Jimmy R (00:00): It. Hey, Fleming. FLEMING (00:41): Hey, what's up, Jimmy? How are you, man? Jimmy R (00:44): I am doing great. How's your day actually been? Has it been a smooth one for you? FLEMING (00:48): It's been pretty good so far, man. Been pretty good. Just hustling a little bit. Jimmy R (00:54): Nice. You know what? My wife and I, we just came from a jiu jitsu training because we both do martial arts and be together, man. Like, we got beat up, like, earlier. Like, there were some huge guys who came to the gym. So. FLEMING (01:13): Let's see if you see that. Let's see if I can turn it. See that scar right there? Jimmy R (01:18): Oh, what is that? FLEMING (01:20): That's my bicep. I tore my bicep two years ago partly through Jiu Jitsu. Jimmy R (01:29): Oh, did you stop training? Are you still training right now? FLEMING (01:33): Yeah, no, I. You know, I gave up. I had. I was in a sling for, like, nine months. Jimmy R (01:39): Oh, wow. FLEMING (01:41): I had to do, like, reconstructive surgery, and it just. I haven't gotten back in because I just got back to playing music and being able to haul my gear around, and so. So I've just. I'm taking one step at a time. I actually loved Jiu jitsu. Such a great workout. Jimmy R (02:01): It is, it is. FLEMING (02:02): But, yeah, I mean, when you're a big guy, you know, you can throw your weight around and you can kind of get away with not having great technique. And so it was, you know, it's. Yeah, the technique's big. It's really. It's a. It is a martial art. It's not a. It's not a sport. It's an art form, you know, in a lot of ways, even though it is a workout still. But. Jimmy R (02:28): Yeah. FLEMING (02:29): What did you do, bjj or did you do? Jimmy R (02:34): I did bjj. FLEMING (02:36): Okay. Jimmy R (02:37): A lot of what I do is, like. Like, I just do half guard, like old man Jiu jitsu. It's crazy, but. FLEMING (02:46): But I was like fresh meat, you know? So they. They threw me in on a lot of stuff. I wish I would have just started half guard on everything, but I think that's what happened. Jimmy R (02:54): I don't. FLEMING (02:54): I thought that it was from arm bars, you know, but I think from hitting the ground so much, honestly, that just weakened that. That joint. I didn't tear it at the gym. I tore it, like, a couple of days after an arm bar session. But I think, like, falling the wrong way with weight on it and just putting, you know, it's just making it immobile, but it's all good. Jimmy R (03:18): That's crazy to think that you were On a sling for nine months. Oh, bro, it must be an intense. Like a surgery. Yeah, but yeah. Well, Fleming, I'm glad you're here. And I don't know if I introduced myself, but I am Jim. I'm the lead marketing strategist here at Apple. On it. Well, just so you know how these calls go, basically what I'm going to do is I'm just going to ask you a few questions to kind of understand where you are with your music and where you want to be and we can help, then we talk next steps, but if not, we can offer some guidance. Is that fair enough? FLEMING (03:52): Yeah, that's great. Jimmy R (03:53): Yeah. All right. So. Well, Fleming, before we get into things, man, I can see here that you are not just a hobbyist. I mean, You've published over 600 posts in Instagram, you play local gigs and I mean the quality and polish of your songs is amazing. What's driving commitment to music,. FLEMING (04:13): Man? You know, I just have, I've been in music my whole life. I, I'm one of those guys, I just write a lot and so I have a spark of songwriter ability, stuff that I've just honed in. I studied music in college and I've always worked my side music, musician stuff alongside working in a church full time. And so I currently work full time in a church doing music as well, which is great because I kind of get. My full time job is music and my part time job is music and my hobby is also music. So it's, it's a good world to live in. You know, I mean, it's just, I feel like I just, you know, I love doing it. So yeah, I'm trying to, it's, it's tough. You said you're married. FLEMING (05:16): You know, I have a seven year old, I have a two year old, I have a nine month old. And I think if the right opportunity came around, I would go on the road quickly in some capacity. I would want my family to come with me, so I don't know how feasible that is. You know, I've always kind of just essentially just said like, hey, if I could just become like the best known local regional artist for beach chill summer playlist type music, then that's my goal. But I mean if I had, you know, an opportunity to play bigger venues, to play bigger shows, I'd absolutely take it. I just, I just kind of keep trying to just be faithful with what I can do. FLEMING (06:10): And at the core I would, I'd say my social media, my marketing is just not, it's Just a fast world. And so I'm not, you know, I'm not a marketing strategist. I don't think through the lens of everything. Like, how do I market this? I'm a musician first, and. Yeah, so I. At the core of, you know, everything, of all of my projects and my albums, I'm just trying to put out great music, which I think has been my strong suit for a while. But as you know, that doesn't always mean everybody hears it, right? Jimmy R (06:48): Yeah, I mean, for sure. So, I mean, at this point, Fleming, what. What strategies have you used so far to bring listeners to your songs? Because, I mean, from. From how I see it, it looks like you're super passionate about creating, crafting. Like, you have a craftsman mindset when it comes to creating music. Like, you look like you love the process of creating it, creating something. But do you feel like your marketing strategies is kind of, like, disproportionate to the kind of weight you put into creating songs versus bringing listeners to it or what strategies have you used so far? FLEMING (07:27): Yeah, I don't. I mean, if I'm being honest, to answer your question, yeah, I think it's disproportionate. I have mainly done the, like, hey, here's my. Here's a snippet of my song, and let me play it for you in a bunch of different arrangements there. And then probably over the last year, I started just kind of following. Like, I essentially have not. I've tried to stay away from being, like, a social media influencer, because I don't really, like, want to be an influencer. I want to. I want to just play great shows and play great music. So, you know, I tried to, like. I tried to get better footage of playing great music and then overdub that with some inspirational stuff, you know, like the. FLEMING (08:25): The dude talking about, you know, whatever trending audio on Instagram or something, where it's like, the dude talking about, this is the key to life. And it's like the weird, you know, those trending voices that go around, so I try to follow some of those. But, yeah, I mean, it's disproportionate. I'm definitely, like, creating music four to five hours a day, and I'm thinking about how to market it maybe 30 minutes a day. Jimmy R (08:58): I mean, is