eye towards the industry. And it is important to me that their song does well commercially. I want to write songs that connect with people. Then I talk about what my particular writing style is. And here I'm very frank, very open with them, and I'll tell them exactly what the risks are with this. My style tends to be very fast and iterative. and I basically want them to know a little bit, here's what it's like working with me, right? And I do give out warnings here. I will say things like some artists are irritated by this because I tend to be very messy at the beginning. Now it turns out great at the end, that's obviously the final product has to be amazing. But as long as we're working on it, the track is going to sound messy. It's not going to sound very good. I also let them know that I'm not a trend writer. I am not interested in copy-pasting what other people are doing. I don't like working with an A-B track where I listen back to the newest Dualipa song and try to replicate exactly what they're doing. That's not me, right? I will also say, It will be a commercial song that you can sell and that will connect with people, but I don't like working like this where I'm copying something exactly. The next section is about what we will be doing together. And now I've talked a bunch about myself. Now I want to hear from them. And you know, it's is this is supposed to be a conversation. I don't just want it to be a monologue. So there's the added purpose of making sure that they get a chance to talk here as well. So I'll ask them what we'll be doing together. do they wanna write the song together? Do they want me to write the song? purely by myself. Do they want me to take a song that they have written and arrange it professionally? What's the idea here? And this is also a little bit of a warning signs question. If they say, Well, I want to do everything, I just I just needed a producer, that's a bad sign, obviously. also at this point through the questionnaire and my initial introduction of myself, there is a little bit of a risk of too much professionalism from my side. And that can sometimes come across as being soulless, right? I wanna reassure them by saying something like I also wanna make sure that I love the song that we write together. And I believe, and I really do believe this, that if a song is good, everybody in the in the room knows, right? I believe that there should never be a fight about a particular moment in your song. Because if somebody says this isn't working, then it isn't working, right? And we should find a solution that works for everybody in the room. I'm not just here as a service provider. I am also an artist, and I want to make sure that I love the song as well. So, what I do with that is I tell them the responsibility is not entirely on your shoulders. This is a joint venture. We are both working on this together to make this song awesome. It's not you giving me money and I'll do the bare minimum just to make you happy. I want to be happy as well. This is just as important for me as it is for you. and I'm not lying about that, by the way. For example. with this artist I'm working with right now in our first speed writing session we wrote maybe nine little ideas to start songs from and we selected three of those which we used and turned into full songs and then we needed one more idea and we didn't really have anything that was good enough. So I just wrote another couple of ideas until we had four that we both were very happy with. Next, we talk about process. I want them to know exactly what it's like working with me so that there is no surprises down the road. I will show them with this little lightning rod where in the process they are involved, which is a lot of the time. and with that I show them that they are not just a puppet, that they are not exchangeable, that they are part of everything, and I want to make sure that it the song is tailored to them. This is also the part where I remind them that I am a fast and iterative writer, and here I can show them what that actually means. After our first session together, where we did some speed songwriting and came up with a bunch of ideas, we pick a couple. And then go through this process of iterating over it, you know, finding the weakest link and improving that until the whole thing is perfect. I will also again remind them of some things that they might be irritated by. For example, the demo will not sound good or the music will not sound good for a long time because I'm not worried about sound in those early stages. I am worried about a great song. I want to make sure that we have a really solid basis because later the production that can come later. That's not that important. also warn them that I don't give out demos. For the longest time, my music doesn't sound good. It's only at the end that the sound comes together and the production fixes all of that. But I don't want them to show the music around and and feel like, this doesn't sound as good as the radio. Of course it doesn't. That's not the point. The point is we want to write a song that is that works first, and then we make it sound good. now you might think this is problematic, right? I don't want to tell them that I have all these risks associated with me. But I also think showing them that you have rules, that you have a moral code that you go by. shows that you are super professional and that you have a process that works for you. One of the things every professional I think should have is a set of rules that you live by. Communicating those to your artist is just one of the best things you can do to ensure that you two can work well together. at this stage, I also tell them that production is mostly me and I only send updates when I've worked on the track. And then we'll have a final Zoom call to fix problems together in the session. And I also tell them what I don't do, which is mixing and mastering. next is the timeline. I want them to know that it takes me about twenty-four hours to finish a song. And if we go dramatically above that, I will have to be reimbursed for that. I want to show them that I've done this before and that they are in safe hands. I know how many hours it takes me to write a song. And of course, I'll reassure them that I will keep track of how many hours in we are. And if we are aren't inside the schedule anymore, I will let them know. Typically, this only happens if the artist wants to have a big say in the project. And the more interaction we have and the more they say, I want this to be different, I want