The Unforeseen Career Twist For

This Struggling Musician

Heart Payment Doesn't Pay The Bills

I started from scratch in my late 30’s. Despite the late start, and the fact that I was married with three young children, I was able to release two albums. I also played well over 100 shows both as a solo performer and with the band, I formed.

I thought I was set. I was always a huge music fan. To finally be on the stage and in the green room instead of in the crowd was euphoric.

Everyone would tell me how great my voice was. How much my songs changed their life. How much they loved coming to my shows and so on. I received a good dose of what the great songwriter, Paul Williams, described as “heart payment.”

The only thing is, heart payment doesn’t pay the mortgage.

The real money never got to the point where I could support my family. On top of that, the gigging life was started taking its toll on myself and my family. I was playing 2-3 shows a week, working fulltime and being an absent dad.

Also, It was cool playing rockstar in the beginning. But driving all over Minnesota and Wisconsin was wearing on me. Playing shows to near-empty bars grinds on your soul. Then coming home to a wife who's been handling three young children for days on her own grinds on a lot of other things.

It was a great ride, but I had to swallow the gut-wrenching failure and pivot.

I had to figure something else out before I lost everything.

Fortunately, all those years I was making music, I was also learning how to market my music online.

I learned how to create ads on Google and various other social media websites. On top of those, I had to create websites, learn to blog, build email lists, and sell things online.

As it turns out, those are valuable skills to have.

Fast forward to today, things are much better.

I am what they call an Ad Buyer. I started placing ads for my clients all over the internet. These ads show on major platforms you are familiar with. Like Google, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and a few others.

• In a nutshell, this is what what I do:
• Choose an audience to target
• Choose a place to put your ads
• Create the ads (the fun part)
• Choose a web page to send the audience to
• Review the results and optimize

Sound familiar?

A lot like what you are doing when you are writing, releasing, and promoting music right? Or promoting a gig, reaching out to radio stations, bloggers and reviewers, etc, etc.

Looking back, marketing my own music actually gave me an edge over the other people that were placing ads.

As you may already know, it is tough getting someone to buy music. Hell, no matter how good your tunes are, it may be the most difficult thing to sell.

In fact, I use it all the time when onboarding new clients.

“If I can sell music, I can sell your stuff.”

If you can drive traffic, build email lists, and get sales in the music industry you are already ahead of the game. Because doing the same for products and services people actually need, can be much easier.

The other thing I found out is you’ll never be out of work. There are so many businesses in so many industries that need people who know how to do this stuff.

It is also helping me big time in the current climate. When you have many clients in many industries, as I do now, you're insulated from a total wipeout. Some of my clients are hurting and some not at all. I’ve even gotten busier from past clients wanting to get back online.

Enough about me, here is where you come in.

Here’s How You Can Help

Right now there are thousands of businesses looking for help advertising online. Many of them have been ignoring the online world.

But now, the sudden change in our world has made it critical for them to survive.

And, as crazy as it sounds, there are not enough ad buyers to help them all. My workload alone has nearly doubled over the past month and I’ve turned clients away.

As someone in the music industry, you are uniquely qualified to help out.

Here are a few examples why…

– You are creative while understanding the importance of structure. Creating ads is similar to the relationship between melody and rhythm.

– You are empathetic to the needs and desires of an audience. You will understand how to relate to the customers that businesses are looking for. In fact, this is what can separate Ad Buyers from the pack.

– You understand the importance of managing many streams of income. Whatever your part in the music industry, things are always changing. You need to be flexible. You can’t rely on income from just one source. Ad Buying offers the opportunity to have income from many sources.

– You love your freedom. Part of the promise of working in music is the freedom to live where you want. The freedom to be an individual, and create how you choose. The freedom from bosses and mind-numbing jobs. And I'm sure I'm forgetting some. Being an Ad Buyer offers the same opportunity.

To top it all off, there's a hidden benefit.

All the skills and tools I use as an Ad Buyer are going to come in really handy when I start releasing songs again.

Imagine how your future music promotions would do having advanced online advertising skills.

How Can I Get Started?

Many of the thousands of resources I’ve learned from are long gone, outdated, or scattered far and wide. The list of ad buying courses, blogs, and books is a long one.

If you are looking for the most up to date and best training out there, I suggest the AdSkills Jumpstart Program.

It's created by Online Ad Veterans to train people to qualify Ad Buyers. A career that is a great fit for people working in the music industry.

You can read about the program here:

If you decide to sign up, I will receive compensation for sharing the program with you. Having your trust is very important to me because I want you to feel you can reach out to me any time after you sign up.

Also, to thank you and to help you get more out of the program, I have a few extras for you.

First, I’ll send you a case study that shows you how I went from musician to ad buyer. you'll see how I used a popular freelance website to get gigs using the music-related skills I already had.

Second, I’ll send you a list of some of the marketing tools you’ll need to make your first job as a junior ad buyer easier. I've used a ton of tools. Good, bad inexpensive, and expensive. I'll break them down for you so you can save some time and money.

To get these bonuses, just send your receipt to corey@musicgoat.com and I will send you both of them. Plus, you’ll know how to contact me for anything.

Corey