Brand Deals Aren't Just for Big Artists ft. Gary Vee's Music Strategist Mike Boyd

Well, Henry, they said we couldn't do it, and we just proved them wrong each and every week. We got Mike Boyd on the podcast. When will they stop doubting? God, I'm sick of the doubters. Don't stop doubting when you get Russ, bro. Yeah. You saw the series. Don't bring that up. man. We'll get Russ eventually, man. Hey, can you make an intro? Yeah, right. Oh man. Okay, perfect. I don't know. He I don't know. There's a lot to be said, man. I I think the people I know who work with him, I don't know if they still do. So fair enough, fair enough. But yeah, so really appreciate you coming on the podcast. Um, you have a great wealth of experience. Not only, of course, in like the music discovery, you've been an artist manager, producer manager, you're heavily involved in just like the artist community, right? I love all the events that you do, whether it's Pass the Ox or some of the artist workshops that you've been up to. Um, but obviously today we're here to talk about brand partnerships, Henry. Yes. This is a a topic that I don't feel like we've fully unpacked, right? Maybe the sides episode was the closest that that we've gotten to kind of exploring brand deals for artists.

Um so I just wanted to set the stage with like if you could kind of run through some of the example uh brand partnerships with artists that you've been a part of just to kind of set the stage, and then we'll get into the meat of the conversation and you can, you know, bring those back up as they relate to any of the questions that we got. Yeah, so Mike Boyd, I am head of artist relations music strategy at VaynerX. I work with Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary V. If you don't know who he is, look him up. And when it comes to working with musicians, I've worked with some of the biggest, all the way down to those that are just starting out. I've worked with musicians who are internationally known, all the way to musicians who don't have a manager yet. So I could dive deep into the specifics and how we view working with musicians. But yeah, like you mentioned to give some names, Charlie XCX during Brat Summer. Um, let's see, Lil Baby made a custom composition with Lil Baby, Ch uh Chase McDaniel, like you mentioned, only 300 monthly listeners on Spotify. I don't know the other platforms.

But yeah, Chase is great, great example of someone who is starting out. So if you're starting out and you don't feel like you have all the views and the followers, it's still possible. Yeah, this guy has almost half a million monthly listeners now. Yeah. And that's what I just wanted to make sure that you know people understand about Mike is that he has, to your point, worked with, you know, international global superstars down to securing brand partnerships for artists with no fan bases, basically, right? It's possible. Um, so wherever y'all fall in that spectrum, like this shit is possible, and it should be something I think that they're thinking about. I mean, is there is there a point in someone's career that they like, is it too soon to be approaching brands or thinking about brand partnerships, or should that be from the jump, something that artists are considering? Yeah, they should appre um you should approach the brands whenever you feel necessary, whenever you feel like you have something to say. I don't think it's too early, I don't think it's too late.

The brands, a lot of what we do and I operate differently than other ad agencies, but a lot of what we do is try to storytell with people who authentically connect with our consumers. So, y'all, for example, I don't know all the things on that wall, but if I was a brand and I, or you know, if I saw one of our clients and I said, Hey, these guys are getting traction and they love talking about music, and they have this video game on the wall, and that's the video game that we noticed all the consumers of this beverage are playing. You know, we might well, we would throw you on a deck and talk about you in the office, you know, because it's just real. I don't think you're putting things on that counter that you hate. But but also just for your information, we're uh we can make space on the wall if we if we need to, Mike. Just talk to us. Yeah. Yeah. But you know what? You know what?

That's something that's really funny. And I'm glad you said that, because a lot of agencies operate that way. I don't like to. Um, because I've seen it backfire. So, for example, if a musician is a vegan, I don't want them working on a chicken campaign. I don't want that. Sometimes I've been in rooms where, and that's a real example, but I've been in rooms where record label execs or agents or managers, they just say, Hey, yeah, what what uh brands do you rep? Because that's what we want to, those are the ones we want to work with. And I'm like, oh my God, I hate that. Because like what you said is funny, and it makes sense that people would say that. That's totally fair. But the way I operate, I try to get rid of all the risk. So yeah, I've never done it yet, but I want to FaceTime someone and be like, hey, bro, open your fridge. Like, yeah. No, I I personally know an artist, someone who may or may not have been on the podcast, who I'm a big fan of.

Um, he recently did a brand partnership with a liquor company with a spirit, and he's sober. Doesn't drink. Doesn't drink. Yeah. And I called him out. I said, bro, that check must have must have hit different because what are we doing? And he kind of rethought. I think he was like the gears were turning of like maybe that wasn't the right move, right? Um, and like sobriety isn't this big part of his forward-facing brand. I know him personally, so I know he doesn't drink or smoke or or you know, do any drugs, right? Uh, but I found it odd. And so if some of his fans also know that he doesn't drink, I would think they might find that odd too. So I'm glad that you said that, and I'm glad you made the joke. You know what I mean? That's yeah. Because it's not it's not something you should really do. I think I think it just makes the whole process easier. It's why like the Tia and the Bojangles collab is one of my favorites. This is a fast food chicken place she actually worked at and actually really enjoyed. So, and that kind of link up just it makes the whole thing easier, right?

I think it makes her sound easier for her to like talk about in a you in an authentic way. It's more meaningful, and we're allowed. Well, yeah, the artist gives us permission to help tell their story. So with that guy, I don't know what his story is, I don't know his relationship with that brand, right? But if he is gonna put out there, hey, I drink this, that's a little tricky, you know. Especially for a friend like you, or even if you're not a fan, a person like you who knows ooh, something about him, then they kind of gotta come clean a little bit because it's very dangerous for the brand if we're like, yeah, look at our new spokesperson, and then all the fans are like, lies, you know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. No, I I don't think the brand did enough due diligence because to be honest, it's like, why would you know how to do you market it without drinking it? Exactly. Yes, he's a poppin' artist, but like I don't there's a ton of poppin' artists that probably would gladly drink the product and do drink the product already, right? That would have been a little more authentic to the story, yeah.

Yeah, interesting, yeah. Yeah, I told my best friend Rich the Kid, I said, Hey bro, you can't finesse a finesse, you know. I love it. Shout out to Rich. So you've had these uh quote it was relevant, but I lost it. So so you've had these soundboard sessions where you've asked artists like what they hope to get out of brand partnerships. Okay. And I want to just have you articulate maybe the most common thing that you heard amongst artists that you asked that question, because I want to know if our audience out there is thinking that same way. You know what? The most common answer is that they want a brand that aligns with their values, which is the most common answer, surprisingly, because that's a pretty good answer. Yeah, so it wasn't the money, yeah. Uh no. That's awesome. That's that's surprising, honestly. That's so weird, yeah.

Um, yeah, that's really weird. Maybe they like had heard me say something that's really strange. But you know what? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I I do think a lot of people need money, and that's like obvious. But there's other ways to get it than a brand. It's a really touchy subject, right? It is weird to me. It's strange that almost every answer was aligning with my values. I think the money thing too, it's like people think about money first, but it's like if you catch yourself, you know, spending a lot of your own money with a brand, there's ways that you can do deals just for free product. I don't want to overlook just, you know, we can cut spending as well. That's not maybe direct revenue coming in, but it's kind of the equivalent. If it's someone you already use and you love, whatever their product or service is, um, we can be doing deals for just free product as well. I don't want to count that out as an option. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely want to talk about like some of the deal structures, you know, later on. Um, but like when a when a brand comes to you looking for, you know, artists to partner with or music for their campaigns, what are they looking for?