that, like. Is that, like a knowledge thing or a time thing? Like, you're not sure or you just don't have the time for marketing or. FLEMING (09:08): I think some of it is like, well, I'm trying to, like, I'm not like I'm just some of it is me. Like I don't really like again, I don't really want to be a social media influencer. So trying to figure out like how to quickly get content that sounds good, you know, that at least has the quality of professional musician, but also like I could get it quick. And that's been the hardest part of like, you know, different camera angles. I'm usually only working with one phone normally, so then I have to take like multiple. I'll get it from this angle and then that angle and then this angle and that way I can chop it up. That kind of stuff like ruins the creative flow normally. Or I'm solo gigging and I don't. FLEMING (10:07): One thing that I've noticed that I need to do is like just get better stationary cameras to be set up at my solo gigs and then just lock that in for four or five songs. But you know, like the work after you've set the whole PA up, you've practiced all the music, you've wormed your voice up and then it's like, okay, I got a video myself too. So you know, it's just like that extra little bit. It's like, oh my goodness, sometimes you have the time for it. Sometimes you're like in a crunch moment and just trying to make other stuff work. Jimmy R (10:45): Kennel Fleming. Tell me about that. Like you gigging in local bars. Like how many gigs do you typically do in a month and how much do you often charge or rather how much are you often paid per gig? FLEMING (11:03): So a bar gig is usually 250 to $400 for, you know, generally five to six hours. You're, you're probably singing, you're. The music commitment's about three, three and a half hours. So it's a four hour commitment with two breaks. So it turns out to about three, three hours of music. And yeah, those are usually like 250 plus tips. Maybe some of them are $300. And it's like, you know, you're playing bar tunes, so you're playing the Sweet Carolines, you're playing Sweet Home Alabama, playing, you know, Earth, Wind and Fire, Frankie Valli or Post Malone or whatever's, you know, all the famous kind of variety stuff. And then I usually try and trickle in some original music in there, but it's, it's not normally received as well. FLEMING (12:13): Like people are not really there to listen to your music specifically. So it's not, it's not a great original artist venue. Other kind of gigs that I get a Lot of. So I'll do like three to four bar gigs a month just because of, you know, that that portion of my artistry is the part time part the gigging this. The other part is of that part time kind of scenario is I got in with some wedding vendors. And so those are great because you walk in, you play the music they want, you know what they want. Usually play an hour to two hours and you make double to triple the bar gigs. So for instance, I have a wedding I just booked yesterday for one hour for $600. So those are a lot better. FLEMING (13:11): And they want you there. They usually researched you. They usually like like your sound, you know, it's a little more. But still they're not really wanting your original music sound. They just want your vibe, which I'm fine with that. But yeah. So my next venture that I'm really where I was kind of hoping Apollon would be able to help me is figuring out how to really dial in my branding of artistry, get in front of more people so that I could, you know, potentially get some, some exposure to open up with bigger people, you know, you know, bigger artists, start doing more headlining shows, even just be able to kind of say like when I'm promoting myself, hey look, here's my following, here's my, my stuff. And you know, let's put a show together. Jimmy R (14:08): So wanna, you want like your online presence to look established and authoritative. So when you. Yeah, well, well let's, let's kind of. You know what, thank you for sharing all of these, Fleming. I think I'm getting a better idea of where exactly you're at right now and what you're trying to achieve. So. Well, in terms of like part time stuff, right. You're not really, I mean, I'm sure you also appreciate the bar gigs, but it looks like what's more ideal is like the wedding with the wedding events because they pay more, you pay less. And aside from the whole wedding event bit, what you're looking to do is you want your profile, your digital footprint to look established so you can pay on, even play on even like bigger like events. Your names. Gotcha. Jimmy R (14:59): Well, let's kind of zoom in like six to 12 months from now, right? I mean, can you tell me what success would look like for you at that point? Are we just talking about like more monthly listeners or you getting noticed by labels, more gigs perhaps? What's, what's kind of the vision kind. FLEMING (15:23): Of all of that? Honestly, I like, I think to put it in a simple terms, I. If I Could not doing the bar gigs. Right? The bar gigs are hard vocally. It's hard to have that much vocal stamina day in and day out. And usually with paying less, I mean you could actually make a pretty good living in this area being a bar musician. You could probably make 90 to 100,000 as a self employed, you know, so you still have to take out taxes and play that IRS game. But overall, like if, if I could be getting private events, getting hired to be Fleming, you know, playing Fleming's music. FLEMING (16:21): Sorry to talk in third person, but just like to stay on, on that train, you know, as my artist, getting hired that way and have like fans and playing shows and. And basically that being my full time provision for my family. If that could cover my salary and my wife's salary, I'd probably fool send to that pretty quick. Jimmy R (16:51): Gotcha. So aside from the whole money aspect of it, which is still important, you mentioned that you really do want to play Fleming music. Like your actual song. FLEMING (17:03): It gets. Jimmy R (17:04): Yeah, great. FLEMING (17:06): Somebody asked me the other day, are you familiar with Keller Williams Realty? Jimmy R (17:11): No. FLEMING (17:11): Yeah, it's a big realty company, but they are, I just call them like the Keller William quotes because they're always like, if money was not an object and all you had and success was not an option, what would you do? And it's like, yeah, that's great to think like that, isn't it? But someone asked me that the other day, actually a friend of mine. And I was like, I go gig and play shows and write music for the rest of my life. You know, if, if I could do that as a living, I would do that 100%. I would, I would stop everything else and just do that. The blessing of it is, is I technically do get to do that. I just don't get to do that and make a living for our family doing that. FLEMING (17:59): Not yet. Jimmy R (18:02): Gotcha. Well, you know, I, I appreciate you sharing all of that, Fleming. And look, I mean, I gotta tell you though, the goals you shared with