Welcome to another episode of Spark & Ignite Your Marketing, the podcast exploring the innovative intersections of creativity, entrepreneurship, and marketing. In this episode, we are thrilled to feature Frank McGlynn, a pioneering mobile dueling piano show entrepreneur. Frank has ingeniously combined his passion for music with savvy business acumen to create a unique and successful entertainment venture.
Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Entertainment
Frank discusses the intricacies of blending musical talent with entrepreneurship. He delves into his decision to step away from traditional career paths and how he orchestrated a business that brings a fresh twist to live entertainment. His story is a compelling narrative of turning a personal passion into a profitable venture, emphasizing the importance of innovation and adaptability in today’s business world.
Innovative Entertainment Marketing Podcast Episode
Marketing plays a crucial role in the success of any business, and Frank’s venture is no exception. He shares effective marketing tactics that have helped promote his mobile dueling piano shows. Key strategies include leveraging social media platforms, video marketing, and the importance of a strong online presence. Frank provides actionable advice for small business owners on utilizing these tools to capture and engage their target audience.
A Personal Touch: Networking and Building Relationships
Frank emphasizes the importance of networking and personal connections in building and sustaining a business. He talks about his approach to forming lasting relationships with clients and collaborators, which has been instrumental in his success. This personal touch and professionalism have enabled him to create memorable experiences that lead to repeat business and referrals.
Frank’s Favorite Book:
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
Follow Frank McGlyyn:
Mobile Dueling Pianos Shows
Facebook
Instagram
Watch on YouTube!
Transcript:
Beverly: 0:42
Welcome back to another episode of Spark and Ignite Your Marketing, where we dive deep into the heart of creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and groundbreaking marketing strategies. I’m your host, Beverly, and today we’re tuned into the fascinating story of Frank McGlynn, a maestro in the unique and vibrant world of mobile dueling piano shows. Before we dive into Frank’s harmonious blend of entrepreneurship and musical talent, here’s a striking chord for all our small business owners tuning in. Did you know that the event industry, including live entertainment, has been expected to grow by 11. 2 percent annually From 2021 to 2028, this growth trajectory highlights the increasing demand for unique and immersive experiences, a niche that Frank has masterfully tapped into with his mobile dueling piano shows. Frank has composed a life and career harmonizing his passions with business acumen. His journey through music education from piano lessons to mastering the saxophone and percussion set the stage for a career that transcends traditional music paths, opting out of university to immerse himself in the piano bar scene. Frank eventually orchestrated his business in 2014, bringing a fresh dynamic twist to live entertainment. So get ready to be inspired by Frank’s journey from a music enthusiast. to a maestro of entrepreneurial success as he shares his insights on building a unique business, marketing in the entertainment industry, and creating unforgettable experiences for your audience. Welcome, Frank.
Frank: 2:09
Hello. How are you?
Beverly: 2:12
I’m good for full disclosure, I’m going to share that you are my husband’s cousin. And I’ve known you since about 2012, right? Right after that is when you started your piano business, which is very cool.
Frank: 2:27
Yeah. I wasn’t booking other entertainers or accepting jobs like as a company. I was mostly just like a freelancer up until 2014.
Beverly: 2:36
Okay. So let’s dive in and see where your sparks were and the unique opportunities that you had. Share a little bit about your journey into entrepreneurship and like how it all began for you.
Frank: 2:47
It began out of necessity. I was a full time piano entertainer working many different avenues, like in a bar on a cruise ship doing weddings also country clubs, golf clubs, outdoor patios, like everything, people were always asking me for cards and, for booking information. And a lot of times I didn’t have anything, I didn’t have a website, a card. I didn’t have a whole lot of videos and I got tired of paying booking agents or other musicians in order to get gigs, to give them part of the part of whatever, even when they’re not there. If I, if somebody wanted to book me a lot of times I had to go through somebody else or something. It just became like a thing, like I needed to start doing it on my own.
Beverly: 3:26
Tell us more about what you actually do and then what drives your passion for that business.
