Engineering that Know-Like-Trust Factor.

Jordan Valeriote joins us to discuss his journey from successful producer and studio engineer to uber-successful video course creator, showing other music-preneurs how to do the same.

You’re listening to Episode 76 of the Music-Preneur Mindset Podcast.

Hello! You’re listening to Episode 76: Music-Preneur Spotlight: Jordan Valeriote.

I’m your host, Suz – a mindset coach helping music professionals get clear on their goals and find the time to get it all done while maintaining a healthy work/life balance.

As I said on Episode 75, throughout the month of January each new episode of this podcast will feature a spotlight on another music industry expert. I usually keep it to interviewing only musicians, but I wanted you to start this year off with some amazing tips from people who help music-preneurs just like you make money from their craft on the daily.

This week features an incredibly talented producer/engineer-turned-full-fledge entrepreneur, Jordan Valeriote, also known as JVal.

Jordan professionally produced and mixed records for almost a decade and then decided to form Hardcore Music Studio, a website and YouTube channel to help engineers in the rock & metal genres improve their craft.

Since then, he’s built a business that grosses over $1M in sales by helping entrepreneurs of all backgrounds build their online business, namely through video courses.

We’re talking multiple 6 or 7-figures per year by teaching, training and coaching online to various niche markets. Always remember, the riches are in those niches! He’s gained knowledge in sales funnels, email marketing, online ads and more to deliver his knowledge to an audience that is hungry for it.

While that doesn’t have to be you, perhaps you want to stick strictly to music and that’s 1000% OK, I think it’s important to hear what Jordan has to say in regards to selling to your audience and building that know-like-trust factor that he now so effortlessly builds with his online community.

It’s that trust that enables him to sell to his audience time after time because he delivers real value to them and he’s super clear on why he wants to help them. This can translate into any market, especially music.

The purpose of this podcast is to get you thinking more like an entrepreneur so that you can scale and grow your income streams as a musician or industry professional and after speaking with Jordan I couldn’t WAIT to share what we discussed with you.

So let’s get right to it and be sure to visit the show notes: www.therockstaradvocate.com/ep76 for links to his amazing podcast, free downloads and more that we’ll share in this episode.

Here we go!

Suz: Jordan, thank you so much for being here with us. I’m so excited to dive in.

Jordan: Yeah, me too. Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to talk about this stuff!

Suz: Yeah, one of the things I love the most about what you do is you’re somebody who has such a vast experience in the music industry, but you’ve completely embraced the entrepreneurial world.

And here at The Rock/Star Advocate and The Music-Preneur Mindset that’s what we try to really share with musicians is really getting into that mindset and seeing yourself as an entrepreneur.

So I’m curious what – I mean there’s so much I want to dig into here but first I’m just curious about your overall journey from being a music producer and engineer and mixer and then to taking on this full throttle entrepreneur empire that you’ve built, which is really impressive. Kind of walk us through that whole transition and how that all came to be.

Jordan: Yeah, so I started out with my own recording studio. It was like my dream to make records in the studio full time, so to record bands – I was a little also in bands kind of growing up all through my teen years, and I just fell in love with the studio. So I ended up starting my own recording studio, just like a really small DIY kind of space and slowly and steadily just kind of grinding away at it in the beginning just trying to teach myself.

I did an internship at a bigger studio where I learned a lot and eventually went full time, I think that was in 2008? I went full time in my recording studio, so I kind of took that leap and, you know, I was working hard I was recording any band I could. I was trying to do the best job I could with every single project in the studio and eventually that paid off.

Some of the bands that I worked with ended up getting picked up by smaller record labels, and then management, and kind of going on tour, and that kind of helped my word of mouth. And they would refer me to other bands and I started getting label projects and it was, you know, over the course of years, but eventually kind of built up a good client roster and discography in the in the heavy music niche anyway.

That’s kind of the types of bands I was recording, so yeah I did that for almost, I think about eight years full time. And honestly I got to the point where I was just like – I was burnt out.

Suz: Yeah.