me, these aren't crazy goals at all. Because in our end, I mean we've seen artists go from like 20 monthly listeners to 3,000 daily. And in just a few weeks when they do this right. And I'm not even talking about bots, like that shouldn't even be part of the conversation because. Yeah, and we just don't, we just don't do that because it, it not only does it put the musician at risk, it also puts us at risk. I mean our credibility. So. Jimmy R (18:37): But, but yeah, I mean at the end of the day, the question really is just, you know, whether you're willing to take immediate action and go all in on marketing. And let me kind of ask you this, Fleming. This might be a tough question to ask. I'm curious why you want to make a change now. I mean, why not just keep doing what you've been doing for another year? FLEMING (19:03): That's tough. I mean, it's not as tough as it. There's a lot of factors. You know, my wife is having to work pretty hard, so we don't have, we don't have like, not to. To limit her, but like, she wants to be a stay at home mom. And you know, there's. I, I think that I like working for a church. I don't necessarily like working for other people. And so I'm kind of at a spot in life to where I'm like seeing a small window of like, man, I could really go out and be my own. And I think I could do that successfully and, you know, probably still have some other side income from churches and different things. I'm not, I'm not really like trying to leave the church necessarily. FLEMING (20:03): I just, I've been doing that for 20 years and, and I think like over this last year, I've started to have like some mild success with my music career for the first time in 15 years. And so like, I'm starting to see, like, man, maybe, maybe I'm not that far from the next jump of seeing that happen. And if, if it's an avenue that could, you know, my wife wouldn't have to work. That's a great scenario. And she could just like, you know, create the culture in our home. I think collectively we make about 130 with all salary and side hustle. And so, like, it's not like an unrealistic number to think, but it's a, it's a big enough number that it's like, I don't want to just like quit tomorrow and start a whole new career path in, in essence. Jimmy R (21:05): Well, what, what do you think is the missing link, Fleming? Is it really just you having to make a strong, like a big swing, like in marketing? So you look established, you start reaching out, and you essentially have the ladder to like, reach out to bigger names, bigger events. Is that really like the only thing that's missing here or. FLEMING (21:28): No, I think. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Jimmy R (21:32): No, that was it. FLEMING (21:33): Okay. Yeah, I think that's a big. That's a big piece missing. And then I think the funnel from exposure to closing a contract, that's a big piece missing. I don't have a very solid system in place for people to go, hey, let's book Fleming and then make it easy to book me or easy to download my songs or easy to purchase my merch. That's kind of where my bottleneck is right now on business strategy. Jimmy R (22:11): You also mentioned merch. You already have merch right now. Yeah. FLEMING (22:17): My merch, at best right now is a ploy to get people to come tip me at gigs. Like, hey, I got T shirts up here. If you tip me a 20, come get a T shirt kind of thing. And it works. It's a great ploy. But my online presence as, like, an established brand company, I think that's the next step that would really help that, you know, and then maybe some form of an agent getting me gigs or a website getting me gigs. I don't know that, like, I could have a bigger draw. Maybe that's a record label, you know. Jimmy R (22:55): You know, the way we see it, Fleming, is that even just having an established Instagram profile, it is actually strong enough, I would say. I mean, it would be great if you had a website and all that stuff, but even if you just have a solid Instagram, right, Because. So, because as a music marketing company, we. We promote musicians day in, day out. Like, essentially what we do. FLEMING (23:19): Yeah. Jimmy R (23:20): What we've seen, like, most labels or even. Especially event organizers or like the wedding people, people who get married, they actually go to Instagram. So, yeah, you could have a funnel, and that's great. But actually, even if you already have, like, even. Even if you talk about you share your merch on your Instagram profile and all that stuff, they can really just reach out to you via Instagram. Have you not had a situation where they called you or they reached out to you through Instagram and get the ball rolling from there a lot. FLEMING (24:00): Yeah, that happens a lot, actually. Jimmy R (24:02): Yeah. I mean, I'm sure it could be much smoother, right? Like, you can put questionnaires and all that stuff, but even with that, you could. This could really work out for you, as long as you're into the close up. FLEMING (24:14): Yeah. Jimmy R (24:15): All right, well, so, I mean, here's the thing, Fleming. So the campaign that you just bought with us, right, like the playlisting campaign, that's still going to get your song in front of, you know, real curators and start building some momentum. Momentum for you. But, yeah, I gotta tell you, that's really just kind of testing the waters, because what we found is, you know, the artists who actually break through, right? Now, and I'm talking about the ones who go from invisible to unavoidable. They're not just testing, but what they're doing is they're getting their songs used by influencers or pages with millions of followers. That's the scale where the algorithm starts to think your song is trending and pushes it to millions of people organically, if you're open to it. Jimmy R (25:04): And this is entirely separate from the campaign you just bought. I'd like to share with you the same exact marketing framework we used to promote famous artists like Dua Lipa and Roy woods and how we're getting these famous artists, like millions of impressions. Is that a time to walk you through the actual strategy or are you stepping out in a bit? FLEMING (25:30): No, I'm good. Yeah, I set out an hour for this, so I'm set. Jimmy R (25:33): That's great. And let me ask you this, Fleming, if I also showed you something that could genuinely change your trajectory today. I just want to ask if you have a marketing budget set aside. And I'm not asking for a specific number. I'm just trying to make sure that this makes sense for where you're at right now. FLEMING (25:52): Yeah, yeah, I have, I have. I mean, It's. It's probably 20% of my earnings. I'm kind of putting back for marketing every time. Jimmy R (26:03): That's great. And typically when it comes to making marketing decisions, like, is that fully your call or do you have a manager, producer or partner or. FLEMING (26:13): No, I'm fully independent. All right, So I gotta ask my wife. So she's my manager sometimes, but not, not outside of. Usually only if it's like