Frank: 3:32
I’m a full time piano entertainer. I work primarily in the dealing piano industry, which is it’s like, where there’s 2 pianos that face each other and people in the crowd give requests to the piano players for songs and then also for, for birthdays and bachelorette parties, like whatever. And then what I do now especially is like a private party version of that. I do a lot of weddings, country clubs, backyard parties. Just about anybody that wants to do piano entertainment I’m your guy.
Beverly: 4:00
You do a lot of corporate events too for businesses who want to have a Christmas party and things like that too.
Frank: 4:05
Yeah, and it comes with the seasons, like in Christmas time, you have a lot of Christmas parties, New Year’s Eve summertime, we do a lot of weddings. In the fall, we do a lot of fundraisers in the spring, a lot of graduation parties. It’s a, it’s a niche market, but there’s work like all year round. And more in the summertime cause there’s outdoor gigs, but it’s pretty steady all the way through.
Beverly: 4:26
How did your passion for music even began? Like when did it start? How did it start? Was there a person or a specific spark that was like, I love this. I have to do this.
Frank: 4:36
When I was little, for when I turn 10, my parents asked me for what I want for my birthday. I asked for a piano, which totally threw them for a loop because neither of my brothers really had any interest in doing anything like that. We got a used piano from somebody my mom worked with and I started taking lessons. And then once I got to middle school, I started saxophone, percussion and then, once I got to college, I was going for computer science, but I was still playing 3 or 4 nights a week. I was playing saxophone in a band and then, I don’t know. Everyone tells me that you can’t really do music for a living, but you can, you just have to find the right avenue to, to focus on and then once you do. As long as you as long as you have drive there’s tons of work.
Beverly: 5:16
So didn’t you even meet your wife because of your work? Cause you were traveling.
Frank: 5:21
Yeah. Yeah. In in 2007, I went to the Netherlands. I accepted a contract for one year. And then I met Britta while I was there about halfway through my first contract. And then I extended my contract for another year after that first year was over, so I was in the Netherlands for about two years and I met Britta while I was there.
Beverly: 5:38
That’s so cool that you, through your work, you were able to travel and meet your wife. With your work with your work, what are some of the key lessons do you think you’ve learned about life and business through,’cause you’ve met so many people and been so many places and I gotta believe, like what are the lessons that have come from all that?
Frank: 5:58
Networking is everything, like every person you meet is a, it’s like a mini audition in a way, whether it’s a musician or a club owner or some somebody that wants to hire you for their backyard party you’re always, you’re always auditioning for everybody and in the back of your mind. And I, I learned, whatever it is that you do, just do it really, do really well and do it so that. People want to have you back or they call you again
Beverly: 6:21
You have to be so talented because you have to be like an emcee. You have to know so many songs to be a dueling piano person, right? You have to be able to get the crowd going. You have a partner you’re working with and playing off of, and sometimes you even have a drummer or somebody else with you. I feel like it’s such a there’s so many variables and what you do, how do you pull it all together? What’s the magic in that?
Frank: 6:47
That’s a big challenge of it too is, when people want to hire you, you have to make sure that all the other musicians are available on a date that they want to have. For example, that’s like a a trick. It was like coordinating with other musicians schedules. Then the price has got to be right too. If, somebody calls you and they want something and they say this is how much I can afford. Then that also, that either limits me or that, that lets me know okay, I can’t. I can’t fly somebody in from Las Vegas, for example, if they’re just hiring me for a backyard party, if it’s a wedding and it’s extravagant and they want the best of the best, then I have the freedom, to choose different, a different pool of talent kind of thing.
Beverly: 7:24
You have to be like a master of everything I feel like in your business and most other small business owners feel that it’s just not so apparent in what they do. So how did you build on those skills? What were some of the experiences that you had that kind of built on all of those skills?