What's the most common thing that they're looking for? Most common thing that they're looking for is to reach the consumer that they're trying to reach. So I tell these brands working with the arts, like working with musicians, you already won. Baseline. You're supporting the arts as a major brand. You already won. That's great. I love it when the brands want to work with musicians, that's my whole thing. Now, we pick the musician based on who's gonna deliver the value that the brand is looking for. So, for example, if a brand wants to reach a certain part of the country and they want to reach it with consumers who, like I mentioned earlier, play video games and maybe ice skate. Now it's a little tough. It might be very relevant for that brand, but when you go on the internet and look at all these profiles on various social media platforms, you're not necessarily seeing musicians post about ice skating and playing video games. That's where my me and my team come in and we meet with musicians every week.

Tyler Walsh on my team, he has a content series where it says he goes up to musicians, goes up to musicians and says, Hey, what do you do for a living? That's great. Really great content series. Some of his videos get 80 million views. So Tyler's always meeting new musicians. I'm always meeting new musicians. Gary Vaynerchuk meets new musicians. And so we're getting a lot of inbound. I'm learning a lot about people. I'm a dad. I talk to musicians about being dads. I am from St. Louis. I might talk to a musician about being from St. Louis. I lived in Atlanta for a little bit. I used to tour manage. There's a lot of things that come up. And naturally, I actually like getting to know people. So I might learn these things. I might say, Oh, what are you doing tomorrow? And it's wintertime. They might tell me they're going ice skating. And I'll be like, oh wow, you you ice skate a lot. And they'll be like, I've been ice skating since I was a kid. In fact, this one ice skating brand, like they support my whole family and gave us Christmas gifts. And then I like remember these things, thank God.

I should put them in a Google Doc. Yes. Uh oh. But yeah, I remember these things. And so when the brand says that, I'm like, oh, so that is a good example. The brand says all those things I mentioned. I might DM that manager or artist and say, hey, hope all's well. Quick question. You know, we're working with all these brands all the time. I'll be like, have y'all been playing any video games? Are y'all like into sports? Have you guys had any strange interest as of late? And check this out. There might be a new video game. So at the end of all those questions, which I never mentioned a brand, at the end of those questions, I might say, I know a lot of people are into Call of Duty. Did that hit you yet? And that might be the brand. So I'll get an immediate reply. Oh, I don't play Call of Duty. Or they'll be like, Man, I play all Call of Duty all day long. And it's like, it's not a trick, but I'm I'm getting them ready to give me that answer. You know, and if they want to call me something else, I'm here for it.

But that last moment when you ask someone a question and then say something specific, they're most likely going to reply to that specific thing. God, it's so interesting because we talk a lot about, you know, maybe showcasing some of those interests that you have as a just human being outside of music. And to your point, obviously, if you have conversations with someone and you talk about how much you love ice skating in video games, that's great. But that would require them to maybe have a contact like a Mike Boyd, right? Or like a Tyler or whatever. Um, but I think maybe posting content about some of those interests, I'm just like having a light bulb moment. It's like that might bring the brand to you. Like people that are working with an ice skating brand and they see you're a musician who ice skates in some of their content or like live streams, ice skating or whatever, then that's gonna be like a no-brainer for that ice skating brand to then you know connect the dots. So shit, like I've always thought about it from just like a fan acquisition and like having a fan relate to you on a different level than the music, but I didn't even consider that it might be like bringing brands into your world, which is huge. Yeah, I mean, that's how we do it, honestly.

And then there's something we're doing at the ad agency. I don't think we announced like an official name for it, but it's basically multiple handle strategy. So you look at Instagram or TikTok, and let's say you have a phrase, or like you said, you you ice skate. There could be a whole page if I'm an artist, Mike Boyd skating or something. And so it's like I have my main page, but then I have my skating page. You know, if I'm a skateboarder, it's like, check me out. I'm doing all these fun tricks. And then someone online, especially TikTok, right? Because it hits a lot of people, they might see my skateboarding page. And if I really love skateboarding, they might say, oh wow, that was crazy. That trick is crazy. And eventually they'll see I make music because you know they'll become a fan of me as a person, and then they'll see I make music. But if I wasn't actually a fan of skateboarding, I would never post a skateboarding post. So it's like creating multiple accounts that you're passionate enough about that you're making content, you know.

And if you get bigger, you know, you could get a bigger team and show more who you are, but it doesn't always have to be on the same page. I need that to really sink in for you guys. Like this alt account thing is very real. It's very, it's the reason we can't go one episode without hearing it. It's what it is. He has Mike has bro. Like everyone is like, this is the way. We know you have Mike Boyd speaking. We know there's Gary V Jets fan, Gary V Wine, Gary V Yard Sale, Courtney has like uh the athletic one, hoops, yep, cooks, we have whatever the fuck else she has. We started our first, we have one more yap now, which is where we just kind of get our yaps off our low lift, you know, getting our thoughts out. That's been one, but like Henry B Yapp, and you got we got to yap sometimes. But man, like if you have one account on a social media platform, you're just almost set up for failure these days. It's wild. Boring. Yeah. Snooze fest.

That's a better way of putting it. Yeah. No, it's so true, man. Um, so what's one thing that you find yourself uh constantly like challenging brands with, right? Like a like maybe a thought process that a lot of brands have as it pertains to working with musicians and artists, right? Is there something that you like constantly are having to kind of like challenge their way of thinking around? Especially maybe when you're trying to get them to work with uh uh Chase McDaniel. Yeah, it's probably easier to link someone up with a Jeezy for a tequila deal, but like, hey, this guy doesn't come built with a built-in giant audience. How do you pitch him? Yeah, you know, a lot of it comes down to budget. If if the brand is only willing to spend X amount of dollars and they're gonna get X amount of dollars of musician, you know that that that narrows it down pretty quick. And then content actually, because you know what qu content value as far as what you can create. So if I'm looking at six artists, you know, and I'm really studying them, I know all about them, but this one artist is so good at making video content, they're probably gonna be the one we try to work with because when we work with them, we know the content's gonna be good.

And if it's good, it's probably gonna get more engagement. So there's a big like Chase McDaniel's really good at content. And even though he didn't have a ton of monthly listeners, content was killer, the music was killer. I actually don't look at numbers anyway. So it's it's not like 300 was the reason I chose to work with him. I had no idea what his streaming was. I was just like this guy, this guy gets it, this guy would be perfect, you know. Wow. Yeah, you don't look at the numbers. so then what are you what made you say that about him? Because you're you're like constantly early on shit, bro. I mean, this is just I know maybe you're gonna give me that shit. It's just like I just knew, and I'm gonna be like, fuck, that's not helpful. Yeah, no, no, but like No, you and I have in common that we found Soldier Boy very early. I I also recognized the power of soldier barrier. I'm telling you, sit down, Henry. I promise you. I was watching the videos on YouTube of him dancing in his grandma's basement on YouTube when it had they had a thousand views.

There you go. Entertainment. But yeah, so if it's not about the numbers for you, what are some of those like intangibles that you're finding in an artist? Yeah, it's not about the numbers for me. A lot of times we have to put a deck together, and I'm like extremely shocked. I'm just like, whoa, I thought this guy or girl or whoever, I thought they were killing it. Once you see the deck, the deck's been made. I'm like less than a thousand on everything. And so I tell Tyler Walsh, I'm like, which you don't even get paid for anymore on Spotify. That's the latest. That's another episode, Henry. Yeah. Yeah. But you know what? It doesn't matter to me. Also, I'm gonna post a clip in the near future where it's like going viral. Could be the worst thing to ever happen to an artist because when your numbers get skewed like that, like it's difficult. It's just difficult to have people understand who you are.