Jordan: I had spent so many years working almost seven days a week, long days like ten twelve hour days sometimes more than that depending on the project and the band. And at first I didn’t mind it at all because I was living my dream, right?

But after a few years, it started to wear on me and I certainly wasn’t, you know, taking proper care of myself or my schedule or anything like that. But yeah, I just started getting burnt out and it’s just looking for other opportunities, and funny enough I actually started an app business with my brother-in-law. And we put out these like silly iPhone games, and one of them ended up taking off, and we started making a pretty decent money at it. It became a six figure business in under two years, like probably a year and a half. We definitely caught some lucky breaks and kinda rode the wave a little bit.

But that just totally shook up my world because all of a sudden I had this experience of going from earning my living by basically grinding it out twelve hours a day in the studio every day – to having a business where I literally, a couple mornings I would wake up and I would look at our app stats from the day before and be like, “Oh my gosh. I just made more money while I was sleeping than I’m about to go make in the next ten hours in the studio.”

Suz: Right.

Jordan: So that was kind of like when this thing shifted and I discovered entrepreneurship really, because, sure I was self-employed, but I had just created job for myself essentially, right?

So that’s when I discover like, “Man, I can actually have these other types of businesses where there’s potential for income that’s not attached to my time,” and yeah that really just opened up the doors to entrepreneurship for me.

And through that, just reading books, listening to podcasts I came across the opportunity for, or I saw that people were creating their own online courses and doing really well with them. And so yeah, long story short I was like, “Man, I’m gonna try this!” So I followed a process that someone was teaching on how to launch a course, and it worked!

And I’ve been doing that for, you know, almost five years since then. So that’s, hopefully that wasn’t too long of a story, but that’s kind of it.

Suz: No, it was great! Yeah, one of the things that you said, which I thought was super interesting, and what we try to convey here is that you know you were a freelancer but then you could see yourself as an entrepreneur and there is a distinction there, especially around the mindset of it.

And so I’m curious when you realized that you could make the money while you were sleeping and you could grow these passive income streams, was it hard for you especially coming from the music industry to to trust that? Or was there guilt around it?

Especially since we’re so used to, as you said you’re no stranger to working hard – those twelve sixteen hour days of just hustling and grinding and all that stuff, was that transition did you just like jump on it and say, “Okay I’m going and trusting this fully,” or was there any resistance there as you began to explore that there were other ways?

Jordan: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I think there was some resistance under the surface, you know I’d definitely, just from the way I came up in the studio world, it was totally through working hard and and that’s how I made my way. And I do think there’s a time and place for that, but honestly I think it was just once the proof started happening.

Suz: Right.

Jordan: Yeah I certainly didn’t have this aha moment where I was like, “Oh I’m going to create an app business or a course business” and cut off everything else and just jumped right in. I kind of bridged the gap, right?

Like I was creating these apps in the morning before going to the studio for the day, stuff like that. But once yeah it was honestly once I saw that proof where I was making more income passively from the apps than from the music world it’s like it’s hard to deny that when it’s right in front of your face.

So I think that really kind of shocked me out of that kind of hustle-first mindset; however, I don’t want to say that I’m like totally passed that. I think even to this day like I still have to consciously be aware of where I tend to just default to hard work. Or when I think, “Okay, I want different results, somewhat better results, therefore I’m just going to work harder!”

Suz: Right!

Jordan: And that’s usually not the answer, so I still to this day have to be conscious and work on that.

Suz: I absolutely feel you on that. I feel like when you come up in this industry, it’s very hard to re-wire that belief.

Jordan: Oh yeah. Totally!

Suz: So I absolutely feel that. As you were building your passive income streams and you were stepping more into the entrepreneurial world, I was just talking to somebody earlier today about this about all the different … like for me I was always very confident in everything that I knew about the music industry.

Like I’d studied for years, I’d worked in it, but then I had… I just assumed that was the same thing as understanding business, and then my eyes were open to this whole entrepreneurial world and realizing I knew nothing when it came to email funnels and building your list and automating certain things and creating webinars and getting people to the webinars and this whole other world of skillsets that aren’t exactly connected to the music industry, but if we
understood them, could definitely help people as you yourself help people to learn how to monetize their skillsets in the music industry.

