A Skill Isn't a Business

This was my first ever Instagram Live, recorded from the car on a long drive through the desert, with my topics sketched on the back of a UPS receipt. Most mixers don't actually have a mixing business. They have a skill that gets paid when work randomly shows up. So I went through what comes up most when I talk with engineers: why you feel stuck, what your rate should be, outreach, identity, consistency, and the thing nobody wants to talk about that ends up changing people the most, which is mindset.

Key Moments

"You're not going to succeed if you're not learning."

"Just being there is not consistency."

"That's actually the thing that will outcompete everyone else. Because no one wants to do that."

"You don't want to live in a frame of a house, right? But you're building the frame of the house."

"Who can you not fake it around? And where would you light up the most?"

"The honesty is what's going to bring you to the next tier."

Why You're Stuck

There's no single answer, but a few patterns keep coming up. The first is that the business isn't learning anything. I've spoken to people who've been at this for 20, 30, 40 years and are proud to tell me so. Then I ask how their business works, why their customers come back, what those customers want, and often they don't really know. A business needs a research side. Go into whatever you're doing knowing what you're trying to learn, and be careful what you call a fact. One DM doesn't teach you much, whether it goes well or terribly.

The second is where people think they should be. One year in and not far enough along. Twenty years in and deserving more. It's all projection toward somewhere else, instead of accepting where you are. Then there's jadedness, as if a long career earned you the right to it. I'd hope the people who've made it in this industry are the most optimistic and the most artist-supporting. Getting to do this work is a gift.

The third is systems. A lot of people have nothing in place to support what they say they want, and consistency is what everything runs on.

Your Rate Should Be Rooted In Your Reality

"What should my rate be?" already starts in the wrong place. It assumes there's one rate and one answer, and that everything gets solved once you have it. Your rate has to come from your actual reality, starting with what you need to survive right now and working up to an ideal. I look at four different numbers.

A lot of people tell me their goal is $10,000 a month when they haven't consistently made $2,000. That's a fine thing to want eventually. Show me you can hit the smaller goal for six months to a year, and then we can talk about the next stage. There's no shame in a part-time job that bridges the gap, in music or not. And sometimes the answer isn't charging more. Sometimes you need to stop spending to stabilize things, because you might not need the next plugin somebody told you about. Once you add in taxes and slow periods, the real number is usually bigger than you wanted it to be. It's still your actual reality.

Clients Aren't Fish

I hate the term "get clients." It makes people sound like little fish you're capturing in a net. It sounds frantic, and it starts outreach off on the wrong foot. If you've been in a long-term relationship, you know a connection doesn't happen all at once. It gets stronger over time, and your clients are no different.

Outreach has a beginning, a middle and an end, and the end isn't always a sale. It's understanding whether what you can offer is something they want. That could be a mix. It could also be "I'll follow up with you in six months," going to their show, or inviting them to a party. All of those count.

People always want me to hand them the opening message, and I never really want to. It's your business, not mine. I want you to take on the identity of its owner and figure out who you're after and what makes them want to keep talking.

The Studio Can Wait

Someone wrote in during the Live to say they'd left the studio they built last year for a place at one-eighth the price, because the cost was draining them. I respect that more than a lot of the choices I see. I've lived in some terrible places to pursue this: holes in the bathroom walls, leaks in the ceiling, barely room for a bed and a desk. I wasn't planning to stay. I knew where I was going, and I didn't want to come out of it deep in debt just to look cool to everyone else.

Money is a massive resource when you use it properly. I see people spending it on monitors, plugins and gear to look like someone they admire, with no way of getting clients. It's like going on a date and making up everything about yourself.

Homework Is The Frame Of The House

The clients who do best are the ones who actually want to learn, not the ones who want to hear it so they can feel like they've learned something. I'll assign homework that usually takes about an hour, and some people come back having spent five, or with double what I asked for. That's the difference.

It can be boring, and I won't pretend it isn't. You want to live in a house, not in the frame of one. But you're building the frame, and you won't be living in it forever. Get the foundation right and you have a sturdy house. Rush into something that only looks like a house and it's a tent that blows away.

Identity Is Not Your Website

Branding, marketing, identity, website. All these words get thrown around in a chaotic mix, and most of the time I don't think anyone knows what they're talking about. When someone tells me their business is struggling and they're working on their website, I see the same thing as scrolling your phone to avoid something stressful.

Identity is how you want to be known and how you want to show up in the world. It's not re-skinning your avatar to look like a mixer you admire, which I've seen happen more than once. It's your gifts, your history, your network, the records you actually love and lose yourself in. Once you know that, you can aim. Without an aim it's a blast radius: you take whatever your name hits, then complain about the work you got. And "pop" isn't an aim. That's a bucket of things that are successful.

I once worked on this with a really well-known mastering engineer over two or three days. Partway through they took a call with someone on the label side, came back and said it was the best phone call they'd ever had in business, because they felt so clear about what they do, who they do it for and why. That's what identity is for. To me, success is hitting your financial goals, having a repeatable business and waking up unstressed about running it.

Consistency Is Everything

If I kept stopping on a six-hour drive, six hours would turn into seven, and eventually I'd miss what I was driving to. I see people stop for a year or two, then tell me they want to be the biggest mixer in the world. I know some of the biggest mixers in the world. They didn't stop. Everyone hits a wall, and everyone gets doubted. The difference is who keeps moving regardless.

Showing up to your studio and thinking about mixing isn't consistency. Neither is watching other people talk about their work all day. When a task is arduous and boring and feels like it's melting my brain, that's usually the one I need to be doing. And schedule your breaks. See nature, be with the people you love, play the guitar that got you into this. You need something to be consistent for.

Mindset Is What Makes Any Of It Last

When I used to start my program with mindset work, almost nobody wanted to do it. The people who sank into it had the most productive sessions overall. I've cried trying to build this, looking at my bank account, feeling doubt from family and friends. I know it's hard. Taking an honest look at how you doubt yourself, or how you react when a client sends notes, is the hardest look you'll take and the most essential.

I'm not a therapist. I've gone to therapy my whole life, I respect it deeply, and I've found this work is most effective alongside it. But mindset is what keeps you a people-pleaser, makes you ashamed to reach out, has you borrowing someone else's identity, and keeps you inconsistent. Everything else on this list is great, and none of it lasts without that. I watched the viewer count drop while I was talking about this. The people who stay with that discomfort are the ones I'd bet on.

Also In This One

• What a diner's comment card can teach you about asking customers questions
• The pendulum swing from total chaos to measuring everything
• Why I host parties, and why I don't talk much business at them
• Why a client who hires you because your studio looks cool may not be a great client
• Teaching someone to fish instead of fishing for them
• Writing down what's in the way of where you want to be

Watch If...

• You feel stuck and can't say why
• You've ever asked "what should my rate be?"
• You're working on your website instead of your business
• You keep starting and stopping
• Your studio costs more than it brings in
• You skip the mindset chapter of everything

This one was recorded on my phone from the driver's seat, so forgive the audio. The full session is on Instagram.