Josh 0:55
Good Times Good times, good times. That was a clip from one of my drum solos from a concert back in the day. As many of you know, particularly if you listened to the first episode of this podcast where I talked a little bit about my story. I was a drummer in a metal band. And I did that for years before starting my business. And oddly enough, I’ve realized that there were multiple things that happened in my band experience that really helped me with starting a business. So in this episode of the podcast, Episode 19, I’m actually going to talk about the top six ways that being in a band helped me start my business. And I wanted to do this episode for a couple different reasons.

Josh 1:36
Number one, I have found that the bridge between being a musician and being a creative and whatever creative field that is really translate to doing creative services and business in a lot of different ways. And I found in particular, web designers, like a lot of web designers come from a music background, the last episode of the podcast, I chatted with John Wooten, He is a fellow drummer as well. There are a ton of people in the Divi and wider WordPress and web design community who come from a music background. And I find that fascinating Heck, even Nick Roach, the owner of Elegant Themes, the creators of Divi, he was a musician before he got into business as well. So I’m just fascinated by it.

Josh 2:20
And the other reason I wanted to point this out, was not just to talk about myself or my experience. But if you are in a situation where maybe you’re in a different industry, or maybe you’re thinking about getting into web design, or maybe you just started but you feel like, you know what, I didn’t have a college education, or I’m not classically trained in the ways of web design. That is okay, there are so many parallels to whatever industry you’re in, particularly if it’s music, or some sort of creative industry that will translate to web design in particular. So I wanted to make that note. And one reason I absolutely love web design is that you don’t need a four year degree and some traditional academic program to be successful at web design, I would actually say that that will do you more harm than good. If you go into six figures of debt, and go to a classic academic college program for web design, you’re going to be behind. So being in a band, in short, really helped me in a lot of ways in business. And that’s what we’re going to talk about.

Josh 3:17
So I hope this is some encouragement and some inspiration to those of you who are either fellow musicians, or maybe you’re in a different creative industry. And you’re thinking about transitioning to web design, because a lot will translate. So without further ado, let’s just go ahead and just get right into it. Again, the top six ways, being in a band helped me start my business.

1) Working With Different Personalities

Josh 3:36
Number one is it taught me how to work with different personalities. Remember this, if you’re going to be in business, there’s one really, really important thing to remember. And that is business is people. So you’ve got to know how to react and adapt and work with different people. Now my band experience really trained me unknowingly keep in mind all these points that I’m going over, I did not recognize that my band experience was training me for any of this, I kind of thought about this over the past few years as I look back on it, but that experience really trained me to not only get along with and work with, but how to deal with different types of people in different personality types.

Josh 4:16
Now, in speaking of the band aids that apply to the actual band members, but it also applied to people around the band because we were working with promoters, advertisers, other bands, and fans and other people who are coming to concerts and shows and working with us. So we really had to get used to working with a number of different people. And that’s the same thing you’re going to experience in business. If it’s just you and your web design business right now, you may just be working with clients, but if you start scaling your team, you’re going to have to work with different personality types of your team members and then also the clients and then also other people you’re working with, whether it’s colleagues who colleagues who do other services that you partner up with, you’re going to work with a lot of different people personality types in my band experience really helped me with that.

Josh 5:04
So that’s number one got me used to working with a bunch of different people, which is absolutely huge. And we’ll talk about some of the, the intricacies of that here in a couple points moving forward. So number one was Yeah, working with different personalities.

2) Marketing a Product

Josh 5:17
Number two was how to market a product. Yes, an album in the band itself is a product, I did not realize this back in the day, I had no concept of course, you know, I started, I co-founded my band, this fires a brace when I was 18. So I had zero mind for business. And a lot of you have seen my very first business card when I was still in the band world. And I had grunge design and drum lessons along with websites and print design and stuff. So I really did not have a mind for business. However, I did kind of realize early on that the band itself and our album was a product, we did not do this very well. But looking back, I realized how important it was to look at what you would do with a product when you market it to a market.