What was that journey like for you? So now you’ve gone from creating apps to now creating courses that are making real money and doing webinars and evergreen content and all that stuff, I mean was that world completely new to you? Or were you familiar with it before? What was that like?

Jordan: It was totally new to me. Basically from creating apps I think, I’m trying to think of how I first got introduced to it, but the first book I read was called Launch by Jeff Walker.

Suz: Love it! Yeah.

Jordan: Yeah, so I remember we were traveling at the time, and I was reading that book and I think that was a pretty much – it was either that or the Smart Passive Income Podcast – where I started hearing about people selling online courses and these crazy different niches.

And so I picked up that book and I read it and I was like, “Man this seems really interesting,” and I thought, “You know what, I’m going to try this out. I’m just gonna follow exactly what he says in this book like to a T and see if I can launch a course.”

And funny enough my first idea was not to do a music production course, it was to do actually an app business course that was like how to create your own apps.

And I kind of struggled there for maybe a month or two. I didn’t try that long but I tried to build an audience and, you know, make a Facebook page and an email list and in the app world and it just was gaining no traction.

So I kind of stepped back and was like, “You know what? Where is all of my credibility? Where do I have kind of an audience already? Where is my true expertise?”

And that was totally in music production – that’s what I’d spent like ten years doing. I knew I was good at it. I knew I could teach it easily, and so I was like, you know what? I’m just gonna try to launch a mixing course first to see if this whole online course launch system is real and see if it’s actually a real thing, right?

Yeah, it was pretty much just honestly following that one book, maybe a couple other free podcast episodes that I heard, implementing it all really quickly and I remember thinking, “If I sell five copies of this mixing course, I’ll consider it a success.” And I ended up selling twenty eight, so it just, that totally changed my path

Then from there I just went, you know, deep into the rabbit hole – just learning from anything and everyone I could.

Suz: Yeah, I mean, under your one of your businesses, Hardcore Music Studio, you’ve got some amazing offerings like a monthly membership. You have courses on tracking, mixing, editing… So how did you go about compiling all these? Did you build them at once? Did you do them one at a time? What lead you, I know you said you based it in your expertise and I’m sure a lot of these came from the common questions you would hear from your peers or in the studio, but how did you get to the point where you are now with these courses and the membership program?

Jordan: Yeah that’s a good question. So I’ll kind of take you back to kind of the behind the scenes of what had happened leading up to launching this course and that was that as a passionate recording engineer and producer I was active in these communities online, right? So message boards, forums, these days it’s more Facebook groups, but back then it was message boards.

Suz: Right, yep.

Jordan: I was a person who had already spent years basically in these heavy metal and rock mixing message boards where I would just like engage in these threads and give my advice and, you know, help people with their problems like mixing and recording wise. When I was doing that I had no intention of ever releasing a course or anything, I was just engaging because I loved it, right?

So from that experience of just years of engaging with other up and coming engineers online, I had a good sense of what their problems were, and I knew that most people wanted to learn about mixing.

So out of all the disciplines like editing, recording, production – I knew that mixing was kind of the thing that people really wanted help with or at least that they were interested in watching content about.

So that’s why I kind of decided, “Okay. I think I’m gonna do a mixing course. That’s going to be my best bet to start out.” It was also the easiest thing to produce because essentially all of my mixing is done on the computer, so I don’t have to like have a film crew are really film anything in person. I could just get a screen recording program on my mac, hit record on my screen and just walk through my project, right?

Suz: Mhm.

Jordan: So that made it really simple as well. So yeah I was just kind of understanding what the potential audience was really struggling with and wanting to learn about and then finding the easiest path to actually teaching them something.

But I did definitely go a step further than that I basically started out by giving away a drum sample for free that they can download and use in their mixes. That got them on to my email list, and through my email list I sent a couple surveys which was basically asking,”What’s your biggest problem with mixing?”