that to be different, the longer this is gonna take, obviously. So it's a pledge to them really to find a good balance between fixing what they want to be fixed and micromanaging. Right. Find a good balance between the two because if they lean too much towards the micromanagement, it will actually cost them extra. And then we get to pricing, the thing most of you are probably worried about. And I am too. I get nervous talking about money every single time. What I do to keep myself calm is I what I call continue the calm. I just talked about something I'm really excited about: process and timeline. I love talking about those, and I usually talk about those with a big smile on my face because I I'm excited about those things. So I just try to continue with that calm. I just remind myself, okay, pricing is coming up. Stay in that mode. Remember how fast you're talking, remember how loud you're talking, how high your pitch is, and you just continue in that exact same tone. And then pricing really isn't that hard. You just want to basically state what's on your page, right? Be open and clear. This is what it costs. repeat what they get first. So I tell them about like the four modules, you know, that I basically do. And also talk about the fifth model, which is image, which they get for free. Like I will create a little image on the fly for them, which is a way of over-delivering, of course, right? You're getting this for free. And then these four will basically cost you. And then I tell them if they need to cut cost, how they can do that. Because I have those four modules, right? They can take out one or at a max two of those modules, and I can still give them a great song. I know that I still can. And for me, that works very well. If I don't have to you know edit the vocal recordings, I'm very happy with that. If I don't have to write the lyrics, great, let them write the lyrics. I'm I'm perfectly fine doing that. After the pricing section, I will always ask. Do you have any questions? Does all of this sound good to you? And then I'll shut up and just let them speak. Very important not to try to fill the silence. This is the moment where they should make a decision. If you could just keep talking, they don't have to make a decision. This is the moment where you want them to make a decision. They should say either yes, they should say, maybe. I just have these the following sub objections, and then you can talk about those, or they say no. But you need some kind of reaction from them, right? That's what the whole call is about. You definitely need to know whether we're going through with this or not. after they've said yes, we move into the what's next section, to keep the forward momentum going. And I talk about here's the things that I will now need from you. Sign the contract, mood board, you know, a Spotify playlist, the the voice notes, all that stuff. And then I'll again share the document with them after the call is over. Finally, before we end this video, let me talk about what my contract looks like. I basically just wrote down everything that is important to me and asked ChatGPT if there's any other things that I should consider. I also told ChatGPT to write it in simple language. I don't want to write like, you know, the lawyer speak or whatever. I want this is musicians I'm working with. These are fun, cool people. Who typically don't know a lot about lawyer speak. So I want to make sure it's written in a language that they understand and that speaks to them. That's another little sales thing, right? If they have two contracts from producers and one of them they really can't understand, the other one speaks their language. Which one are they gonna go with? I make sure that includes a fun font for the headlines, right? I want to make sure that it looks fun and not like the drab document that it really is. So what's in my contract? Scope of work, workflow and time budget. Again, 24 hours per song or less if they decided not to go for all four modules. Payment, refunds, timeline, rights, crediting or how I want to be credited. Educational use, that's just for me because I might make a video about, you know, their song and I want to be okay that they're okay with me doing that. Unfinished material, what happens to it, and governing law, which in this case is You know, German law. Then I attach a split sheet, which basically says 50% is yours, 50% is mine. and finally at the end of the document, they will find a workflow guidelines attachment. And this is my favorite part of the entire thing. You know, reading through a contract like this is like a little ugh feeling, but hopefully this is enough to turn that around into a positive feeling. and this is basically just a couple of rules that I have for working with artists. the first rule is the D-bad rule, which is the don't be a dick rule. it says creative work. requires trust, openness, honesty, and mutual respect. We're on the same team. The goal is not to prove who's right. The goal is to make an awesome song and so on and so forth. It has other things like don't overlisten to the demo and with explanations for each of these, of course. Too many cooks absolutely ruin the soup. Don't compare the song to finished records too early. Things like that. 11 points in total, right? Why do I do that? Again, it's to make the document more positive, more fun. It's about relationship building. It shows again my professionalism. It shows you that I have rules and I know how I like to work to provide the best possible result. And it shows you that. Relationship really does matter to me. I have rules not just for you, but also for myself. I wanna conduct myself in the best possible way so we can work together in a professional way. basically it's another way of telling them you are in good hands. so that's it. That's my entire onboarding process. Now, before I let you go, if you would like to work with me personally and if you want to hire me as a producer, I'm currently trying this out to do this via YouTube. I've never done this before, but I do have a couple of production slots left in 2027. So if you want to work with me personally, the road to that is going to the description below this video, finding the link to a questionnaire, not the questionnaire that I was talking about in this video, and I will contact you if I think it is a good fit. if you have any questions about anything that I talked about in this video, feel free to ask and I'll respond in the comments. Thank you very much for watching, and I'll see you again next week.