big, like thousands of dollars of decisions. Jimmy R (26:29): That's great. So if, if it's not like, like a thousand dollar decision or what have you, it's something you can just decide by yourself. Yeah, yeah, right. So I mean, so let me kind of explain how this works, because major labels like Warner Music are also using the same exact strategy. So on our end, we follow a three step framework. So first is it's about influencer collaboration and algorithm trigger. So we will do is we will get the influencers or Instagram page owners with thousands or millions of followers in our network to use your song and their videos all within a short span of time. I'm talking like 60 days. Jimmy R (27:17): Because what we've seen, Fleming, is that for Instagram to make your song go viral, and by viral, I'm talking about the Instagram algorithm noticing your song and adding it on the trending audio list, two things needs to happen. One, is your song needs to have at least 2 million views. And one is you need to accomplish that in less than 60 days. Because, I mean. Yeah. I mean, you do 2 million, but it takes you four or five months to do it. The algorithm doesn't notice it. Maybe it's not a strong enough spike, but from what we've seen, it's 2 million in less than 60 days. Now, once momentum is detected, that's where step two comes in, which is platform amplification. Jimmy R (28:08): Instagram then pushes your sound to the trending audio list, where millions of large influencers and creators organically discover and use it. I mean, at that point, we don't even pay them. They just find it because it's trending and they use it. I mean, the trending list on Instagram, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. So basically, everyone in the United States sees that, whether you're a student, I don't know, a pastor, or, like, a celebrity, it's the same list. The only time that list changes is if you're on a different country with a different language. Like Vietnam. Like Vietnam is a different trending audio list. So, you know, step three of this is about listener conversion. Jimmy R (28:53): When Instagram users hear your song from the hundreds or thousands of reels created and they like it, you know, they can then click your song. They can either go to Spotify or they can go directly to your Instagram account account. So you just get visibility and your online presence is established. FLEMING (29:12): Yeah. Jimmy R (29:13): What I'd like to do is I want to share with you some numbers. Are you. Are you using your phone or are you on a laptop? FLEMING (29:25): I'm on a laptop. Jimmy R (29:27): All right, let me. Let me know if you can see the numbers on my screen. Okay. FLEMING (29:34): Yeah, it's zoomed in really far, but, yeah, I see July to August, 10,200 K. Yeah. Jimmy R (29:42): So from July to August alone, we delivered 1 billion views to the musicians who came to us for help. And we paid out over $200,000 to the influencers and content creators in our network. Because one of the things we do is we reach out to influencers and build strategic relationships with them. That way, when serious musicians such as yourself come to us for help because you want a strong marketing push where we bring, like, millions of people to, like, give visibility to your song to millions of people, we then reach out to these influencers, we tell them to create, like, videos, and we tell them to attach your song on the videos. That way, when they publish it, millions of people would actually see it. And see, that's. Jimmy R (30:37): That's the reason why we can reach 2 million in 60 days. Because, I mean, when you think about it, 2 million is such a huge number, but since we already have the infrastructure, the relationships, we are able to do it. So one of the artists we promoted is Roy woods. We got him 104 million views with just 284 videos posted. We also promoted Central Cee. We got him 57 million views with just 312 videos posted. And lastly, we also promoted Dua Lipa. We got her 8.3 million views, 89 videos posted. Now, these numbers are great, but, well, they're already famous musicians. They're actually mainstream already. And I do want to show you a campaign where the group is in the Christian scene. Like, let me know if you can see. Jimmy R (31:41): See my screen. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we promoted the group God Aura Music. The name of their song is the Devil is a Liar. FLEMING (31:53): Yeah. Jimmy R (31:54): In our campaign with them, we got them 10.6 million views with just 128 videos posted. And this is, this is how. And I don't know if you can see this, but I see it how the. The videos are gonna look like you. You're gonna see that there are actual people commenting. So there is like full transparency in this campaign because you'll see all the videos that are created with your music on it. You'll see the number of likes, the comments. You can even engage to the people who are, you know, might ask about your music. What I want to do as well is let me share this one other campaign so you know how exactly this looks like when it's. When it's running. I shared a link on the chat. Jimmy R (32:49): It's for the Harley Motorbike song. FLEMING (32:56): Oh, yeah. Cool. Jimmy R (32:57): Yeah, yeah. So this is essentially how your campaign is going to look like. So it's kind of imagine instead of Harley Motorbike, it says Siesta Key, and instead of the name of the artist, it's your name on there. So. So as you can see, right? I mean, like 99% of the videos created are about motorbikes or bikers because we ensure strong alignment between what the music is about or what the musician's vision is and the kind of videos that the influencers will create. So on your end, Fleming, I mean, if you were looking to. Because one thing we can do, right, like, like the top of my head, based on the things you've told me, since it's much more lucrative for you to play on wedding events. And I don't know if you have. Jimmy R (33:53): If you have songs Here that are great for wedding. Actually, I like Siesta Key. It's got a smooth, laid back vibe and it's got like great emotional flow even. FLEMING (34:04): Yeah. Jimmy R (34:05): You know, we could, we could reach out to influencers in our network who's in the theme of romance or I don't know if we have an influencers that very specifically about wedding, but we have themes about family and romance. And we then tap those influencers to create wedding videos. Wedding videos. And then we use your song and not just some other song. Right. Like your actual song. That way when the. When the, like the bride to be looks. Looks at Instagram and sees your. Sees the videos and you know, it makes them imagine like, what if that was me on there? And then they hear your song. I think we're gonna hit like two bird, two birds with one stone there because they're gonna, they're gonna like, want to reach out to you because they've. Jimmy R (35:08): They've heard you and then. And then they're. They might even want you to play your actual song because. Yeah, that