And so I would get people to tell me what they were struggling with and that essentially became the talking points for both selling my course and and also what I taught inside it.

Suz: That’s fantastic and what I love about it, too, is that through this whole journey from the story that you’re sharing with us some of the biggest takeaways that are coming out to me, and I hope our audience is taking note because we talk about this a lot on this podcast. Number one: you used your resources at your disposal – you didn’t say, “Oh, I gotta buy all this new equipment” and obviously you had to purchase some stuff I’m sure, but it wasn’t like, “I can’t do this yet because I don’t have all this fancy stuff.” You understood your audience’s pain points because you are somebody who engages and gets in the conversations, and what I really like is that you kept it pretty niche. You know, you’re not out there trying to teach hip-hop producers although I’m sure they can gain a few things from your courses, but you knew your expertise, you’re a rock-metal producer. That was your background that is where you focused, and I think a lot of people are afraid to niche down, but as they say the riches are in the niches.

Jordan: Totally.

Suz: And so is that something that you kept in mind when you did it? Or was it more just, “This is what I know so this is what I’m going to teach and this is who I’m going to market it to?”

Jordan: I mean it was a bit of both I mean in a sense that was what I knew best. You know, I’d worked on some pop and hip-hop stuff, but very very limited. I certainly would not consider myself an expert engineer in those areas but it was definitely in the rock and metal world where I had my experience and expertise. And so yeah, I really definitely decided to stick to that niche in the beginning and even to this day in that business.

The other thing too, is like that’s where I had all my credibility, so I like to talk about this concept with my students and my audience called low hanging fruit.

So rather than thinking like of all these crazy ideas and starting from scratch in something like how to get started is like what’s your low hanging fruit? And for me, it was well, I’ve produced some records in this little niche that if I just name these bands there are certain people who are going to recognize those bands.

And because of that they’re gonna pay attention to me or at least be more likely to pay attention to me, verses if I came out with like how to do hip-hop or basically how to produce any type of music – it’s like 99% of people wouldn’t know who that guy was, right?

Suz: Right.

Jordan: Yeah so it’s kind of just going all in on the path of least resistance – the low hanging fruit that’s already right in front of you. And yeah it’s kinda interesting because I often have to turn people away from my courses, and even in some of my webinars, like right at the start I say, “Hey if you’re a hip-hop producer or you’re working on electronic music like you might learn something here, but this is actually not for you,” and I’ve actually recommended people not buy my courses because they weren’t a good fit within that niche, which in the long run that just builds trust, you know, you never know what’s what’s gonna come of that stuff.

Suz: Absolutely and, you know, after seeing everything that it is that you offer, I mean you’ve got your incredible podcast, You And Your Business, which I highly suggest our listeners go and subscribe to because there’s so much you can learn from – you know everything you teach, I know some of our listeners might not know these names because they haven’t been introduced to the entrepreneur world as much, but Zach Spuckler and Bobby Klinck and these people who I’ve heard on Amy Porterfield’s podcast and Marie Forleo and these real heavy hitters that have
just created such wonderful resources out there.

I loved your conversations with them and the fact that you share certain topics about how you can really build income streams like you said without burning yourself out, without working so hard because sometimes the harder you push it doesn’t mean that that’s how you’re gonna get your better results.

So I really like the topics that you talk about and when did you feel, was there a certain point where you were like, “I’m going to now start to build resources outside of just the music industry and really expand this into the entrepreneur world” – how did that kind of come about?

Jordan: Yeah it’s honestly been on my mind for a couple years now. It’s just like as I discovered this world and started creating courses, selling them, hearing the feedback from my students, getting in touch with other online business owners who are doing similar things in other niches – I just fell in love with this whole world.

You know, producing music was my first love, my first passion and then, you know, building online businesses is my second one. So it’s just a total passion of mine and I knew I’d say honestly like three, four years ago that I wanted to help other people do the same thing – to be able to teach others online and make a great income from it that, you know, didn’t require all these long hours and hustling, and it was just kind of a matter of time of just similar to the music world cause I wanted to make sure this wasn’t just a fleeting opportunity or fleeting passion, you know?