The video that or the song that goes viral, it might be a song that doesn't really represent you, and that could really hurt your career, you know. Yeah. So that's dangerous. Yeah, because now all your other stuff's getting fed to those same type of people who aren't interested in the core thing that you're doing, and they're swiping past it, and nothing you do is or post is has any legs. It's tough. Yeah, it's true. And to to answer your question, well, you know what? I used to be on the tour managing, artist managing, producer managing, videographer managing side of things, and none of us were really making money. And so what I like is the passion. The passion and someone's voice and I guess the evolution of their story. I told someone recently with AI, it kind of sounds like you give it a prompt and then it's done. You know, it's like make the song and then it's done. I like it when someone's making music and I can hear that it's not done. You know, like I could hear that they got they have something else to say, and I want to hear what is next, you know.

I I like connecting with that passion. Also, I'm from St. Louis, like I went to school in Boston. I'm living in New York. I lived in Atlanta for a little bit. I've traveled all over the world, you know, like Ghana, Mexico. Um, you know what I'm saying? Those are two horrible examples. But you know, that's all over the world. Canada, Europe, whatever, it doesn't matter. But I've been around all different types of people. I've been around very wealthy people, I've been around people who are not wealthy. You know, I've just been around so many types of people. And oh, I was gonna tell you, I my job is to recognize patterns and then try to figure out what people are gonna like. What are people gonna like next? So I've seen it so many times. That's that's really important. And if I just went after numbers, I don't I don't think I'd have a lot of success really. Yeah, I just feel like I can just see how that would be tough when working with brands. I feel like at least they want some insurance.

Yeah, like I gotta get some reach. You know, I've had conversations with brands, and I think some of them get it as far as the passion and like what you're building, et cetera, et cetera. But I mean, a lot of them want to see the engagement, they want to see the followers, they want to see the the comments, the shares, the the saves, whatever. Um, so it's just interesting to hear that you don't lead with all of that. Um, but when it comes to numbers, what metrics are brands most interested in? Because I mean, I'm assuming they ask, right? Or they want to know. Definitely. They're most interested. Well, from my experience, a lot of brands are very interested in, yeah, everything you can think of. Views, followers, um, yeah, everything you mentioned, engagement. They're interested in all of it. I because they want to they want to know what it's gonna look like when they get involved. And so that's the best way for them to get a gauge of what it's gonna look like when they get involved.

That's correct. Okay, yeah. I guess just the pitch, like it really is so important, you know, because OI Glass obviously took a chance with Chase McDaniel. You know, he had 300 monthly listeners. Now the song has north of a million streams. You know, that's a risk they took and it paid off. Oh, you know what? Because also he didn't have a lot of songs. Yeah, I think he had two songs out at the time. That was his third song. Exactly. So when someone really needs the deal and really wants the deal, it's a little bit of a different situation because we know they're gonna support it more. So if you pay someone, some famous celeb, you know, a lot of money, it might just be another day for them. If you help a young person out who can't make rent too easily, and it's something they love, they might go ahead and post 10 times. And I'm not even gonna ask them to post 10 times. I'm just gonna say, hey, we need this one post. If you post, I'm gonna show everyone in the company.

This will help you get in the door. A lot of times, musicians need to pass background background checks and all this different stuff before a brand will work with them. But then once one brand works with them, they're kind of open to the rest of the brands. And it's just good to get in that system. But, you know, like I said, if I see someone's fridge or I know something about someone, one time I met this artist to like connect her with a brand and get a conversation going. And then I saw her dad was wearing the um shoes made by the brand, and I was like, wow, that's crazy. And then eventually Tyler Walsh on my team, he flew out to LA to give the guy hand-to-hand uh Father's Day gift. Wow. You know why? Because I wanted to do that. But I couldn't, I couldn't travel at the moment. So, and actually that really, I don't even know if everyone knows that. That's just something I wanted to do. That's amazing. I never thought about the yeah, like someone that needs it is probably gonna work harder and overdeliver. Absolutely.

So I I think you know, if we can kind of dive into a few of the examples in a little more detail, I think that would be helpful, right? Because we've been kind of alluding to this whole Chase McDaniel uh, you know, partnership, right? And how he was early on in his career, didn't have many songs out, didn't have many monthly listeners, was making videos, you know, interesting videos, et cetera, but still for all intents and purposes emerging, right? Uh, and then we mentioned the G-Z deal, right? With with uh, you know, the tequila brand. Um, so let's just unpack like can you describe what the Chase McDaniel partnership was in a little more detail, just so everyone can kind of have some more context. Yeah, because they're different, lots of different types of deals. Yeah, that one we needed a custom song. We needed someone in that part of the country, uh, Tennessee, Kentucky. We needed the person's song to help move product for the for the brand. But when I work with a musician, I always say, I want to work with you because of you.

So do your song. Maybe you don't say the F-word, maybe don't say this, but please make a song you're proud of. So I say that from the smallest artist to the biggest artist because if the song's not good and they're not proud of it, we lost. They're not gonna promote it, their fans aren't gonna like it. It's not believable. And we never hide anything. I never try to underpay an artist. We we move fairly on all angles, but yeah, that particular campaign, you know, the budget wasn't huge because some budgets are seven figures, some aren't. And we needed to pay for studio time, we needed to pay for the musicians' time. They're doing what they're known for, so you have to pay very properly for that, you know. And we also shot a music video. I don't take money from anyone's music, so they own the song. I don't even want to be involved in that conversation.

And that was the deal. It was they trust us as much as we trust them. I am a good person, believe it or not. So when I talk to some people, they pick up on that and I tell them the truth. Sometimes I tell these artists, if you get a brand offer from a different company, I'll look at it for you. You know what I mean? I'll give you feedback. Like I'm here. I tell the young artists, we might never work with you ever, but like I'm still here. Because I like supporting, man. I used to be on the side, I would say we never got a brand deal, but we did get one. It meant a lot. We got $6,000 to do a show in New York with one of the brands. Crazy, you know. And now I'm giving artists more than that often. So it feels good, it feels good putting money in people's pockets. I'll tell you this: people don't really know this, but this speaks to who Gary Vaynerchuk is. First time we ever did a brand deal and got some artist money, gave them some money, they received money for executing on the deliverables. Gary texts me on the side and he said, Hey man, we did it.

We put some money in a young artist's pocket. And that meant more to me, more to me than anything, you know. I didn't know he had texted me that. He's a great guy, but you see what I mean? It's like we want to help people, we just want to. So it's great. I'm so blessed that I get to, you know, not everyone's in that position at all. That's amazing, man. Yeah, holy shit. So um, you know, as far as like custom songs, is that one of the more popular requests that brands bring to you? Or I guess what are the different types? Yeah, like what are the different types? That's what I'm trying to get to is like, yeah, custom song, what other ways have you seen? Have you seen artists partner with brands? Yeah, custom compositions, social media posts. There always is the creative direction. So if you book someone, for example, if I'm working with you, you would have better ideas on how to run a podcast than me. Because that's what you're doing all the time.