Josh 6:06
And what I’m talking about is knowing your demographic, knowing how, when and where to position, what you’re offering. So in our case, it was albums, we we over the course of almost six years in the band, we recorded and released three albums. And one of the issues just talking frankly, and transparently one of the issues that we had as a band. And one reason we didn’t get bigger, I mean we got we got pretty decent size to where we were traveling around the nation. And we had some national radio play for a little while. And monetarily, we broke even which is more than most bands can say we essentially made enough money to to support our travels and our vehicles and our gear and everything, pay ourselves a little bit, we ended up breaking even.

Josh 6:45
But we’d had no concept of knowing the demographic knowing who our ideal fans were in, in catering our content towards them, we kind of, particularly in our second album, we just kind of went haywire. And it was basically like 10 different bands and one album, so people didn’t know how to react to us. And that’s the same thing I’ve learned with business is that you have to know your market, you have to know your demographic, and you have to know how to cater your offering or your product towards your ideal clients. So that was a big one. Again, we didn’t do that. Well, looking back, I think we probably all would have realized, okay, no, this is our ideal market. These are the kind of people who like our music and who are coming to concerts, we need to make music that’s going to appeal to them.

Josh 7:27
So that was a big one. And that’s kind of transferred over to me with not only my business and transit studios with offering website design services and maintenance, but now really big time right now with courses because I kind of know who my market is, which is fellow web designers who are starting their own business are leveling up their current business and trying to get to that next level. So that’s kind of who I’m marketing to. Now, again, things I wish I wish we all would have realized back in the band day, because we probably would have made a lot more money and maybe maybe would have done a little little better all-around particular with concerts and stuff like that. So number two was how to market a product.

3) How to Set Goals and Meet Deadlines

Josh 8:04
Number three, this is a big one, how to set goals and meet deadlines. This is something as well that I really didn’t think about, although of all the things I’m going to mention, this is probably the one that I was personally best at back then I’ve always been pretty good at setting goals and meeting those deadlines. Which is why I think when I transitioned to starting my business things took off pretty quickly. But I’ll tell you this, it was not easy, always getting the other members to adhere to this as well. And when it came to setting goals and deadlines, practically in the band world, that meant that with like creating an album, we had a launch date. And we had an ideal time that we wanted to release that album. So we had to do a number of different things around that.

Josh 8:51
We had to write our songs and get them done in time to be able to head to the studio, and we had a certain amount of studio time that we had to actually record the album. So we had to be very, very intentional about not wasting time. Because at least back in those days, the majority of recording studios that we recorded in were hourly. So if you wanted to burn a ton of time in there, you could but it was gonna cost a fortune. So we were basically trying to record the songs as quickly as we could, because we had no money back then. And then the other aspects to all that was getting all the supporting merchandise ready, like the artwork for the CD, new T shirts, stickers and anything else that we were building. And then of course, the actual concerts around the album. So we would have some locally, we would have some and states nearby and then a couple times we would have longer trips where we’d have to try to get all of that organized. And a lot of that was around our new album. So that was a big one and we had to set those goals and meet those deadlines.

Josh 9:51
Now. It’s probably pretty obvious but in the business world in particularly in the web design world. This really really helped me understand the value Having a deadline or an end date, and then sticking to those goals, those deadlines and those budgets. So this really helped me through every web design project I’ve ever gone through, because the client is going to have an ideal launch date. Usually, they’re definitely going to have a budget just like we’d had in the band days. So if they have a budget of 3000, for the website, and that’s what you agreed to, you’re going to want to try to get that website done in as little hours as possible. Otherwise, it’s going to start creeping in, and you’re gonna start making less and less the longer you take on it, unless we do a different pricing model.

Josh 10:31
But that’s not what this episode is about. But in any case, budget is huge. And then those deadlines and the goal is for the client, like if they are planning on launching their new site in three months, then you’ve got that time to not only build the site, but empower them. And that way they can work on the other things to launch and have a successful launch of the website and start driving some traffic to it. So it really all goes back to the setting goals and meeting deadlines that I learned through creating albums and getting those things done on time as much as we could.

