priced out everything I thought I would need. It was going to cost me $5,000 to work my LinkedIn, $7,500 to edit and create content, $5,000 more to create engagement with my community, and $3,000 to book podcasts. It looked like it could easily be over $20,000 a month to do the job right. I believe anyone, no matter their income, can be in line with that belief. I decided to build my own team. The team that I built was not created to be a business, it was built to help accomplish my goals of being successful in music. However, one day a friend posted on my social media that he “wished there was an agency that could handle his social media marketing for less than $20,000.” My reply was another turning point, “I built this but it’s not a business… it’s just for my personal goals.” From that post, six people reached out and asked for help. What “was not a business”, was suddenly a business. Those six people referred others who referred others who referred others. I streamlined my decades- long love of marketing and building massive teams to debut “SocialClose.” In its first full year, it’s already approaching $1 million in revenue, partnering with brands across all verticals, from musicians, restaurants, coaching, and clothing, to high-end whiskey. SocialClose’s growing popularity comes from not only creating and distributing amazing content but turning engagement into transactions by combining social media with call center strategies. They build “human funnels'' – where a team of employees leverage users’ interactions with social media to close business. This allows their team to play four- dimensional chess using their experience and creativity in marketing, and songwriting/music while all of our
competitors are doing about 1/3rd of what we offer, both activity and results.
attend. It wasn’t enough for Berklee but I did attend music school for a few years before moving into sales and marketing. In the mid-1990s, I spent three years at Combined Insurance, a Maine-based company, winning the company’s highest award for door-to-door sales eight times. At the call center, Talk America, I was one of three employees – out of nearly 1,000 – who sold more than a million dollars a year in products. Over the years I never let go of my dream of winning a Grammy. I’ve been singing and performing on the piano since grade school and even opened up for Coolio in 2009. I still own my companies (I’m selling one of them) and am in the process of building a few more. I’ve used my marketing skills to create friendships with some of the best songwriters and musicians on the planet. Not only do they value my expertise but they value my songwriting ability. I have been compared to some other incredible songwriters of today and the past. I’m the CMO for Veuit.com which is a new streaming platform creating their own original TV shows, and movies. Jonathan Sanger of the Mission Impossible movie series is the Chief Content Officer. I also work hand in hand with Charlie Walk rebuilding his Music Mastery Program. We are launching a series of music houses all over the globe and a new TV show, along with the Music Mastery Song Launch to help young musicians further their careers. I’m a best-selling author. ListenTrust is such an amazing journey and is so successful that I decided to document it. While on this path forward I decided to write a book entitled “Hired to Quit, Inspired to Stay.” It made 5 best seller lists during the launch.
There’s so much that happens digitally. Marketing is like catching water from a waterfall in a cup. Those are your sales. But what about the rest of the water? We work to fill a second, or third, or fourth glass through organic and relationship building strategies over time. It should be a billion-dollar business, because when you see it, you can’t unsee it. This isn’t a sales pitch for SocialClose although, this has become part of the journey to accomplishing any dream you want by helping others reach their goals. I needed mentors, but I was also a marketing expert and no one on this planet is free from challenges. With SocialClose I was able to use my marketing skills to help others. When you start to help others they want to help you too. Any musician that is trying to build a business wants to talk to me about business because I’ve had so much success as an entrepreneur, which is ironic because I’m also seeking them out, so I can learn from them. I started shaping my persona to appeal to both Entrepreneurism and Music. I started reaching out for connections which created conversations. I found that everything that’s successful has a process. It’s SocialClose’s job to figure out and maximize that process. Seemingly maximizing multiplier, I started my entrepreneurial career as a paperboy, and, as a 13-year-old, won a contest to go to Disney World for signing up the highest number of new subscribers. I was accepted to Berklee College of Music but didn’t have the money to attend so I decided to serve in the US Army to get financial support to always a
Powered by FlippingBook