So even if we were making our own podcast, it'd be pretty cool for y'all to be involved as creative directors, which would allow me to pay you to work on it, but it would be someone else's podcast, so then you would promote it because you would be proud of your work, which would be great, and maybe that's what I want, but then the other person's gonna post a lot of content because of their part of it. So we get creative with all the campaigns and all the offerings. It's really, you know what? There's so many different musicians and so many different ways that musicians work with brands that we just get creative, we get creative. So we've done custom compositions. I have licensed and synced before. I don't do that often. We put musicians as talent in commercials. And sometimes we pay a musician to go live, perform, and then we pay to stream a couple songs. It's mostly social media content, I would say, because content is king in so many different forms, yeah.

Yeah. So how does it all work? Does a brand approach you? Do you have a roster of brands that you're constantly thinking about? Like how can we bring music and musicians into their campaigns? Like what what comes, you know, a chicken or the egg type of thing here? I guess. and adding on to that for our audience, you know, they don't have a Mike Boyd in their corner. Maybe what are some ways they can be thinking about getting some of these deals themselves? Yeah. At major ad agencies, the client is the brand. So then the client explains what they want to do, and it's a retainer. So in that sense, we're connecting the dots and making sure it happens in the best way possible. I do not rep the musicians at all. Sometimes musicians will come to the office and explain to me and my team, especially the famous ones, I'm doing this, I'm trying to do that. I just wrote a book, this, that, etc.

It's really great for us to know. And whenever a musician's in the office, we try to create content. It's great for the office, it's great for our employees to be excited and oh wow, I just saw someone, that was crazy. I love my job. Like all this fun stuff. But but um, and it's true. I think if you work at VaynerMedia, a lot of people do love their jobs. Our retention rate is through the roof. People like working there for years and years and years. So darn, I forgot what I was gonna say. But yeah, just because an artist wants to do something doesn't actually mean we're gonna do it. I would say for the young artists who don't have someone like me in their corner, really it's just the content. Also, in 2026, it's hard to be big as a musician. So it's an interesting time, which is actually not the worst for brands and brand partnerships, because it slows down a musician from becoming huge. I know some musicians who I think 10 years ago would be out of here, and right now they don't even have a million followers.

But if they were out of here, I would never want to work with them because it would be so hard to hit the targets I'm going for. They would just it would hit they would hit everyone and make me pay accordingly for that reach, but that reach wouldn't be what I want. Yeah, I'd rather have like a more targeted audience, like this. The fans of this artist are almost definitely gonna like my toilet paper brand or whatever, whatever it is, you know, it's these more niche, like very targeted audiences. It can work in your you don't need a million followers, is what I'm saying. Why why is a toilet paper brand? I don't know why that was the first one I went to. Because he's shitting on all y'all. Let's go. Come on, bro. I got you. I'm bringing it around. Yeah. Hey man, it could be a toilet paper brand made in Atlanta, you know. That's true. That's true. Yeah, I mean, I think we're just in such a landscape now where niching down your audience has so many benefits. Yeah.

Yep. Like, that's right. You know, I mean, because you're coming at it mentioning that it has brand partnership benefits. We talk about it a lot from just it has benefits to like finding your core, a deep fan. connection. And like a finding super fans, right? And building community. So yeah, there's just like so many. Well, whether it's there's benefits or not, it's the reality. So like let's just accept it and move on. Like back in the day, there were three TV channels, and everyone watched the same thing, and everyone would go talk about the one thing that happened because that's all there was. And nowadays you'd be like, Have you heard this artist? Have you watched this show? And I'm just like, no, because there's so many different things, and then you end up just finding your little tribe and connecting deeper with them. That's just where we're at as a society, I think. And to add to that, a lot of the connections now are through experience. So all three of us are listening to different things, but if we go to the same event, now we have a shared memory and connection, and those different things are a part of who we are now and who we listen to, but we all remember the same thing. So that's kind of special if you think about it.

Yeah, definitely IRL, man. Well, so that's kind of uh, you know, perfect segue. So, how much of the brand partnership world is digital online, social media content, etc. versus more experiential IRL type of activations in 2026, it's becoming hand in hand. For example, if your podcast was sponsored by a certain brand, and it probably is, right? I just don't know because I don't. What brand are you guys sponsored by? DistroKid. And if you want 30% off your first year to get your music out into the world on all the major platforms, you can get 30% off by going to omtdistro.com. And you're also supporting the podcast at the same time. So appreciate you guys. Like, comment, and subscribe by the way. 75% of you are not subscribed to the channel watching right now. We can change that. We can move that number a little bit.

So thank you. Do you guys have you ever used DistroKid? Absolutely. Yeah. Well, there you go. Did you like it? Yeah. It's so it's so easy. Yeah, it's great. I mean, it's for the price and the value and the tools they give you, it's it's genuinely quality. True. Do a lot of the artists use it that you know? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, damn near everybody. About 60% of the world uh distributes their music through DistroKid. Artists get mad at DistroKid because they expect them to be this hand holder distributor that they hear about, and they're they're a small team distributing 60% of the world's music, and they're not that. And they get they I think they catch unfair flack for that sometimes. But yeah. Yeah. Artists, man, they get upset, they're just upset. Oh no. Yeah. They are upset. Why y'all so upset all the time? Laugh a little. Hey, artists. Have some fun. Relax. Uh, see, I mean that that's a better ad for that company.

You know what I mean? I like them. I've used them. Yeah. There you go. Perfect. I don't know. But yeah, so I don't even know what I was talking about. DistroKid. Y'all heard that. IRL. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Yeah, IRL is the same. So if yeah, so yeah, go ahead. You have an event, and then you make a bunch of content. But you can't make content without the event. Yeah, that's kind of the good thing about IRL is that you can get the digital from the IRL. You can't really get the IRL from the digital. Do you think that that translates really well online, like that type of content from IRL events? Maybe more than just like content native built for just digital. Yeah. Yeah, I think so too. Yes. Yeah. I mean, for me, I I look at like LVRN, right? Who we've had Amber Grimes on the podcast now twice. And uh we've got Justice, I think, coming in on Thursday, by the way. But anyway, so we're gonna ask me if my schedule was open.

No, but it will be. Um for justice. And um, I think what they do really well is exactly that, where it's like they'll do these IRL, you know, experiential activations, whether it's like Summer Walker out doing, you know, crazy shit or uh black or whoever it might be, and uh and then amplifying that online. So is that kind of how you look at it too with the brands? Yeah, I do. And so my thing is all about storytelling. So if a brand helps a musician tell the story, that's a win. At an IRL event, if I gave the microphone to a musician and helped them tell their story, now their audience, their fan base knows more about them, that's a win. And I wouldn't work with that artist unless I knew it was authentic. So really, I even tell artists sometimes, hey, I know this about you. Are you willing to let people know that about you?

And sometimes they say no. Sometimes they're like, you know what? I don't want people to know that part of who I am. But if they say yes, now I could say, well, why don't you let us help you tell that? And then the brand social handles, it's about distribution, exposure, collaboration, and it's fun. If I know a lot of musicians who I know so much about, and they don't they don't tell people who they are, they don't tell people a lot of things, but if they're willing to let me know. You see what I mean? What what's one of the most surprising campaigns that you've done recently? Right? Like one that you were a little nervous about, weren't sure how it was gonna go, and then it just my mind's going to fucking worked, Lionel Messi and Duracell. That was kind of wild. That's True, that's true. Vayner X, baby, huge. Let's see. One that I was nervous about. Yeah, like one that you felt was a little risky, right?