Suz: Mhm.

Jordan: You know if I’m gonna really work hard in this business on the music side and build it up to something that is sustainable and consistent and then slowly starts helping other people do the same thing. And that’s kind of where I’m at now.

I’ve just kind of started taking small groups of students through my process of creating and launching their first online course and obviously the podcast like you mentioned. And yeah, so that that’s kind of how that came about – I’ve been wanting to do for years and this year it’s just felt like the right time. It just felt like something I needed to share to continue being authentic, you know?

And that’s the beauty about this type of business and building an audience and relationships with your audience online is that yes, they signed up because they wanted to hear about whatever – guitar, piano, or in my case mixing – but they stick around because of who you are.

And just, they know you, they like you, they trust you, and so honestly like most of the people who have started following my business content and my business courses and podcast, they’re coming over from the music side.

Suz: Mmm. Mhm!

Jordan: And they’re like, “Hey I’ve been watching!” You know, it’s like, they’re not dumb. They see what I’m doing selling these courses, right? And when I put something out there it’s like, “Hey if you been watching what I’m doing and you’re interested in learning about it come over here and talk about it.” And some of them do.

Suz: Do you feel, in the music industry, do you feel that there’s this move towards more courses and getting more music professionals and musicians themselves teaching others what they’ve learned and using that as an income stream when people aren’t buying downloads, right?

They’re streaming their music online, I mean, I feel what you do, even though you’ve moved somewhat away from the music industry and expanded to help more entrepreneurs in general, as you said your music community is following you there because it’s so applicable!

And I think that’s such an important thing to point out that running a business and whether you decide to do courses, or you decide on different ways to spread your message to your audiences, I think what you teach people is so pertinent for musicians and for people in the music industry because other income streams are kind of dying out. How do you see the music industry kind of shifting these days?

Jordan: Yeah I’ve totally seen that, and I see all sorts of different artists and bands doing different things to try and generate income. I’ve seen some bands that even I’ve worked with and recorded in the past, they’re doing tours and doing clinics – like guitar-teaching clinics all over the world or running retreats, like in-person events where they’re teaching their instruments already.

Or they’ll be on tour with their bands, but on their Instagram they’ll make posts about, “Hey, I’m gonna teach a few drum lessons while we’re on tour here – message me if you want to book it!”

And so what I’m seeing is like, I think a lot of artists and bands they are doing the the leg work of building the audience and there’s people who are following them for their music, and I think inevitably there’s gonna be people in that group who want to learn at a deeper level about like how they actually learn their instrument – they want to learn from them.

And, I don’t know, I just think that teaching online is, for one thing it’s such a massive up-and-coming market right now. I think it’s still gonna forecasted to triple to something like three hundred billion in the next few years, and so people are hungry for this stuff.

It’s like they want to choose who to learn from and what they want to learn, so to me I just think it’s just a question of are you going to be one of the options for them to learn from? And you know maybe that’s a bit of a tangent, but yeah I think that teaching your skill, whether it’s an instrument or maybe it’s on the business side of music, or something like that – it’s a great way to build an awesome income stream and still be doing what you love and take that really passionate subset of your audience with you to a higher level.

They already want to go there, right? And it’s a way to do that without necessarily having to fly all over the world and host in-person events and stuff, which you can do that if you want to – but doing it online is a lot easier.

Suz: Absolutely. I love everything you just said – 100%. You know a lot of the things that you’re saying I’m sure it’s resonating a lot with our listeners where it’s the low hanging fruit, the skills that you already have, the things you already love to do, you know, you can monetize what you’re already good at it doesn’t have to… I think a lot of musicians kind of fear, “Well I’m already overwhelmed that I’m already trying to work on the album like now I got to build a whole other business out of this?”

And it’s really just, as you said, starting with what’s in front of you, and listening to the things that you’ve already been hearing people already ask you about, and then allowing it to grow. And then, you know, you’ll follow where it leads you, but the important thing is to start. And I’m really inspired by every different stage of your business – you’ve listen to yourself, you’ve listen to what the data is showing you, and most importantly you’ve listened to your audience, and you’ve been able to use what you’ve got to make something really special out of it.