Josh 11:00
And I found in the band world, which really translate to business, even if the album wasn’t 100% Perfect, we still had to just get it done and meet that deadline. I’ve actually found that to be a key success in business. Because what happens with most creatives, most of us will overthink a design or overthink whatever we’re working on to death. And I firmly believe a website is never 100% done or 100%. Perfect. There’s always something that can be tweaked or adjusted, you can literally just design and comb over that thing over and over and over and over until it’s never done. Which is also side note, while a lot of web designers never finished their own websites, because they just can’t roll with something. And by the time you do get a new website design, you’re ready to redesign it already.

Josh 11:48
So I learned in the band days that even if it wasn’t 100%, perfect, just get it out. I do the same thing with my stuff. And I also do the same thing with our clients. I mean, we want to do it in excellence, and you want to get your website designs out is nicely and again is done. Excellent is possible. But sometimes, even if it’s like 95%, as long as you’re at that deadline, and you need to hit it, then just launch that sucker, you can always do little tweaks when it’s live or little things. But as long as you get it dang good enough to go live. That’s what you need to do. And that’s what I learned in the band experience.

Josh 12:21
So number three, setting goals and meeting deadlines really, really beneficial. For me, I wonder if you guys have have experienced that as well, whether you’re a musician or in a different field,

4) Master the Art of Compromise

Josh 12:31
Number four, who this is a big one, the art of compromise. So going back to working with different personalities, which was point number one, the kind of part two that was compromising because you’re working with people. So with a band, same in business, but with a band, I’m working with other members in that band, it’s not just me, unless you’re a one person band, you can do whatever you want, I’ve found that the band experience of actually doing something creatively and creating a product with four or five other dudes, or the people in general, it’s kind of like a marriage in a lot of ways, mostly in the way of compromise. But you really have to care for the other people their thoughts, you have to take in their ideas, and you have to weigh those and you’re going to have to compromise at some point, you’re not always going to get your way. That’s kind of the big thing.

Josh 13:22
Now, practically, like in the band days, I remember I specifically remember there were many times where I hated a song. Or I felt like we just made a choice that just wasn’t great, or I didn’t agree with or we did some shows that I didn’t feel were worth it. And we’re working with some douchebag promoter or some goop noodle who was trying to, you know, take us in a different direction that I just felt wasn’t right for the band. But some of those things I stood my ground on, but a lot of things. If it was a majority vote, then I just went with it, you have to learn that compromise. Because in the band world, at least for the most time, it’s a democracy, it’s not a dictatorship. So that all really helped me with the parallels in the business world.

Josh 14:04
Now, particularly in the creative field of web design, I have had to go through this over and over and over again. And I’m sure you have as well as web designers, where you know what you really don’t care for this design completely. Or maybe the client you’re working with has a brand that you just don’t really like aesthetically, or maybe there was a decision decision made that the client made and you really disagree with it, but they really wanted that button there. They really wanted this page here, something like that. And, you know, it’s like, maybe this is against, not even against best practices, but you just don’t care for creatively, but they’re the ones paying the bills, a lot of times you’re just gonna have to compromise and do what your client wants to do. Now, if it breaks best practices are really really is going to be detrimental to your work and the success of the website and that’s where you should stand your ground. And I have done that but on little cosmetic things and things that the client just doesn’t want to change. I’ve had to learn to swallow my pride, swallow my creative feelings and just roll with it compromise where you need to to get your bills paid, basically.

Josh 15:10
So number four was the auto compromise. This was a big one, because I really, really experienced this in the band days. And honestly, it helped me out in a lot of different ways.