And maybe even the brand was like, all right, Mike, fine, I'll fucking trust you. Yeah, I'll trust you, but I'm a little nervous about this, and then it just worked. I'm never nervous. I don't know. I just He's a confident guy, man. What do you mean? You know what? I tell Tyler Walsh, I'm like, let's go real slow. And this is like my duck hunter gun. Really slow. And then we're gonna get it. It's like boom, got it. You know what I mean? I go slow. I walk as slow I walk backwards. So it's like, I'm confident, man. I'm gonna wait, I'm gonna wait, I'm gonna wait. I'm never gonna wait too long. Because if I, you know, I don't wait too long. I might wait too long for certain people. They might be so angry. But now that I live in New York, I like being around people who are angry. There's some angry people there. Yeah. No, that's yeah, I like being around people who are really angry. That's why he likes artists.

He's just talking about how upset they were. He loves being around upset artists. Okay, the artists are clicking off the episode and we keep calling them. We love you, we love you guys. It's a joke. Okay, we love you guys. Yeah. For sure. But so what do you mean when you say you go slow? I think I know what you mean, but I'd rather you make sure that I know what you mean. Oh. I go slow. I mean, I try to go slow. A musician might have a good moment, right? And I am so excited that I'll be like, wow, this one's this artist is out of here. This video is crazy. This song is the one. And unfortunately, I don't know how often that ever happens. You know, it's always step after step after step after step. I used to be the first person to find people, and I loved it. But now I I've been thinking, and I used to think about this back in 2009 too. Some brands in in music, I'm talking about magazines and podcasts and everything, they're actually positioning themselves as like once you reach us, now you made it.

And the people working there, they might know people right away too, except for they don't engage until it's like you made it to our level. Now you could walk in our door. So it's almost a little bit of a game. I don't need to be the first person. Sometimes it's really not worth it being the first person because the brand or the musicians have a different viewpoint of who you are. So it's just interesting in that level. I don't wanna speed into anything. And when we're working with a brand or an artist, sometimes the slower we go, the more successful it is. It's not, you know what? It's not a lot of opportunity for people to mess us up. So if you go real slow, that's another thing. I guess if you go slow, you'll hit every step. If you go fast, you might miss a step. And then you have to go back and redo it, which will actually slow you down. That makes sense. And then with you having kids, my daughter, um, and you guys might know this because it seems like you've listened to everything I ever put on the internet. Yes.

My daughter sometimes, you know, she'll get so upset. She's trying to open something and she gets so upset. And just like an artist. Oh no. Just like the artists I like, I like it when people are mad. So she'll get real upset. And so I tell her, I'm like, hey, if you really, if you want to do it and you really want to do it, you gotta go slow. And then when she goes slow, she gets it open. Because if she's going too fast, it's like, uh, you know, she'll never open the bottle, but if she goes real slow, then she'll get it done. And that's just, you know, sometimes it's it's best to go slow and actually do it. That's why in Duck Hunter, you're like waiting. Also, man, I like going slow. I'm trying to chill. Are you a Buddhist? No. Next question. Maybe look into it. No, but I don't know. I guess I just think like I don't know why I say no so quickly, by the way. My wife. You didn't wait to respond to that.

You weren't patient with the that answer. Well, sometimes, yeah, man, I'm not perfect. My wife is like, hey, the way you reply to questions and the way you speak kind of throws people off. So interesting. No, so I guess my brain's going towards part of me suspects that there are some brands and some opportunities that you need to strike while the moment is happening. Is that not true for what you see? Right? Like I look at like the coconut water uh shit with trim. Yep. Right? They like made a coconut water, like custom drink based on that whole moment, like that whole viral moment. How much of what you do with brands is capitalizing on those like time-sensitive opportunities, or is that not how you work? Reactive versus proactive? Yeah. Well, a smaller brand or a smaller artist, it's easier to move fast. So it really just depends depends on who you're working with.

And then sometimes if you if you're the second or third person, it's still not bad. Because then you could do a recall to what happened. So, you know, everyone's going after the viral moment, everyone's trying to move really fast. And then me, I'm like going as slow as possible over here. And so everyone else gets the same ad. Whereas, you know, when I engage, it's like, hey, look at these funny ads. Suckers. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, it's like we do an interview. Tyler Walsh, he does an interview with someone. 50 people do the interview the first week, they all get the same answers. We look at the answers and what was said, and then we could take the next step with our questions. So honestly, life is life, man. If I'm not first, I could be second, I could be third, I could be last. But when here's a funny thing. But when I do it, I mean it. See what I mean?

Like when I do it, I do it. Like when I execute, it's happening. You see what I mean? Interesting. Interesting. Um, so let's talk a little bit about some of the uh deal structures, right? Because there's like a few more like technical things, right? Um, can you give us like a small mid-size and like a massive brand deal example? You don't have to name names, but I'm talking like just give it like I want them to understand like the the potential financials of some of this stuff, right? Like flat fees, versus like Rev share, kind of deal with how I don't know how it works either. Yeah, I mean, just in general, like give us, you know, kind of one of the smallest campaigns you've ever done with an artist, and then the biggest campaigns you've ever done, and maybe something in the middle, just to give kind of the range. And again, you don't have to name brands or name artists, but just so they understand what's possible. Yeah, it could go from um four figures to seven figures, you know, four figures being in the thousands and seven figures, super bowl, you know. I will say the number one way to think about this is value exchange.

It's all about value exchange. So you get what you pay for, and that goes both ways, you know. So if you're the company and you pay, like I mentioned earlier, you don't pay a lot of money, you're not gonna get a lot out of the musician. If you're the musician and you're not willing to do a lot, you're not gonna get a lot of money. So it's really like it's just math and it's value. A young musician, they might think they don't have a lot of value, but if they take a step back and see where they do have the value, that's what they can present to any company. So you might not think you have a lot of value, but maybe all your friends are creatives in your city, and together you're influencing the city, which is influencing the whole country. Or maybe your music isn't there yet, but something else about you is there already. Or if you tap in, I was gonna say tap into your following, see what they're wearing, see what they're doing, see where they live, and also see what you're wearing, what you're doing, where you live, because you could really present yourself in a in a way where brands will or companies, you know, they'll see the value. And darn, what was I gonna tell you?

I was gonna tell you something. Oh, these young artists, their followers are early, they're early adapters. So, you know, a follower of a big shot, a lot of times they're not early to things. You know, a follower of a big shot, they might just be listening to what's on the radio. But a follower of an emerging artists, those people are the type of people who try new products. Those people are the type of people who tell their friends about something. Those people are the type of people that are like are powerful in the rollout of anything because they're willing to try, they're excited, they're always well, people are early adapters in certain areas of their lives. But you see what I mean? It's it's more exciting to connect with people who are willing to support an emerging artist and willing to put their neck on the line when they share music than it is to connect with someone who's just listening to what's on the radio. Yeah, I never thought about that.

No, for sure. So kind of back to something that you were asking that I don't know if we like fully address. So, like, should should artists be reaching out to brands directly? Should they be reaching out to ad agency people? Should they just be posting contents, like, you know, supporting certain brands to like make it known that they'd like to work with them, right? Like, what are some strategies you recommend for artists to, you know, get some of these deals going? They should do all of them. They should do all of them that make sense and are comfortable. They should do all of it. They shouldn't pick just one, but if only one makes sense and they're only comfortable doing one, do that one. And different platforms, I would be on different platforms. If you're lucky enough that you have a story you could tell on LinkedIn, I think that's the best platform for an artist in general, but also to get with a company because if you're an artist and you ride a bike to every show, and then you tell a story about, hey, I got there to my show late because my bike tire messed up, or you're like, I made it just in time because the bike allowed me to get there instead of the train. And like you start posting pictures.