And it’s not rocket science, but it is a lot of faith and trust in the fact that you have what it takes to go make it happen and then the discipline to go carry it out, and I think that’s really important.

Jordan: Oh yeah, absolutely! I mean you have to be able to be self-disciplined and actually make something happen. You know, ideas are worthless, as you know execution is everything, so actually just taking these ideas and actually getting it done.

But I totally agree with you – a lot of people get overwhelmed and they think, “Well, yeah I wanna make a course. I think I could do that, but I don’t know how to do a webinar and I don’t know how to build an email list,” and like whatever. And it’s like look, that can be learned in time it’s actually doesn’t have to be very complicated at all.

It can be literally if you have an email list or even just a following on your Instagram or Facebook page put out a couple posts and be like, “Hey I’m thinking about teaching a course. You know a short course about XYZ. If you’re interested, you know, join this Facebook group!”

Suz: Right.

Jordan: And they join this free Facebook group you post some useful advice in there and then maybe week or two later you say, “Hey I’m going to do six weeks of live stream calls where I’m gonna teach you my process for whatever it is” – if it’s playing an instrument or doing something on the business side, whatever it is, and then just literally just provide a payment link for them to sign up and it can be as simple as that.

Like you don’t have to learn all these advanced marketing strategies right away. Again – it’s the low hanging fruit there’s probably people in your audience, if you’ve been doing this stuff for awhile, there’s going to be people where who are just waiting for you to put it out there. They’re just waiting you just have to do it.

Suz: I love it and I also love your online business scorecard. I know how you you said on your website “Find out if you’re ready to profit from the skills and knowledge you already have.” And I love that you’ve got that as a download for people and that will definitely be in the show notes so I do encourage our listeners go check that out and one of the other things I thought was really cool was the 40 Days where you explain how in forty days you went from zero
subscribers in zero income to earning $10k from your first course launch and I’m sure a lot of that can be applicable to an album launch or any product launch so what made you… what were the some of the biggest mistakes you were seeing people do that made you decide, “Okay I’m gonna share this and give this as a resource for people to learn?”

Jordan: Yeah, the biggest mistake is kind of what I was just talking about is people thinking thinking that they’re starting from scratch when they’re really not and I just I think I just did a podcast about this, but it’s… like people that they might think like, “Okay I wanna start this online business but oh man I have to have a thousand people in my email list first, so I got to do that, and in order to get them on my email list I have to start a podcast or a YouTube
channel and I have to do that for like six months to get anywhere…” You just create this massive mountain in front of them right?

Instead of being like, “There’s this Facebook group that I’ve been active in for the past two years and people know who I am there, maybe I should just make a post there.”

I’ve seen the like of that difference between some of my students who I am you know teaching this process to and helping them launch their course is some of them have you know struggled to get their first five and ten email subscribers where other students are kind of starting from the same point but they’re like they’re getting you know a hundred, two hundred, three hundred email subscribers in half the time and the difference is they’re just capitalizing on that low hanging fruit.

They’re using everything they’ve got, whether it’s their personal social media accounts, groups that they’re in, different communities they’re engaged with, stuff like that.

So that was kind of one of the big mistakes is just I see people just thinking that it has to be this super long, like six month or year-long process before they can even think about launching a course and I just thought back to my first launch of three years ago or four years ago and like I said… I went back and looked at the calendar and looked at all of the stuff that I did and I was like wait a second I actually thought it was ninety days from the idea to launching, it was actually forty days from I mean I’m gonna do a course to getting my first email subscriber to closing on the sale and having $10k in revenue.

So I was like, “Oh man, this is even faster than I thought.” So I thought that was kind of the problem that I was seeing. I wanted to just prove to people that, “Hey this doesn’t have to take forever.”

And I mean it’s basically letting you read my whole story from start to finish of how I did that for the 40-Day launch but I try to write in a way that was really actionable so that wasn’t just about:

I did this and then I did this and then I did this.

