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Making a Living in Music
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today I want to talk about how we can
take control over our finances in such
an unpredictable career field like the
music industry before we begin I want to
make it clear that this isn't a get-rich
quick scheme I'm not claiming to have an
abundance of money and there's nothing
monetary that I gained from making this
video not even through AdSense and the
things that I've learned running my
business as an audio engineer and a
Studio owner took me from maxed out
credit cards and skipping meals to
having more control over my finances and
better understanding the ups and downs
of having a business and being an audio
engineer and most importantly I wish I
knew the all 6 years ago when I first
started my business and that I didn't
have to learn it the hard way which is
why I want to share it with you today
and so let's talk about the elephant in
the room having a career in the music
industry is hard it's different and you
need to approach it differently than
your traditional career often even for
seasoned mixing Engineers the biggest
names out there they're going to have
months of intense work followed by
months of little to no work and that
unpredictability is what keeps people
away from creating sustaining a career
in the music industry by understanding
unpredictability we can start to create
a career for ourselves being audio
Engineers or owning our own
Studios understanding unpredictability
can be broken down into Three Steps step
one would be to dissolve the idea that
we have a monthly income the amount of
money you bring in each month needs to
last you and until the next client comes
in and the email to start your next
project could come in tonight or could
come in 6 months from now and we need to
be prepared for that me personally when
I first started my studio I would make
however much I made each month pay all
my bills and the rest went to buying a
new piece of gear or just spending it
because traditional career paths give
you a fixed set of income each month or
often we're tempted to spend it each
month because we know the next month
that exact same amount of money is going
to come in
but if we apply that to our business the
whole thing falls apart so again we need
to dissolve the idea that we have a
monthly income and so now that we've
dissolved the idea that we have a
monthly income we need to minimize our
overhead and create a strict budget and
everybody's overhead and what they
choose to budget for is going to be
personal to themselves your ability to
minimize your budget is in direct
relation to your peace of mind and your
longevity in your career if you're
spending a lot and you have a large bu
budget each project isn't going to last
you as long as it could if you had a
smaller budget or less overhead and for
me personally in my life I advocate that
I minimize my overhead as much as
possible there's a lot of things that I
would give up just so I can run a studio
but equally when you're assessing uh
what is worth it in your budget what's
worth it in your overhead make sure to
incorporate things that bring you Joy in
your life for example I like to budget
that I can get a cup of coffee every
morning go to a nice cafe and just be
with my community and that brings me a
lot of joy and also running a studio
brings me a lot of joy and so I make
sure I prioritize those things and
there's other things in my life that I
choose not to prioritize because I want
to make sure that I can do this as long
as I can and for step three and now that
we have dissolved the idea of monthly
income and that we have created a budget
for ourselves we can take those two
numbers take how much money we have
divide it by our budget and now we can
see how long we have until we need our
next artist or client to come in and
through disciplining ourselves and
creating that budget we're able to
create predictability out of a career
that's often seen as pretty
unpredictable next I want to talk about
something I'm still working on but that
has had such a profound effect on how I
budget that I wanted to share with it
that I wanted to share that with you
today and that is creating
sustainability through the 10% rule we
all understand the ups and downs of
having a career as an audio engineer and
often months will fluctuate by more than
10% I'll put a graph on the screen of my
income this year and you'll see that
some months fluctuate by 50% and so
knowing that we know that if our income
was to change by 10% each month that
wouldn't necessarily make or break us we
may just need to budget a little bit
tighter and so we take that 10% off of
everything we make and we stash that
away somewhere preferably for me
somewhere that I don't see it when we
take that 10% off the top we're able to
start building a savings account an
account that we can use to buy gear
separate from our operating account
where all of our expenses and overhead
comes out of because for me personally
when I see money stack up in the
operating account it gets pretty
tempting to want to buy a new piece of
gear when in reality if I just let it
sit there that's months of piece of mind
that I have and so through taking that
10% off the top of everything I make and
stashing it away in a sep bank account
that I don't really see I'm starting to
build a emergency fund and then
eventually a fund for buying new
equipment that is completely separate
from my operating expenses and so when
we're budgeting and we're able to make
the gigs we get last for months and then
we're taking that 10% off and stashing
it away where we don't really see it and
we don't necessarily feel it coming out
of our bank accounts we're able to
create two layers of predictability
again out of something that's perceived
as unpredictable and unsustainable
and we're able to create a nice comfort
zone when we're running our business and
the less you're worried about paying
your rent the better you can run your
business the more time you can just
think about the thing that you love in
the first place and that's turning these
knobs compressing drums and making great
mixes thank you all for tuning in to
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