People are people might find your post, and then they might look at the picture and be like, wow, that bike is awesome. That's the newest bike, and my friend works there. You know what I mean? But also, people are on LinkedIn. A lot of people are on LinkedIn to talk about business and companies they like, right? So, and breakdowns. So, if you're a musician and you're selling merch, you know so much about sales and the merch company and clothing and like giving your consumers what they want. And you can really break that down on some platforms because people on LinkedIn, you give them what they want. And some young artists they're like, Oh, I'm not into that type of content. My fans won't like it. But if people on Instagram don't want that from you, just don't give it to them. You see what I mean? Feed the platform what's appropriate for the platform. Are there actually artists that are thriving on LinkedIn? Yeah, I don't even believe you, Mike. I'm sorry.

Like, I just don't know. Yeah, for sure. I I hope so. I tell everyone to do it. I did meet one artist, she DM'd me on LinkedIn, and I was like, I'll listen to anything from anyone, but but I will say it's hard. You know what I mean? It's just hard. Like, one I met a really good artist because they spammed me like crazy. And because they were spamming me, I kept remembering to listen to them. So then I listened to it and I put them in a campaign because they were good. I was like, I don't, I do not care. Spam me, do whatever. Like, I'll get around to it. I hope. You know, uh like people put me on the music, I listen, and see, that's why I don't know numbers. Like, I don't have time to look at numbers and do math about it. I'm just listening. I'm just listening, you know. I'm listening. See, a lot of this is just effort, man. Wow. Like just putting in the the reps, you know, and like and wanting something, which leads me to like thought of a little like cool pro tip. A little we like to get practical, tactical, give you guys actual stuff to do.

Uh Mike mentioned earlier the Russ thing. We did a little series, day one trying to get Russ on the podcast, day two, trying to get Russ on the podcast. Super easy way to implement for you guys. If you love Taco Bell, we've just been using Taco Bell as an example lately. Day one trying to work with Taco Bell series. People love series on social media. Um, just state your case, make a little reel, you know, maybe play your song in the background, boom. Give it like 30 to 60 days, like day, you know, two, three, four, five, trying to work with Taco Bell. Maybe you get Taco Bell's attention. Like, this is these are the reps that we gotta put in to get the outcomes that we want. We we got Russ to respond on day two. That was a fluke, you know. But you might have to go 30 days or so. He claims he had already seen all, you know, yeah, uh a lot of our shit. But, like, he was. our community rallied around us and we're tagging Russ, you know, and we got his attention pretty quickly. Like, that's a easy way for y'all to try and get the attention of a brand that you want to work with. If you love cheesy Gordita crunches.

Yeah, and honestly, I mean I I can hear a lot of artists that would maybe be, you know, hesitant to posting that on the main account. But this goes back to the alt account strategy that you know we we uh alluded to at the beginning. Maybe do all of this like trying to get brands attention activities on an alt account on socials, right? So trial reels, yeah. There's lots of ways, or just uh on your reels page, which is different if you just want to keep your main grid clean. Yeah, like I so many ways to do it. Yeah, like I wrote a song about how much I love tacos, and literally it's just you are you did a custom composition, but it's just on social media, and like Lord knows Taco Bell, someone might see it. Look at Dr. Pepper, baby. I mean, she crushed, she's she crushed. How much money do you think she made from that? Yeah, I mean, awesome. Awesome stuff. That's so funny. Um, so a few technical things I I want to talk about. So, like usage rights. Okay, we've we've had those conversations when talking with brands. Is that a big part of like can you explain usage rights?

And is that a big like contract term in the the deals that you negotiate or not even? Yeah, usage rights is great. So a song, I might license it so that I could use it for a year. And that's part of the contract, and so yeah, it's great. Because also, if I'm trying to use a song and you don't give me the rights to use it, like what are we doing? So I think I think that's really good. It all comes down to the, you know what, it all comes down to a contract. And I tell young artists, even when they're talking to a manager, record label, anything, figure out what you have and then figure out what you need, and then make the contract for what you need. You know, if you're really good at making social, do not put in the contract that someone's gonna charge you. You see what I mean? It's like they're charging you for what they're giving you, and if you don't need something, take that out of the contract. You know, so yeah, usage rights.

There's some things, it just makes sense, you know. Um also contracts could be tricky, but find someone to help you. There are some online pro programs that you can't trust. You can't trust anything, especially if it helps you on the internet. You don't know if it's really true. But I have thought about it. If you use something on the internet to look at a contract, it could highlight specific things that you're worried about, and then when you give it to a lawyer, it'll save you time. Because you'll say, hey, look, here's the here's the contract, you look it over, especially these three things, I'm worried about. So then the lawyer will look at those three first, and you're not paying them 10, you know, whatever amount per hour because you just saved yourself a bunch of hours. Yeah, a little pre-production meeting with ChatGPT. Yeah. Do a lot of the partnerships get held up because of contracts? Like, is that often something that can like slow things down?

Oh yeah. Man, red line. Red line. Fuck a red line, bro. Version 12, version 27. Yeah. Yeah. Do you do you have to play middleman for that? Or yeah, a lot of times, because a lot of people work for the artist. So when the artist is like, hey, get it done, you know, it helps get it done. If the artist is like, hey, I know the terms and I agree to the terms, so get it done. Then it's like a lot of middle people aren't like fighting against what I'm saying, you know. It's or not just me, it's if the artist, the artist is in control, so it's not gonna make it harder when the artist understands. So a lot of times you try to get the artist to understand. It also helps with authenticity because if I don't speak to the artist, someone might lie to me. So, like, for example, if if an artist does not eat a certain food, but someone else in this line of people doesn't know that or doesn't care, they might say they do.

So it's really tricky. It's really tricky. Um, yeah, the process is something you have to navigate. Yeah, I don't know. I just feel like that that could be something that like what's what's one thing that uh that artists maybe don't understand fully about these contracts that they're surprised during the negotiation phase, right? Like something that they might be pushing for that is totally unrealistic, out of bounds, right? But just more artists bring that up than not. Hmm. A lot of my a lot of my work is pretty standard. I'll try to think. People, artists talk about, I mean, exclusivity could be a little confusing. Yeah, well, yeah, let's let's unpack that. What is that specifically and how to what's what's a standard for exclusivity?

Similar to licensing, exclusivity helps everyone feel safe. So if we do a deal, especially the more money that is paid, the more exclusivity is expected, because it's a value exchange. So the value to the company would be you're gonna be on our side for a while. You're not gonna take this money and then go post about a competitor. So that's the exclusivity. And similar to touring, there's an exclusivity clause where it's like for the city in the area. So it's like I booked you to perform at this venue. You're not gonna put another venue on your routing. Sometimes until this one sells out. So it's just it's competition. There are some funny stories. I believe they're real, maybe they're not. Maybe you can make it real. It's like uh exclusivity runs out, and then the competitor hires that artist to make a diss track or something, you know what I mean?

Have you seen that? No, but I've dreamed of it. Someone puts the wrong terms, you know, like you guys are in Atlanta. If Coca-Cola did something or something super Atlanta, you know, you know what I mean. It could get fun. We should do that, bro. Like a fresco Trey, uh, it's moved from DraftKings and then went and made a song about uh PrizePicks or something or call sheet. It'd be kind of wild. Wow. That's why you need exclusivity, man. Yeah, yeah. Or is a marriage by marriage, you know, there's a little bit of exclusivity there. Yes, in the it's in the eyes of the law. Indeed. I'm a dad. I'm going to get the dad jokes. Yeah, yeah, sure. So when an artist is reaching out to, you know, a brand, right? Um, should they be like including a one-pager pitch deck, like kind of what what do you think would give them the highest chance of success? Yeah, I'd say like a really quick email that just has like one sentence, two sentences.