5) Get Used to the Art of Delayed Gratification

Josh 15:18
Number five is the art of delayed gratification. Now in the band world, as you can probably imagine, it will generally take months even potentially a year or years after a song is conceived and created before it makes, you know, before it sees the light of the day, or makes it on an album or even at a concert, I remember times where we might make a new song. And sometimes we play them live in a concert. But more than likely, we would have to wait until it was more ready to be on the next album. And sometimes we would make a song and it wouldn’t be on the next album until like two years later. And sometimes in some cases, by the time we release that song, I was already sick of it, it already kind of lost lost the the new steam, and the energy and excitement of something new. And by the time we played it live or by the time people heard it, it was like, oh, it’s old news.

Josh 16:12
To me, that song is like two years old now. And I found that to be very true in the business world. Because when you are rolling out a service or a product, sometimes it can take weeks or months to actually put that service or product in place. And a lot of times like if you’re offering web design services, maintenance, SEO, or ongoing services, or different recurring income that we talked about in the last episode, a lot of those options, a lot of those things are going to take some time to effectively build up before you can offer them to your clients.

Josh 16:43
Now the trick is, you need to be patient and persistent through that period, you need to learn the art of delayed gratification. And I’m not going to go on a soapbox on this. But these days, kids these days, they get everything instantly. And so there’s like no wherewithal for a lot of I think the younger generation coming up to stick something through and to see it through to completion. And then all goes back to delayed gratification, meaning you get started on an idea, you’re ready to roll this out, it may take again, depending on your schedule, depending on what it is. Because you don’t want to rush something out, it could take months before it sees the light of day and before your clients can actually pay you for it.

Josh 17:22
And that’s where delayed gratification is going to be huge. Because you got to know if you really believe in this idea, and you’re working hard at it, you know, it’s gonna pay dividends and it’s gonna pay off eventually for you, you got to see it through, you got to push through those stale periods, where the idea doesn’t seem so new and so exciting. And that way, when you do launch it, you can get reinvigorated. And you kind of know, it’s really all about expectation, you know that it’s gonna take a while for this to get out there. But you know, if you can see it through, you’ll get that re energized feeling once you launch it. And then of course, once you start seeing payments, go in your bank account for something, that’s when you really start feeling it.

Josh 17:58
Now, I found this to be so true with my web design, business and transit studios. And we were doing some sort of product or service. But I felt even more true with courses. Because a lot of times I’ll have an idea for a course. And it may be quite a while before I can get a chance to lay it out and then write it out. And then if I do a pre order, and I’m actually recording the course and doing all the content, it may be several weeks or maybe even potentially a couple months before it actually gets out and people start consuming it.

Josh 18:28
So Prime example was my business course I thought about my business course for let’s see, I launched that in September 2019. I had thought about doing a business course since 2018. But I just never felt like the time was right, I knew it was going to be a huge endeavor. So it took to the summer of 2018 to actually start laying the ideas out and writing it out. And it was a two and a half month process. For me to write out that entire course. It’s a very robust course those of you who have been through it, you know how much time and effort went into that I put my heart and soul into that thing. And it was a huge course it was ended up being almost 40,000 words that I wrote for that course. So it’s basically a book. But I had to learn delayed gratification. I knew on the days where I was like, Oh my gosh, this is so much work. I feel like I’ve worked my ass off. But I’m only like halfway through delay, the art of delay gratification pulled me through that. And I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

Josh 19:22
And that’s what I want to encourage you guys to think to particularly when you’re doing a big project, that’s going to take a lot of time. Now some projects may just take a couple weeks or a couple months. And those aren’t as bad to get through. Because you’ll have a little light at the end of the tunnel. But for projects that are really, really big, it’s huge. It’ll really help pull you through that.

Josh 19:41
So that was number five, the art of delayed gratification really, really helped me out.

6) How to Handle the Highs and Lows

Josh 19:46
And then finally number six, who’s the big one? And if you haven’t already, you’re going to experience this in business. And that is how to handle the highs and lows. Now, I really believe that there may no be He may no be, may be no more higher or lower feelings and you’ll get as a musician, prime example is we had shows where we were playing in front of hundreds, sometimes there was a quite a few shows where we played in front of 1000s of fans. And it was awesome. It was an amazing show that energy was through the through three on Cloud line, cloud nine, excuse me, I wish I could talk today. And then what happens, you know what happens the night after, right?