could be cool because that's like. That's like the picture we painted with a video that the influencer made. And then so essentially the way this works, planning is when you're in this campaign with us, what we're going to do is we're going to analyze your song and we're going to look for the best places or the best sections of the song. And we do our analysis using AI and manual review. So. So we run this by AI to make sure that the data is correct. And then once we figure out which song is. Is the best part to use on weddings, I mean, I think it's really just gonna mesh well. Jimmy R (35:59): Like. Like the drive. The section of your song that's emotional. The visuals is there. I just really think it's. It's a great. It's a great combination. Yeah. Let me also share this link. This is actually a post, an Instagram post. Yeah. Were you able to open the post the link? FLEMING (36:33): Yeah. That's cool. I'm looking at it right now. Jimmy R (36:36): Yeah. So what you're looking at is it's one of the biggest LeBron James fan pages out there. This one has over 4 million million followers. Wow. If you look at it, the song used there is the Harley Motorbike song from Dino. FLEMING (36:52): Yeah. Jimmy R (36:53): The only reason why this fan page was able to find the Harley Motorbike song is because at one point we were able to add the Harley Motorbike song on top 15 of the trending Audio list. Wow. Yeah. Like, as you can imagine, right, when you get algorithmic push like that, it's like. Like you're no longer swimming against the current, for the lack of a better word, because you're letting Instagram push you. And let me also share this Spotify page, just so you have an idea of how this looks like. And. And the performance really varies on Spotify, right? Because it depends on the quality. Quality of your music and the type of audience you have. But so you get a bit of an idea of what could happen. Jimmy R (37:46): Were you able to open the Spotify link that I shared? I mean. FLEMING (37:51): Yeah, I'm clicking on it right now. Yeah, Dino. Jimmy R (37:56): Yeah, yeah. So as you can. FLEMING (37:58): Half a million. Jimmy R (37:59): Yeah, that. That's like the Harley Motorbike song. It now has over 500,000 streams. Now, I'm sure at this point, Fleming, you know that Spotify is great at detecting bots. In fact, musicians right now are getting slapped left and right due to botted activities. Now, the fact that this song is still here and this page is not suspended, it just tells you that these are real people. Because 500,000 is too huge of a number to go undetected if those were bots. Right, yeah. FLEMING (38:36): Yeah, I agree. Jimmy R (38:37): So, I mean, essentially, Fleming, like, these numbers that you're looking at, right, this is what happens when you hit critical mass, or when we trigger Instagram to notice your music and include it on the trending audio list. This is, you know, the new way artists are blowing up. Yeah. I mean, I guess my question for you, Fleming, is. I mean, based on what you told me about your goals, where you want an established online presence, you want your song to spread like wildfire, you want to attract the right people, like wedding events or even bigger events, do you feel like getting millions of impressions or making your song go viral? Like this is the kind of momentum or breakthrough you're looking for? FLEMING (39:29): I think it could definitely lead to that. Yeah. And is definitely. I mean, I don't know. I've never had that kind of momentum, so it's hard to know, you know, when you haven't been in a spot. It's like. Well, I guess in my mind's eye, I think that that's definitely solid momentum or it will lead to really solid momentum. Jimmy R (39:55): Influencers using your song. Or is it that both of them? Yeah, the trading audio list, I think. FLEMING (40:02): Kind of all of the above. And I have. So Friday, I release another song called Daydreaming, and then I already have three releases scheduled. Scheduled for release this summer. So yeah, I'm like, I'm very actively looking for strategies to, like, make this summer just feel like I'm on every top summer fun playlist there is or social media influencer. So. Jimmy R (40:35): Yeah, got it. So, I mean, at this point, Fleming, I'm. I'm about to share with you the packages, the guarantees, investments needed. But before I do that, do you have any questions about the actual strategy or is everything looking clear so far? FLEMING (40:55): Yeah. Is that. I mean, yeah. I'm assuming that you guys will maybe walk me through, like, the types of videos I know not your assistant. He sent me the video, I think yesterday to watch. And he. He essentially said, you're doing great. You know, just kind of keep doing what you're doing. Maybe add some more of these other types of videos in where it's like, you know, there's their. Their lip sync into the mic, but they have a cool scene behind them and it's like the artisting in their song, like, just to the Instagram camera. Jimmy R (41:31): Or. FLEMING (41:33): What was the other one? Jimmy R (41:34): He's. FLEMING (41:35): He sent me a couple of. He was like, I'd love to see. Oh, and he said, get a tick Tock, because you have to have a tick tock. I don't have a tick tock that. I have not been active on Tick Tock. I just. When I first did it, it felt like duplicating Instagram. And I was like, this is stupid. And then now TikTok's huge. So that was my mistake to call Tick Tock stupid. Jimmy R (41:59): It's certainly. You have TikTok, but even Instagram alone, like, this is like, Instagram packs enough punch at this point for you to get the kind of visibility or even attract the kind of events or audience that you're looking for. But, but certainly you gotta have TikTok when you. When you can set it up later. FLEMING (42:20): I mean, like, if we're talking, like, realistic dude, if we're not. If we're not talking realistic and we're just talking dreaming. I want to make enough money off this stuff and be in enough people's, you know, presence, their mental presence and musical presence that I could just pay to have somebody do my social media for me. Like, that's really where I want to be so that I can just like, just keep doing the music and keep putting out great stuff. And not, not that I'm not working at that, but I have a team recording those moments for me and helping me generate that stuff, because that's really. I mean, I'm, you know, I like social Media, I'm on it. FLEMING (43:05): But I really like music and that's really what I'm trying to do is just make, make great music and stay in that lane. Jimmy R (43:13): And you know, that makes a lot of sense because, I mean, a lot of the musicians we work with, they just really want to focus on music because, I mean, marketing, like it's, it's really important, right? I mean, it's absolutely important if you. But the thing with marketing is that it's an entirely different planet. It's just, you know, if you're a musician, you, you'd have to think about algorithm, timing of things, content