Which sounds funny, but you gotta remember that, you know, everyone's just a person. So if you hit someone, and I don't know, like maybe you're hitting someone who does want a PDF, but if a musician reaches out to me and it's like a quick note, it's like, hey Mike, I saw you're working with whatever, sending love, and it's a dream of mine to be in any which way connected. You know, that's a pretty easy email to read. I think a lot of times a goal in business or with musicians is to get the reply. So it's not really about, oh man, I killed it and sealed the deal in the first email. It's like, no, that's a bad idea. Really, it's to get someone to reply. It's to make the other people's lives easier. Right? What'd you say? It's like to make easier. Yeah, if someone that's making your life easier, making, you know, making these connections an easier task. That's that's a value add, right?

That's something I would appreciate. Yeah, yeah, but even something that you know I've learned a lot through just business, right? It's exactly that, where it's like if you can keep it so short and so easy with like yes or no question or some very you know what I mean, some very direct comment that's just like straight into the point, versus yeah, you might have so much information that it's like our mental spam filter just goes off. Where it's like I'm not reading that. And like I've talked about that even with like captions on social media. Sometimes the like shortest, like just one sentence at a time type of reads are the ways that our brains can work easier. You know what I mean? Just focused. Yeah, and same thing with email. That's that's a good uh, yeah. I think sometimes these pitches that we even get with like people wanting to come on the podcast, like the shorter the better, honestly, you know, of like why you should come on the podcast, like why you would be a good guest. It's like just one sentence, love the show, you know, would love to talk about X, Y, Z. Maybe it's a topic we've never talked about that we want to talk about.

And like something like that would get my attention versus some novel that I just don't have time to. I mean, honestly, I just don't have time to read. I'm not watching your slideshow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, someone could say, um, I know you didn't get Russ, but I'm the next one, and I'm dropping tracks every week. And this one track relates to your favorite Russ song. See, and then you're like, oh, that's interesting. And it says they're paying attention to what we're doing, even in that short space. Totally. It like sets off like, okay, they're they're a real person, first of all. This isn't like bot spam. And they're keeping up with us and they're familiar. Yeah. So that would catch me. You know what? If they want to hurt your feelings, just one line. You're trash. Because you're probably gonna read it. Our brains are wired to uh take in negativity for some fucked up reason. I'm not gonna lie. Well, it's just such a quick sentence, you know. Yeah. Trash. Yeah, yeah.

Someone in our comment section told us to kill ourselves, I think recently. That was a good one. I hope you caught that one. I I deleted it. Well, God, I need more hate. I need more hate. Yeah, well, yeah, I'm not doing right. Yeah, I'm glad that we got the comment, but I'll delete it stuff. I don't delete my hate. Well, it depends on who whatever. Kill yourself was a little strong. I'm not even sure if we're allowed to say that on YouTube right now, but yeah, yeah. That's a little strong. I like New Yorkers who are angry, man. Yeah. This has been something I've learned about you today, Mike. I didn't realize how much you loved angry and because you're so so not angry about anything ever. Yeah, I'm not mad. That's because I see a lot of angry people, man. I'm just chilled out. Keeps you grounded, huh? Yeah. It just I you know, I feel their anger. You know what I'm saying? This is cool. One time I was in, I I was in the country visiting a friend like in North Carolina, and it was great. But then after a couple days, I was like, we gotta go to Charlotte.

We gotta do something. Cause I need to feel like I might get pushed walking down the street. I don't want to be pushed, but I need to have that feeling that it might happen, you know. Wow. That is something that I love about when I go to New York. It's like I'll like open a door for someone and like hold the door, and people look at me like I'm an actual crazy person. And then I then like my New Yorker, like sometimes like if I'm there for a couple days, like I'll get I'll like embody the New Yorker, you know. So I'll start like elbowing people, like trying to get on the subway or get the fuck out of my way. You're walking here. Yeah, yeah, because if you're opening the door for someone, you're actually inconveniencing them because now it's almost like you expect them to say something nice, and they're just in a rush, man. Yeah, I got now I gotta thank this fucking guy. Yeah, you're trying to slow them down and have a conversation. They're just trying to get to work. Absolutely. Well, Mike, we've entered a final segment of the podcast. My favorite segment.

You want to do a little bit New Yorker. Well, I'm not a New Yorker. You've been there for a while now, though, right? Yeah, but I'm from St. Louis, man. Yeah. Once you're from St. Louis, you never I could never claim anything else. I feel that. Well, Mike, this has been an amazing episode so far. Let's see if we can bring it home. Just one more quick reminder for you guys. If you found value from Mike Boyd and the episodes that we do every week, please like the video, drop a comment, let us know if you're interested in getting brand deals. Maybe subscribe, maybe turn the bell on for notifications so you don't miss another jam-packed value beefed episode like this one. Mike, this is the rapid fire rampage. It is gonna be a three-part rampage. I'll break them down as we go. The first part is just some short answer questions. Let's get into it. Starting with, when will VaynerX be opening their Atlanta office? ASAP.

Cool. I hope. Go on. Me too. Me too. We've been alluding to this kind of the whole episode, but if you had to just succinctly in one kind of go, if an artist watching wants to land a brand deal, what are the first steps they they should take right now? They should support a brand, maybe someone they already know, and just prove their track record and get ready to do it full time. Don't jump into a real deal not knowing what you're doing. Maybe start by watch watching this episode a couple times, you know. what I mean? Mm-hmm. Could be helpful. Um, what would you say are the top three reasons independent artists are not making money in 2026? They need to be adding value. You can't make money unless you add value. If I made a song tomorrow, would you pay for it? You know what I mean? It's like you but maybe if I added value, I'd support my friends before I supported a random person. Mm-hmm. You had two more.

I mean, that was a home run on the first one, but. Oh, more? Yeah. Okay. Maybe They don't know where to look for it. Oh maybe they I mean, if you don't know how to make money, maybe they should take a seat. Oh sit down. I'm just saying, man, you know what I mean? I didn't know how to make money. I didn't know how to make money either. Go sell water. You know what I'm saying? The water boys. Mike the water boy. Yeah. Yeah. Stop outside. Tell something people want to buy. Ooh, that's good. Ain't that the truth? Mike, when is the Monday to Monday podcast coming back? Man. In my dreams, it never left. You know, I'm here, man. I just like it. In my reality, it left about four years ago. So Oh, shoot. Oh, shoot. Yeah, I didn't know if the hype hypothetical example of like us creative directing your podcast was a real thing. Yeah, like you've actually done this. We'd be we well, we'd be happy to help you out if it's a matter of, you know. Bringing it back.

Yeah. You know? We could talk about that. Yeah. Um, Mike, what are some red flags that brands look for when picking artists to work with? Jail time. Oh guns and drugs and your social media posts. Yeah. It's just, you know what? Maybe there's a brand for everything, but a lot of brands don't like those things. So yeah, red flags. It's anything. I mean, yeah, generally breaking the law or offending people. Okay. Is not great. Yeah. So brand safe is a real thing. Brand safe. Yeah, because you know, business is business, man. I can't you can't support someone who's gonna make more than half of your customers upset, right? And then there's moral, moral issues. Also, you know what?