I kind of like, I’m trying to put action steps along the way so that people can learn by example and I don’t know, just decided to do that way because that’s how I’ve taught my music courses.

So rather than creating almost like a classroom style lesson where I’m kind of the teacher at the front saying you know here’s how to plug in a microphone and you should put it here like very boring stuff right, I don’t do that.

I just I literally… like for my recording course, I got a band to come into the studio. I hired guys to film it and I just recorded that band in real time and we had to yeah put it on video so that people can watch it happen in real time.

I think that such a more the more powerful way to learn. Rather than just teaching here’s how to build an audience and launch a course, why don’t I just put out the whole case study of here’s exactly how I did it so that someone can take that and use it as a road map to do it themselves.

Suz: I love it yeah! I think that’s so important and when you had mentioned recently speaking about it on your podcast, I was actually listen to that one this morning and I just love the way you teach. It’s again, one of the other things we value is taking out the overwhelm and breaking things down into really digestible, easy to understand steps and kind of taking… you know taking the complexity out of it a little bit and saying, “Okay let’s really look at what this really is and here are the steps and let’s you know”… it’s more about taking action and seeing what happens rather than having all this pressure on it and these expectations and all of that. I really love your approach to teach your students and…

Jordan: I think the, I mean yeah, I would just say something about that, too. It’s like this day and age too, like as more more peeler people are coming into this world of selling on the courses and stuff like that the whole idea you just mentioned of solving the overwhelm problem and making sense of all the information out there, that’s just become more and more valuable. Like if you can take… because people are the more info that’s out there it’s just like yeah people are getting information overload right? And they start getting more confused, but if you can actually teach in a way and share your message in a way that finally simplifies things for them then they’ll follow you for life.

Suz: Absolutely! And so I wanna thank you for spending this time with us and explaining this to our listeners. I know you’ve inspired me I’m sure you’re going to inspire a lot of people listening to this episode but before we go nobody leaves here without answering our for rapid-fire questions.

Number one, if you could go back and tell your younger self a lesson what would it be?

Jordan: That you don’t have to choose between doing what you love and making a great income.

Suz: Nice. I wish everybody in the music industry understood, I wish I understood that in the beginning as well.

Jordan: Took me a long time, yeah.

Suz: If you could have one super power what would it be?

Jordan: I wish that I could read books ten times faster because I love reading I love learning and and if I could just get all of that knowledge and wisdom faster that would be awesome.

Suz: That’s awesome! If you could invite three musicians living or dead to your place for dinner who would you invite?

Jordan: Can I say like a music producer in there, too?

Suz: Yeah! We don’t discriminate!

Jordan: So I think the first person would be Chris Lord-Alge he’s an amazing mixing engineer, he’s probably my favorite mix engineer, he’s mixed so many hit records he still going to this day he’s been doing it for decades so Chris Lord-Alge would be one for sure.

A musician? I would say maybe the band MXPX, that was like the first band I fell involve with.

Suz: Oh, yea, I’ve been to their concerts.

Jordan: So probably them, that was like the band that got me into like punk rock which opened the door to everything else and a third one let me think… third one I think I’d have to reach in the music production world again… but producer Rick Rubin.

I think he’s just got all the past the variety of stuff that he’s worked on, I mean working with like artists at the highest level in hip hop like Jay Z. And then you know metal bands and stuff I just think that’s amazing. I’ve just seen snippets of videos of him of just sitting in the back of the room and just at sometimes you look at it like how’s this dude lying on the couch getting paid to produce these huge records? He’s obviously a genius there and I’m gonna throw in a fourth one I just thought of Ed Sheeran.

This is probably my favorite mainstream singer-songwriter right now, I think he’s one of the most talented songwriters out there right now so that’s a bonus bonus fourth.

Suz: Absolutely! Wonderful! And our last question is this podcast is all about taking action and so usually every week I have a worksheet or downloadable checklist for listeners to take action with but when we have a guest I leave it up to the guests to give our listeners an action to take this week.

