How To Pitch Effectively To Land Music Work (Part 2)

So you’ve got a good side hustle going or you’ve managed to make it full time. You’re doing the things that grade school never prepared you for. Whether you write songs or record bands, the business side of things for the most part is the same; you have to pay close attention to taxes, means of getting work, and convincing others that you can provide them value greater than what you charge. This article will be talking about the latter, and specifically: writing the most persuasive pitch to potential clients that you’ve never met before.

Photo by Bo Lane on Unsplash

Finding The Right Client

When you’re looking for work, you get the appreciable opportunity to choose who you would like to work with. Although it will be a cold lead, meaning you have to start from zero to convince them to hire you, you want to choose a person or group you know well.

So this doesn’t mean I’m going to scroll through the instagram discover page, pick out the first person who looks like they could use my services, and DM them. Though you can go and find super cold leads as one strategy, this information is tailored to those you really want to work with. It’s important to build a network of people you really enjoy working with and push you to become better.

You won’t have to look far… just pick someone you know. You can use this to your advantage because you can show that you already have interest in them, and who wants to hire just some random person that happened to stumble upon you?

The goal is trying to sell them on hiring you. Selling is simply educating the other person on the amount of value you can give that is worth more than the money they would spend, simple as that. There should be no trickery, pushing, or anything of that sort to convince the person to buy; selling isn’t convincing, it’s educating.

The difference is that they can come to the conclusion themselves, and not have a conclusion being pushed on them.

The Pitch

Once you’ve found the right client, now comes the pitch. If you’ve read the previous article about pitching you’d most likely choose email as your medium, unless you can find a more intimate way of communicating. If you do choose email, you can add a website page dedicated to pitching specifically for this client.

To start the pitch, you’ll want to start it easy; don’t get into it right away. Start it like an actual conversation, because in real life, that’s what you do to talk to somebody! Emailing with this purpose shouldn’t reinvent the wheel.

Start out with a genuine compliment. To do this, you really have to know your potential client. Comment on something they’ve achieved, whatever you think they’d be happy to hear/talk about. This isn’t meant to be devious or to trick the person into reading what you have to say… it’s how actual conversations work! I think some people forget that just because you have something you want to offer them, that means it isn’t like a real conversation. Conversation comes first, then educating/showing them what you have to offer.

Next, you can address a problem they might have; make sure it’s something they explicitly expressed or something you arrived at through conversation (that they brought up!). Don’t make assumptions! Assuming client problems only causes a sense of insult. If you’re doing this all in one email, you’ll need to come prepared with a problem you can address, without insulting the person.

You should definitely keep things brief so they can easily glance through it, and not be overwhelmed. If you’re adding a web page, include a link and summarize things in the email. If you’re doing email, keep it short, summarize, and plan on having a conversation. Don’t waste their time by adding too much information/words, but also don’t waste their time by stretching out the point over multiple emails! Two should be sufficient to get everything said that you need.

The first email should be gauging their interest and giving them a summary of what you can offer, and the second can get into details after they’ve confirmed they’d like to know more.

After the problem, offer a solution, but don’t include anything about rates until they ask. There’s no point if they don’t need the solution anyway! Again keep it brief.

Then you can educate them why you’d be an exceptional choice; include your portfolio of past work on your website in the form of a link, and any details of the solution or problem that shows you know your stuff.

In closing the pitch, you should express how much you would like to work with them/work on the solution, and include a call to action. This could be checking out your portfolio, considering the problem/solution, whatever you think would be best depending on how much detail you added in the above. Then include how you’d like to hear back from once they’ve done so and you’re done!

The Key To Effective Pitches

The key to pitching is to disguise the pitch as much as possible, to the point that they don’t even know you’re pitching. Just have a conversation with them, and be genuine!

There’s always the opportunity to be slimy with this sort of thing because there's an agenda to the conversation, so I think business as an industry gets a bad reputation for that due to those who do use it to be devious. Also, the wording of this article might make it sound like you’re tricking the person, but it’s really just to show you that you should be having a real conversation, and real conversations don’t go straight into an agenda.

Ultimately you aren’t trying to change anyone’s mind, but rather give them the information needed to make a good decision; if your solution isn’t the best decision, or at least of equal value, why are you selling it?!

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I’ve definitely had my fair share of cringe pitches, so don’t be afraid if you’re not good at it. A lot of people are bad at it. Like really bad. But the fact that you now know this information means you’re already ahead of the game! I’ve still got a long way to go, but just thought I’d share what I’ve picked up that has earned me some pretty cool gigs :)

-Michael