Frank: 7:42
It comes down to mostly is if you want to fill your calendar, and you want gigs, you want to make money, then you just, you quickly have to learn how to adapt to whatever the situation is. And at the time in college, I was playing in a band. I was playing saxophone. I wasn’t a singer. I was just like the sax player in the band. And one of the guys from the band went to the piano bar in town and then he came back and he’s like man You should check this out. You’ll love it at the time I was underage I couldn’t really go so I had to go to the manager of the place and he put big x’s on my hands and I went in and I watched and after the first night I was like, holy smokes This is amazing because I saw them stuffing all this money in the jar. Just every five minutes, you know There’s a 10 20 50 bucks going in the jar And I just said to myself is this, is this real? Are people, somebody’s going to stop these guys from what they’re doing, right? And nobody did. And everybody was entertained. And I guess from that moment, that’s, I made like a big shift from I want to play saxophone for the rest of my life. I want to play piano, and. A lot of the songs that they were doing I knew them already, just from listening to the radio and eighties rock and that kind of thing. And so it was just a matter of, I had to learn how to play them and then how to deliver them. That was my biggest challenge. Like my first two years, I didn’t really know how to be a host or like somebody on stage that talks to the crowd, about anything, I was always in the background. And the first two years of just literally just watching other entertainers do what they do, and they recommended like, Hey, watch sketch comedy, watch standup comedy, and. Try to emulate what they do, yeah, that’s how I got to where I am now and learning the other instruments was just out of necessity Like I already knew piano and percussion. I had to learn a little bass and guitar I knew saxophone so that and then it was just a matter of I’m also really ADD, so this gig was a way to do all those things and still get paid for it.
Beverly: 9:30
Use what you’ve been given to make it a business. That’s the brilliance of being an entrepreneur is you do something really well, or something’s really comfortable for you that you do it. But it also means you have to sometimes step out of your comfort zone and you learn new things and become, a Something you didn’t expect you were gonna become like a host and that’s something yeah I’ve been to a couple of your shows and that’s what’s so fun I think is the interaction and the play off of each other and it just is really entertaining and super fun And it’s very experiential where everyone’s singing and it’s really joyful I think it’s a really fun time when you go to a show like yours. And you are creating this experience, whether it’s at a wedding or if it’s at an event, you’re creating a feeling, which is hard, I think, as a business owner, but the most important part of it. So you have a very lasting impression, which is awesome. People do take videos and they, it’s very shareable content, which is super fun from a marketing perspective. I’ve watched you evolve over the years and it’s very cool. Like it’s, you’ve gotten quite the library now, which is good. I think what you do is such a you have to see you in action to sell it. I think.
Frank: 10:39
When I think about it too, I’m in hundreds of people’s wedding photos and wedding videos, like from the last 10, 15 years, especially, so many people’s wedding videos. It’s really funny.
Beverly: 10:51
What has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome and what helped you get past it? What’s been the biggest challenge with your business?
Frank: 10:57
Biggest challenge from the business standpoint is just just getting your name out there and separating your name from everybody else’s name. In my industry, there’s probably like 10 dealing piano companies in Michigan, you know in Orlando There’s 30 in a vegas. There’s there’s they’re literally like every time it has a dealing piano bar usually the players from that town, form some kind of business and then Because there’s so much call for outside gigs and all that my biggest challenge has been separating myself from some of the other companies and it’s hard because there’s some bigger companies that are Really big, that do what I do, but they also charge a huge price tag my, my way of overcoming that is, has been able to deliver what it is. I deliver the same thing as some of the bigger box stores at a cheaper price with better talent. It’s been like my strategy and then, all the behind the scene stuff that people don’t see, like making a website or making the videos or typing out contracts, answering emails. Meeting with clients, checking out venues, a lot of times, a bride wants you to go see the venue before the wedding day, to make sure everything’s going to coordinate correctly or whatever. There’s, I guess the biggest challenge is all the behind the scenes stuff that people don’t see. They come and they see the show and they see me happy and excited and fun and all that stuff, but There’s everything that led up to getting to that point where the people come to see me that’s the hard part.
Beverly: 13:27
There’s so much when you have a business that goes on behind the scenes the operations the financials the hiring the i’m sure there’s like auditions and all kinds of stuff there’s just so much you have to put into it. I know based on And if you don’t want to talk about it, it’s perfectly okay because we’re all traumatized by it. But I know COVID hit entertainers really hard. How did you how did you like work through that and get through that as somebody who does live events with lots of people in very close proximity to each other?