Jordan: Okay first action I would say you can go and sign up for my 40-Day Case Study I talked about at www.jval.me/40 the number forty and that’ll sign you up for a five day email sequence which outlines everything I did there and then the first action you can take from that is going to be finding that low hanging fruit, whether it’s your social media audience or maybe an email list you already have or something like that and basically taking the next step to bring them into your world and to basically make them raise a hand to say YES I want to hear more from you and I think the most powerful way to do that is to get someone on your email list if you’re not already.

So I would say, yeah just going out to your low hanging fruit and just putting something out there and say, “Hey I want to help people do X. Y. Z. who’s interested?” And just see what comes back.

Suz: Absolutely! So everyone can go find that in the show notes we’ll have a link to that as well and I definitely concur there – go take action and do that do a great service to yourself and again, Jordan, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us this week and I look forward to hearing more and watching more of your great success in the future.

Jordan: Thank you so much thanks for having me.

Suz: Take care.

Jordnan: Bye

So what do you think? Has he inspired you to FINALLY give up thinking that if you want more money you’ve GOT to burn the candles at both ends?

Can we FINALLY agree to ease up a bit and focus on getting super clear on what it is we have to offer our audiences so that selling it doesn’t feel so difficult?

Are you curious about creating a video course? Or maybe writing a book? What’s something that people are always asking you? What advice do you always find yourself giving?

I’d LOVE to know, even if you aren’t looking to create an income stream from it {just yet} I’d love to know what your zone of expertise is in!

Head on over to the show notes page, www.therockstaradvocate.com/ep76 and leave a comment letting me know what YOUR expertise is in. Declare it and let’s celebrate it! Who knows? You may be sitting on your next big income stream and it may be easier to create & build than you think!

Also on the show notes page are the links to everything Jordan mentioned and be sure to go subscribe to his podcast: https://jval.me/podcast and access his Free 40-Day Launch Case Study: https://jval.me/40.

Finally, as we near the end of January, if you have a copy of the 2020 Rock/Star Life Planner, I’d love to know what you think of it! Head on over to Amazon and leave a rating/review, send me a snapshot of it and I’ll send you a discount code for 20% off any product or service I offer!

If you need the link to the Planner on Amazon, head on over to the show notes page where you can find everything from today’s episode 🙂

Thanks so much for tuning in and stay tuned for next week to hear from our final guest expert, and I saved one of your favorites for last – Rick Barker. I know he needs no introduction for many of you, but if you happen to not be familiar he once managed Taylor Swift and has consulted contestants on American Idol and more with his expertise on social media and building an engaged audience around your music.

Check back in next Wednesday for our conversation around fan engagement and why too many musicians feel entitled to have a career in this business. Yea… we call out some bad behavior on this one! You don’t wan to miss it.

Until next time, Rock/Star! Have a wonderful week and I hope to see you back here next week so we can get grounded to get rising! Take care.

Key Highlights

• Jordan’s journey from professional mixer to entrepreneur coach
• What it was like to learn new skill sets outside of the music industry
• Why his niche is so important
• What is low hanging fruit
• What trips many of his students up when launching a course
• The lesson he’d go back and tell his younger self
• The super power he’d like to have
• 3 musicians Jordan would invite to dinner
• His actionable for YOU this week: Find Your Low Hanging Fruit!
  • Download his 40-Day Course Study here
  • Decide who the low hanging fruit are for you
  • Reach out to them and let them know what you can offer!

Links/Rocksources

• Theme music brought to you by DC-based Indie/Pop band Sub-Radio
• More podcast episodes can be found here
• You can download a copy of the episode’s transcript here
• Launch, by Jeff Walker
• The Smart Passive Income Podcast
• Download Jordan’s Online Business ScoreCard here
• Subscribe to Jordan’s podcast You & Your Business here
• Access Jordan’s Free 40-Day Launch Case Study: https://jval.me/40

Get Your 2020 Plan On!

Thanks for listening!

If you liked what you heard, help get this podcast in front of others by subscribing, rating, and leaving a review using your favorite podcast app 😉

Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | RSS Feed

Subscribe on iTunes

Download Episode Transcript