creation. Yeah, it could get it, it could get nasty. See, that's also the reason why, I mean, on our end when we run these virality campaigns, the one that I just described to you, the musicians at this point, they do very little work. Jimmy R (43:55): Because really how this works, Fleming, is that once, once we get this going, I'm going to introduce you to a dedicated, to your dedicated campaign manager. Right. The campaign manager will reach out to you and discuss content direction. I'm talking about themes, who you're, who are the audience that you want to target, what kind of aesthetics, looks or hooks that you want us to use. That way, when we tell the influencers to create videos, everything meshes well with your music and your vision. Just like the Harley Motorbike song. Right. You can see that it's pretty consistent. FLEMING (44:35): Yeah. Jimmy R (44:37): Once we get these details from you, I mean, at that point you don't really need to do anything. Like you can off, you can be distant or you could be as close as you want to be. You could ask our, your campaign manager for other things. But essentially at that point we're gonna get the ball rolling. We're just gonna be, we're just gonna keep on updating you. That way you have an idea of what's happening and you'll have an audio page just like the Harley Motorbike earlier, and you can just look at the page. If there's anything that you feel that's amiss or you want like some minor adjustments, you can just reach out to the campaign manager so we can pivot together. But, but that's about it. Jimmy R (45:22): Like, you don't really need to make any videos or all that stuff. We just need to achieve alignment at the start. FLEMING (45:29): Yeah, I love that. And would that be happening that, would that be happening alongside the playlist for Spotify stuff too? The curators playlist? Jimmy R (45:40): Well, it gets better. So, okay, the playlisting campaign. Right, I can see that it's running right now like you have an actual campaign now. It's great to do the playlisting campaign along with the, with this virality campaign that we're talking about. But on top of that, along with this virality campaign, it actually includes a PR article campaign. So what we're gonna do is I'm gonna trigger the system in a bit to send you a PR article that way. What. So what's gonna happen is we're gonna write an PR article about you. It's going to be published in RollingHeve.com Rolling Hype has, like, last time we checked, is like 1.5 million impressions. Jimmy R (46:29): So that way you have a, you have an article there that talks about who you are, are what your vision is, you know, how you want to be viewed, how you want your brand to be established. And that way when you get visibility on Instagram, because we'll get you millions of impressions if someone tries to search you online on Google, ideally, like your Instagram or the Rolling Hype article would show up. So you're going to look even more authoritative and established. FLEMING (47:00): Cool. Yeah, that's. Yeah, that is even better. So that's great. Jimmy R (47:05): So as far as the. Well, as far as the packages go, Fleming, I mean, we've got all in like, aggressive packages that range from nine to ten grand, but one of the smallest versions we could try, and this is what I actually suggest for you. It's called the Viral Domination Program. It's nowhere near ten grand. It's only $3,500, and with it, we guarantee over 4 million views in 60 days. Also, the good thing about this is you can actually pay this monthly that way. I think we have like, musicians paying less than $200 a month for this, like, for the Viral Domination program. Do you also think that a 4 million campaign, like a starter campaign, would work better for, for you, or were you looking to be super aggressive about this right now or. FLEMING (48:04): Yeah, I mean, I think like, 3,000 is, is a lot, but if it's for like a collective package like that, I'm definitely into trying it. It's not like, you know, I, I think the return on that. I would love to talk through, like, how you're seeing other artists, like, maximize that return because, you know, just in reality, it's, you know, when you're spending a lot of marketing, it's hard to know exactly how, how you're going to make that money back. So, like, if you're seeing the digital returns happening in a solid way, I think it's kind of a no brainer. It'd be even a no brainer to lose some money digitally and get physical income revenue. But yeah, I'd love to talk through some of that, But I think 4 million views, I mean, that seems like a lot. Jimmy R (49:04): It is, it is. So just like, just like the, the Harley Motorbike campaign, right? I mean, we can't share everything about that campaign, but at least from what you can see, like, it gets picked up by like influencer pages. See, the important thing really here is that I mean, the influencers are still great, but the main goal of this campaign really is the algorithmic push where we add you on the trending audio list because that's how we like give musicians exposure that they never had. Like, you know, I mean, the influencers are already great, but nothing beats you being on the actual trending audio list. FLEMING (49:46): Yeah, exactly. Jimmy R (49:48): So what I did, Fleming, is I, I shared the payment link on the chat. If you go to, if you click it and go to Klarna, you can just, you can look at the offers. So, so you know what, what kind of like offers Klarna is doing. FLEMING (50:10): Okay, cool. Yeah. Jimmy R (50:12): And right now what I'm going to do is while you're doing that, I'm going to prepare the email introduction with the campaign manager so we can get your like virality campaign going and also trigger the PR article. Real quick. Fleming, is there a specific song that you wanted to promote or did you want us to analyze your song so we can suggest to you? FLEMING (50:46): Yeah, you could. I mean, I would appreciate the analyze. Siesta Key is. Has been my strongest song so far and then, you know, I mean, I have four songs coming out, so I don't know if what y' all do with like brand new releases, if that's a thing, but yeah, I mean,. Jimmy R (51:12): Yeah. When. When did you say are you releasing the other songs? FLEMING (51:20): Daydreaming comes out Friday. Oh, Friday song to dad, which I. It might, I mean, shoot for this package and just for the sake of virality, it's a song on Father's Day, which was like a little market that I felt like not a lot of people are doing, so maybe that could go viral. And then my other two songs are coming out in late July. Jimmy R (51:52): Late July. Yeah. Well, so ideally, Fleming, what we want to do is we really want to promote a song that you already have right now. Because when you release the next songs, then you wouldn't be releasing them on a. For the lack of a better word, I want to use the phrase empty Auditorium. Right. Because typically how we. How we position the musicians is that right now we make a huge switch on their marketing initiatives, bring as many