Josh 20:28
You go to the next show, and there’s five people there, it’s a complete dud. And you go from such a high, high to such a low, low. And those man those feelings are real, I really learned through the band experience, not to get too high, when things were going awesome. But also not to get too low, when things were not going great. Because when you get really high, things are awesome. Things are awesome. You’re talking to people, it’s great. You’re selling merch, you’re playing in front of 1000s of people. And then once you get to that low point, what can happen is a lot of people just quit, a lot of people are done. They’re like, You know what, I’m never doing this. Again, I’m never faced in a situation where my pride is hurt, I’m only playing in front of five people. And you really have to stay in the middle ground between your highs and lows, have your emotions.

Josh 21:15
And even like when things are really good. Sometimes things get out of control, sometimes, particularly monetarily, when things are going really good in business, you can blow your money really quick. It’s like, oh, I can finally pay this off, I can finally buy this can finally do this. And this and this. Now, I of course would never do something like that. Yeah, no, I have absolutely struggled with that before to where like, Alright, let’s go ahead and do this to the house, we’ve got a big chunk coming in. And then what happens a lot of times, when you have a really good month, the next month may not be as good. So it’s really important in a lot of different areas of life, to stay in the middle, and maintain your emotions don’t get too high, don’t get too low.

Josh 21:51
And in the case of the band days, I remember, we kind of got used to this because in the beginning, we all really struggled with that, to where when there was five people there at a show, we would all be in bad moods. And I felt bad. It kind of dawned on me shortly after that, because even though there were five people there, they still paid to be there, they still paid to see us play, and we had to perform, whether it was five people or 500 people. So I learned that you kind of have to perform as well, no matter what highs and lows happen. And that really goes back to being in control of your emotions. So at the tail end of the band experience, I remember when we had terrible shows, we were like, You know what, we’re just gonna have a good time, we’re going to treat it like an awesome practice. And we’re going to perform and by golly, the five people who showed up and paid, we’re going to make sure they have a good time, and we’ll hang out. So that was a big one.

Josh 22:38
And in business, I’ve kind of already talked about this, but just this translates to, again, particularly in web design, those are really good months. And those really bad months, I think that’s kind of the overarching thing with highs and lows with with business is you’re going to have really good times a really good bad times gotta be consistent, got to be maintained, and in the middle of your emotions. And I’ve actually found in a web design in particular, this can happen not even over the course of a few days, but it can happen in one day. One day, could be the launch of a website, a really happy client, and you got paid, maybe you got a big payday you you got like 2000 bucks for the end of a project, and things are going awesome. And then maybe that happened in the morning. And then right when you’re feeling good, a support issue comes in with a site or there’s a distressed client, or maybe some tech problems or something.

Josh 23:29
A lot of times in web design, literally one day was like a roller coaster, whereas the bad days, it was more like weeks would be rollercoaster the the business world in general, it’s gonna be a roller coaster of emotions often in one day. So you gotta you gotta learn how to handle that, again, don’t get too high, don’t get too low. And this is big too. Because when an issue comes in with a website, or there’s a client that’s not happy about something, or there’s a tech problem or a website hack or something, you have to be able to handle that, and then transition right into something else very quickly, without that bleeding over into what you’re doing.

Josh 23:11
And what I mean by that is if you’re dealing with an issue with a client site being hacked, and then you have to transition to managing projects and talking with clients, then you have to be able to talk to them not stressed out, you have to basically be a good medium of who you are through that whole situation and be able to handle those highs and lows without them bleeding in particularly the lows you have to be able to not let those bleed into other good situations.