There's a lot of musicians on earth. There's a lot. So there's a lot of opportunity to work with people who aren't posting horrible, horrible things. Yeah. Brands are brands have to be more careful about that than maybe an individual does. Mm-hmm. Mike, what is your favorite lesson learned from Seth Godin? What? All right. Uh he lit up. Did you see that? Yeah. Oh, I love that guy. Favorite lesson learned. I like this one. So business is not necessarily like golf. It's more like surfing because when you're surfing, you're always adjusting to what's happening and it's always changing. Whereas in golf, there's like a set of rules, and you could be really great, but you're not really reacting to a whole lot of things. And life is not normal, life is not fair at all. So, you know, get get ready for it because it's coming. Ride the wave, baby.

Mm-hmm. Ride the wave. Mike, what's the best advice you've got from Gary Vee? To be the bigger person. It's always the best advice he gave me. You know, someone might say something in your comment section. Be the bigger person, you know. People are going through bad days. People are going through very bad days. And also everyone's an individual. I've seen musicians get very upset at major magazines, and it's like that person probably doesn't work there anymore. And they might have just been going through a bad day, you know. So it's good to be the bigger person. It's just good to be the bigger person. It's the only way you walk away winning rather than holding a grudge. And you can yeah, like we posted a clip the other day of like a tip about meta ads, and we got a comment like this this like strategy is super old. Like you call this new and groundbreaking. And I was like, Well, like we are trying to support independent artists, a lot of them don't know this. A lot of them haven't even been in meta-ads, so we're sharing it for them. And he was like, Oh, that makes a lot of sense, and that's fair.

Thanks for responding. And I was like, damn, yeah. And then I think he followed us. It turned what felt like my initial reaction was anger. Yeah, no, he cares. I mean, no one no one's wasting their time commenting if they don't care. Right. You know what I mean? Right. That's actually kind of cool. That's an opportunity to get a conversation going. Yeah, you can get a fan. You can get like a supporter out of what seems horrible at first. Anyway, last one of the short answer. Mike, what is your favorite curse word? Man, I don't have you know what I like? I like emojis. I like it when someone's really angry, and then I write lol, or you know what I mean? Someone said, No, I don't. They'll send me a text and they'll be like, Man, I can't believe you did that to me. Whatever, whatever. And I'm like, haha, I know, right? And then I'll get straight back to it. You know, it's like, oh man, you haven't replied to me in a week. And I'm like, yeah, that's crazy. And I'm like, but do you want to, you know, you want to jump on a call or what? You know, I love that. Mike loves mad people.

He's insane. He feeds off of lies. Sure, dude. He doesn't have any in his heart himself. No, but thrives off. It's like, you really, you're really gonna talk to me like that? LOL. You know what I mean? This must be a joke. Yo, lol might be more offensive than like fuck off. Like made me madder hearing that. Kind of wild. Anyway, that was part one. Part two is the this or that, Mike. I'm gonna give you two choices. You just have to pick one of them, starting with drums or melodies. Melody. Bigger audience or deeper audience? Deeper. Local hero or internet famous. Local hero. IRL local hero. Yes. What the? We can combine some of these. Flat fee or revenue share? Flat fee, because I'm trying to get money right now. You know what I'm saying? No. Revenue share is when you have long-term goals, you know. If you need money, take the money.

That's right. Facts. TikTok virality or YouTube loyalty. YouTube loyalty. I'm trying to go viral. No, I'm not. YouTube loyalty. I mean, we could try to do both, I guess. So there's no rules, but if you had to pick. Um, five small brand deals or one massive one. Uh five small. And then get the massive. You gotta learn, man. Everything's about experience. I like that. Win a Grammy or own your masters. I don't make music. Own your masters, though. Books or podcasts. Podcasts. For me. I'm asking you, Mike. Ranch or blue cheese? I mean, I wish I could read more books, but podcasts. Yeah. Ranch or blue cheese. You said ranch or blue cheese? Ranch, man. Ranch. All right. Bring back the Monday to Monday podcast or make Henry and Ben very sad.

Bring it back. Let's go. And finally become a full-time country singer or leave the music industry forever. Leave it forever. No, you know why? Because I'm done, bro. I'm done. Country singer would be great, but who are we talking to? Chase McDaniel? He could mentor you. Oh, sorry, you're talking to me. Yeah. Man. I would not be an artist. No, no, no, no, no. I would not be an artist. Then you gotta leave the music industry. I'm not man, I'm at the ad agency world. Yeah, you know what I mean. Leave the marketing industry. Man, being an artist is way too hard, man. Yeah. I can't, I don't know. It is hard. It really is. not for me. It's not for me. Understood. That was part two. Being a successful artist is hard. Right. True. Being an artist is easy. Making art is so fulfilling and great when you don't have to tie all these realistic like business expectations. to it. I heard Something really funny.

This is really funny. Why do musicians feel entitled for us to listen to their music? You know what I mean? It's like, I made music. Now you all better listen to it. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You see what I mean? Oh, I thought there was a punchline after that. It was just the question was just something funny. Yeah. That was a question with no answer. There is no answer to that. For sure. I don't know. Yeah. Why do I care? Which you made. I'll I'll I'll take a stab at it, right? Because, like, here we go. I'll take a stab. I'll take a stab at it. I think it was meant to be rhetorical. No. Well, I'm about to know. All right. You know, um, I just think that where I think it comes from is a place of passion. I really do. I think that they're passionate about what they made and they think that it is good, right? And so they think people need to hear it. And sometimes that manifests itself as entitled. And we get a little egotistical.

We do need to flip the mindset. I don't think that it's how we should all be thinking about it. But I I want to give them the benefit of the doubt that it comes from a place of passion. That's all. But I think they need to find the people who want to listen to it. Well, yes. Yes. Yeah. They're not gonna magically appear. Yes, for sure. They need to put in the work. For sure. That's just like growing any business. You know, you're trying to make a business out of anything. Yeah, yeah. It takes work. The last part is the word association, Mike. I'm gonna say one word. All I need you to do is give me the first word that you think of off the top of your head. There's no correct answers. You're only judged on speed. Starting with music. Oh, industry. I go slow, you know that. Judge me. This is I'm I'm going to. Community. You're doing good so far. Building. Spotify. Love it. Goat. You Gary. You know what I'm saying? You almost went with me, I think there at first. Yeah, I went with you first.

Yeah. What's wrong with the first? Alright, we'll move on. I mean, because Gary. I thought you weren't gonna like it. No, but the goal is to get the first reaction. Your reaction was me. Anyway. Okay, fine. The first reaction was you. Me and Gary. We'll call it a combo answer. Risk. Reward. Tequila. You got it. I do have some. Album. You said album. Album. Music. Influencer. Marketing. Foot. Ball. AI. My friend. Pitch. Me. Gary V. My bro. New York. Love the anger. Atlanta. It's been an anger-heavy episode. Home away from home.

St. Louis. Oh, everything. Brands. My heart just exploded and my eyes saw fireworks. It was like an emotional response. We definitely can accept that. And Brand. Deal. Let's go. This has been Mike Boyd. Mike Boyd. Junior. Don't forget the Junior. The JR. That's right. Yeah, man. Appreciate you coming on the podcast. Hopefully y'all found some value out of this. As always, please like, comment, and subscribe. We're here each and every week. Damn near. All of them. Until next time, what are we doing? Getting out of here. Appreciate y'all. Appreciate y'all.