followers as many listeners. That way, when they release new songs down the line, like, you already have an actual audience. Yeah, it would be kind of late if we promoted a song and, you know, on that same day, I mean, it's still okay. But you really want your marketing campaigns to marinate, right? Jimmy R (52:49): Like, you want to. FLEMING (52:50): Totally. And that's what I. That's why I was thinking Siesta Key, it's a great summertime song. It's already done really good. I already have a YouTube video for it. So I have a lot of things packaged already for that song. So, yeah, probably a safer bet to do that one. Jimmy R (53:12): Just a key. So we're gonna analyze Siesta Key and letting you know what our findings would be at that point, like which sections we think might work or what have you. Yeah. Did you. Did you check the. Did you check Klarna and the kind of like, monthly offers it was giving you or. FLEMING (53:33): Yes, I am checking that out right now, actually. Yeah, I think. I mean, some of those, I think, are really good. Those are solid offers. Jimmy R (53:59): Gotcha. So how do you want to move forward, Fleming? Should we. Okay, should we do this now? Because earlier you mentioned that you needed to talk to your spouse, and I mean, that makes a lot of sense, right? Because after all, you're married. But what I am. What I'm also concerned, though, is that per theme. Per theme, we. We can only handle a few number of musicians because as you can imagine, right, like, let's say we have a wedding influencer. And like, a wedding influencer can't. Like, one influencer can't accommodate 10 musicians, because then the influencer would have to be spamming its community. And we tell them to do that. So what we really want to do is to run the campaign right now. Jimmy R (54:50): So we make sure that your slot is secured. FLEMING (54:54): Yeah, no, I'm with you. The. Let me. Do you know how much, like, how much like a. Like a campaign like this, like a 4 million impression campaign. Are there numbers realistically, like, on how. What kind of a return a musician is getting from that? Jimmy R (55:25): I'm. I'm afraid not. Because we typically, those things aren't disclosed to us. Like. Like, for the most part, what we guarantee are the actual views, the actual presence. I know it's a bit of an intangible, right? Because, I mean, the part where it's valuable is that when you reach out to event organizers, or let's say someone sees your video and goes to your profile and they see that you have all of these views. I know it's an intangible, but it makes you look authoritative. Therefore, you know, like, oh yeah, no,. FLEMING (56:00): This is the kind of money I'm gonna have to spend. I was just curious. I. And I've already just, just so you know, I mean, I've shopped, I've. I've shopped a couple of marketing agencies before. And I mean this, it's not a, like, Yalls numbers are very competitive. So I'm not like alarmed by that amount of money. It's just so much more money than I, you know, generate. But if it could help me take the next step, then that's totally worth it. I was more curious, like, you know, Spotify, I think it's like if you get a million streams on Spotify, that's round about $3,000. FLEMING (56:44): That's what I was wondering is if there's like, do we know like the payout from Instagram for types of things like this or, you know, do they have anything like that? Jimmy R (56:56): You know, we don't really. I mean, I know that they do like Instagram and Spotify, but. But I gotta tell you, Fleming, you. You don't wanna look at the streams. So for musicians, right? When it comes to monetizing your music, like monetizing through streams, whether it's from Spotify or Instagram, that should be like number seven on your list. FLEMING (57:23): Oh, totally. Jimmy R (57:24): Because it's so small. I mean, it's not even ideal. Like number one would be because you mentioned earlier that you do events, right? Gigs. That's one of the best ways to do it, like establish your profile. Like, for example, some musicians we worked with, they do the Klarna option. The thing with Klarna is it charges you 30 days later. It's not going to charge you now. Or they use your credit card, right? They do Klarna. They choose like one of the longer months, like one like 12 months, but then they land an extra gig and then it just essentially pays for itself. FLEMING (58:03): Well, that's what. Jimmy R (58:03): Yeah, so that's, that's one way of monetizing it. And aside, aside from that, like you also have the, the merch, which is very important. You got to keep posting about your merch on Instagram. That way it's just easy for people to purchase it. FLEMING (58:24): Yeah, that's actually a good idea. I need to make more posts about that. Is that, is that through. Are you seeing that happen through Instagram shop, by the way. Like the, the purchase is happening on. Through the Instagram or is it like someone's going to the link tab? Jimmy R (58:43): Yeah, it's a mix. It's like they, they, they reach out to you. FLEMING (58:50): The only reason I was asking was I was looking at that the other day and I was trying to figure out, is that worth it to put an Instagram shop up? Which it kind of is. I mean, Instagram has become my. I barely go to my website anymore because it doesn't. I'm just trying to get people on Instagram, essentially because that's where all my stuff is. And it's easier to send people to other places from Instagram, not from my website. Jimmy R (59:18): You know, I have to say, Fleming, one of the. I mentioned earlier. Right. That as a company we run several tests to have a better idea of what's working in the music scene. And one of the things we saw consistently was the 2 million views in less than 60 days. That, that's a secret sauce of sorts because not many people know about it. But from that we've also tested which platform works better for musicians. And I'm talking about landing more gigs or even like funneling people to Spotify. Right now we've looked at, we checked Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. I gotta tell you, our money was on TikTok. Jimmy R (01:00:02): We, we were thinking we were banking on TikTok to be the best platform, but I gotta say, like, starting December of last year, up until now, it's consistently been Instagram. FLEMING (01:00:14): Interesting. Jimmy R (01:00:15): So it's great that you have your Instagram profile set up. I suggest that you bolster it even more. You can also create TikTok. TikTok is great, but Instagram is the best platform for musicians. Yeah. FLEMING (01:00:29): Okay, that's good to hear. Yeah. So let me. Yeah, because I mean, at the end of the day, all I got to do is get like three gigs and that would cover three legitimate gigs, you know, bigger gigs that would kind of pay this thing back. And I actually already have a couple that are happening this summer. I just don't want to blow through some of my reserves that I've got set out. Jimmy R (01:00:59): But that makes sense. And one other thing is that although