Josh 24:30
Just this morning. I have a client who’s on bad hosting and I told them to get off that hosting and they sir enough they had some sort of malware get in. And but I was a little bit stressed out. I’m not terribly stressed out because I kind of told him but that could have very easily bled in to this episode. It could have bled into my mood and everything but I really tried to separate that and take care of that situation. Then transition. Leave it be even though that’s a crappy situation. We’re going to handle that for when I get done with this position. Test episode and I can revert to going back to that. So I’ve just learned to not let the lows bleed into the highs and vice versa, you got to stay consistent and keep those emotional highs and lows at bay, you want to be right in the middle. Again, not too high, not too low.

Josh 25:16
So there you go, guys, let’s do a recap of these top six ways that being in a band really helped me start my business

Josh 25:21
Number one was working with different personalities. And as we talked about with the band, there was a ton of different personalities and with business businesses, people going to be working with a lot of different personalities got to keep on chugging and be you through every situation

Josh 25:35
Number two was how to market a product, a band, and an album is a product, whether musicians like it or not. And if you’re making money at music, you’re our product. If you just want to do whatever the heck you want to do, that’s where having a hobby or a little you know, GarageBand is what you do. But if you’re making money, it is a product. And the same thing applies to business, you got to think about your market your demographic and how you actually want to market and position that product. Big one.

Josh 26:02
Number three was how to set goals and to meet deadlines, as we talked about with creating an album we had to stick or ideally stick with a launch date. And we had to write record and do all the supporting merch and concerts around that deadline, and really transitioned to business with launching or setting up a new service or course in my my current situation. So big one, setting goals and meet deadlines.

Josh 26:24
Number four was the art of compromise. Just like in a band against us, me, when you have to compromise with things that aren’t going your way, same thing in business, you’re going to have to swallow some pride, gonna have to compromise a little bit, you’re gonna have to let your art the artistic side of you swallow that pride and just let whoever’s paying the bills, let them get their way every once in a while, as long as it doesn’t compromise the integrity of your work, or the goals of the business.

Josh 26:47
Number five was the art of delayed gratification. Just remember, success does not happen overnight, just like in the band world when we would make a song and then it would come out. So two years later happens all the time, maybe not that long with business, but it may take several weeks or months before something you think about and rollout is actually in the world and making money. So push through those delayed gratification times. And that will pull you through all that.

Josh 27:12
And then finally, again, how to handle those highs and lows, like we just talked about. Don’t get too high, don’t get too low. When you have great months, make sure you don’t blow all your money and do something stupid. And when you have low months, just remember, there’s always going to be light at the end of the tunnel. And you want to stay right in that middle range of emotion. And you don’t want those lows to bleed into your highs or your other good situations.

Josh 27:33
So there you go. Guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode. Again, for those of you who are fellow musicians, I hope this resonated with you. And I hope it helps you and your business endeavors for those of you who are not musicians, and hopefully you just check this out just to see it was all about. I hope this applies to you as well, and helps encourage and inspire you if you’re in a different industry. Because again, I firmly believe that a lot of different industries will parallel to web design perfectly. And you can take so much from your previous experience that will transition into your web design journey, and it will really help you out.

Josh 28:07
So if you guys enjoyed this, let me know I’d love to get a comment from you, you can go to this post. And actually, for those of you who want to see that whole drum solo, I’ll link the video in the show notes for this page, you’ll just go to Josh hall.co/ 019. That’s episode 19. And I’ll take you there I’ll post that I’ll also post some links to my old band. If you guys for any who who haven’t heard my old band, you can check that out, we still do make some money through its music still available on iTunes. So you’re welcome to hey, if you want to purchase now, that’d be awesome. So you can do that. And then I’ll put some other resources on there for you as well. But again, hopefully this was an encouragement and inspiration to you.

Josh 28:43
So hope you guys enjoyed this episode, and I’ll see you on the next episode, which it’s gonna be a good one. I’ll tell you right now I’m going to leave a little teaser for you. Again leave you in suspense, but it’s a good one. I already recorded it and excited to get it out to you. So hope you enjoyed this episode. I’ll see you guys on the next one.