our campaign only runs for 60 days, because, I mean, as I mentioned. Right. You can't be doing the 2 million in like four months or so because it's not going to trigger the algorithm even though our campaign runs on 60 days. Therefore, within this, within the 60 days time window, we will get you added on that trending. Audio list. Now, some of the musicians we've worked with, even though the campaign time window is like, it's over, they end up staying on that trending list for two to four more months. Because, I mean, on our end, it's not like we're going to tell Instagram to take down your music 1. Like we don't have the authority to do it. Jimmy R (01:01:46): Like, they're not going to listen to us. It just really depends on the performance of your music. So I guess I did want to let you know that this algorithmic push, it could over spill even after the actual campaign. And one thing I did want to say, though, is that it's great that you're in the local space because, I mean, when your profile is established, like, you know, word would spread around and suddenly you are the guy for. For wedding events in your local area. That's. FLEMING (01:02:26): Yeah. Oh, I'm glad you said that with weddings. Yeah. Because the weddings, I think, are a very niche. I pain. You know, usually people I fit into that cocktail hour at weddings when really easily and it's a good form of entertainment for people. Do you have like Summertime beach type influencers? Okay. Because I was definitely say that's a. That's a vein that I really want to be in that I think will be a good return for my music at least. Jimmy R (01:03:03): So we, we certainly have influencers that can cater to that kind of theme. Like, like Summer Beach. We're actually promoting several musicians within that niche. Even weddings. Right, See. Yeah. So that's why I was wondering if we could. It's ideal if we do this now because I know that we've just. There are several, but they're not like you, though, because they're more like DJs. Like, we've come across several musicians that are DJs that are also targeting the wedding niche. So it's like, you know, I know we still have slots right now, but that's like a variable that we don't. We don't want to like kind of test. FLEMING (01:03:47): Yeah, yeah, no, I'm with you. Let me go get my. What I'm looking at is to see if my. I've got a couple of cards that have some interest benefits too, and so I was trying to look at some of those. Let me get my wallet real quick. Jimmy R (01:04:03): All right. While you do that, Fleming, I will just be silent here because I'm preparing the. The introduction between you and the campaign manager. Okay. Let me know if you run into any issues, but I'll just be silent here. Okay. FLEMING (01:04:17): Yeah. Jimmy R (01:04:17): Thank you all. Real, real quick. Fleming, I know you mentioned earlier that you want siesta key, right? But did you say that you want emphasis or visibility in the wedding and beach theme? FLEMING (01:06:01): Yes, please. Yeah, I think those are. I think those are probably my best ones. Like the wedding romance and like, beach summertime. Jimmy R (01:06:09): Okay, gotcha. All right. It's. All right. So I've already just triggered our system to send you the. The PR article. You should see this when you log into the. To our website. FLEMING (01:07:26): Oh, okay, cool. Jimmy R (01:07:28): Yeah. And I just want to confirm is your email. Real quick, is your email flemingmusicofficialmail.com? FLEMING (01:07:49): Yes. Jimmy R (01:07:50): All right, so I'll send the introduction through there. FLEMING (01:07:53): Okay, great. Jimmy R (01:08:19): It. Also, Fleming, is Your phone number-xxxxxxx? FLEMING (01:08:53): That's right, yeah. Jimmy R (01:08:54): All right. FLEMING (01:09:05): I am seeing. Klarna wants a debit card, so let me. Jimmy R (01:09:11): All right. FLEMING (01:11:34): All right, perfect. I think that went through Jimmy. Well, maybe not. Gotta connect to a bank real quick. Jimmy R (01:11:46): All right, no worries. I'm still here anyway. I'm still preparing the campaign, but essentially, Fleming, within 24 to 48 hours, Max should reply to the email with a short form. I just need you to fill out that form and from there we can move forward. And any questions you might have, you can just act. Ask like Max, because he's going to be the one so handling your campaign. FLEMING (01:12:15): Oh, okay, cool. Yeah,. Jimmy R (01:16:01): It's. Is Klarna giving you any issues? FLEMING (01:16:46): Yeah, it's the. It wasn't. My bank wasn't letting me log in through the Klarna thing. And it's declining my. I was just using my. My business card here and it's declining it. So I'm looking through, trying to figure out if I put something wrong in. Jimmy R (01:17:20): There, is it saying what kind of error it's giving or. FLEMING (01:17:25): It just said your card has been declined, which could maybe. I don't have 35. I thought I had like a $6,000 limit on this card, and I don't have anything on it at the moment, so it shouldn't be being declined. Jimmy R (01:17:56): And you said when will you be releasing your next song, Lemming? You said it was a Friday. FLEMING (01:18:08): Yeah, yeah. This current. This coming Friday. Jimmy R (01:18:11): Streaming Friday. All right. All right, thank you. It. FLEMING (01:19:18): Okay, here we go now. Let's try it again. Jimmy R (01:19:34): All right. I actually saw it go through on my end. Perfect. FLEMING (01:19:38): Yeah, just. Jimmy R (01:19:39): Just did. Yes. What's. What's going to happen? Fleming is right. After this call, I'm going to send the email introduction through that email. Flemingmusicofficialmail.com and within 24 to 48 hours, Max will reply. I just need you to reply at that point. Okay. So we can run and without any issues. Cool. FLEMING (01:20:02): Yeah, that sounds great, man. Jimmy R (01:20:04): All right. Any other questions or. FLEMING (01:20:09): No, I'm ready to see. See the results and get after it, man. I think it's gonna be cool. And hopefully. Hopefully, man, it's. It just continues to generate more and more, and we can keep doing more of it and get. Get even more aggressive every time. Jimmy R (01:20:24): For sure. For sure, man. I'm excited to see how this turns out as well. I can just imagine if you have, like, a lot of wedding videos with your song in it. I mean, that could really catch the attention of wood, like, bride to Be. And with your music on there, it. They might even ask, hey, what is that song? I want that song in my. On my. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I. I could totally see how might, like, play out that way, but. Yeah. So I'm gonna send the email now, and please wait for Max's reply. Okay. FLEMING (01:20:58): Okay, cool. Awesome. Thank you, Jimmy. Appreciate your time today, man. Jimmy R (01:21:02): You have a good one, and I hope your biceps, like, heal and you can train again. FLEMING (01:21:06): Yeah, baby. Us too, man. Thank you. Yeah. Jimmy R (01:21:10): Bye. Bye. FLEMING (01:21:11): All right. See you, Jimmy. Jimmy R (01:21:12): Bye.