Frank: 13:58
Yeah. Actually when COVID hit I had one week at the, at the second or third week of April, where I had 13 weddings cancel all in the same week, which was like unheard of in my industry because nobody ever cancels their wedding. That, that was hard, cause you have to give everybody their deposit back all at the same time. You know what I mean? It’s 1 thing to give a deposit back for 1 event or something, but when you have that many all at the same time that became like completely monotonous. And that, that summer, I think I played maybe two gigs that summer and that’s coming off of a normally in a year I do, 200 plus shows a year and I think that year I did maybe 7 shows or something. I did some online streaming stuff, a lot of my friends did that, but there’s not really a lot of money in that, especially since, there’s really no events going on. Nobody’s going to stream your. Your your show. So I, I had a, maybe a six month point in there where I worked at Lowe’s actually. It was like I, I needed a job. And I mostly out of boredom. I was doing as much as I could do, and I had the kids at home all the time, obviously. But yeah, reach a point. I was like, okay, I need to work doing something. And my dad’s a plumbing and heating contractor. So I knew enough about that to get a job at Lowe’s. I was there for 6 months during the pandemic, but then, at the end of the pandemic, when stuff started to open up, I got a call to play in Florida and it was a lot of money and I, I just went to my boss at Lowe’s. I was like, listen I’m going to switch back to my other job. And they’re like, they looked at me like I was crazy, but I was like, see you later. So I had a great time working there. It was, they treated me really well and I made decent money and the people that I worked with were awesome. And some of them still come out to see my shows and stuff too. So that’s cool. But yeah, COVID was super hard for everybody in my industry. Especially people that, a lot of my colleagues work on cruises and there was no cruises for 18 months. Which is like unheard of because for us cruise ships are like the retirement gig in a way It’s like when once you’re like at an age where you can’t really get land gigs or bar gigs Then you can go out on the cruise and make money. Still but yeah, so coed was like complete Wipe out of my industry for a period of time. There’s there’s nothing no theater gigs
Beverly: 16:06
What was it that brought it brought the business back to life? Because once you’re like, I feel like you’re like, stop, you have all that momentum like you have to start over again, almost from scratch. Did you have to do that? Did you have to start from scratch and rebuild your business again, almost as if it was new.
Frank: 16:21
In some ways it was, a lot of people when things start to open up, I started getting a lot of calls from people that like, hey, we had this book 2 years ago. Can we book again there’s a gray area of 6 months where people would book something and then they would cancel it. Because during COVID, anybody could cancel anything and there was like no repercussions for it, so that was really hard because there’s nothing I could do really, people would just cancel and be like COVID, and it’s okay, but we’re coming out of that now, now it’s mid 2022, but the business back up I just went back to like my roots, which was calling everybody. I know that as a musician, that’s hey. I’m available. These are the dates I have open and you just piece together a schedule, and then it’s backfills itself. It’s hard to explain. It’s I’ll take a gig 6 months from now and that might be the only one on my calendar. But then stuff will come in between now and then, and sometimes it comes in months in advance and sometimes it comes in 2 days in advance. If I’m on call for a club, for example, like there’s a club here in Royal Oak, they’ll call me any random day that somebody gets sick and say hey, can you be here at 7, that’s, slowly from having, no gigs during coven to the end of 2022 I was pretty much back to tour. I was before Covid. And then a rock star 2023. So that was. Then I got the feeling like everything’s back to normal in terms of the entertainment industry anyway.
Beverly: 17:42
So what do you think was the spark? that Besides the piano, obviously mom and dad getting you the piano that just made you change your mind that you wanted to be your own business owner. Was there like that moment? Cause you said you watched everything, you were behind the scenes. Everyone was taking the money and you were like, wait, was there one moment? Was there like a true spark of I’m done tomorrow. I’m starting my business. This is it.
Frank: 18:06
Not necessarily one moment. About, about for the year leading up to my me starting my own business. My, my mom was really sick, she had early onset dementia and all that kind of thing. And the company that I was working for was based in Rochester. But he’s like a nationwide. Booking company, like he’s doing piano company, but he books nationwide. So a lot of times I was going to Iowa or Minnesota or St. Louis. From Michigan,
Beverly: 18:34
I remember. You were always traveling. Like anytime we came home, you were gone.
Frank: 18:38
So it was like I was making great money, but I was, I spent like 150 days on the road or something, and when my mom got really sick, I turned to that guy and was like, I need to stay home. And he’s then I don’t have any gigs for you. And so I was I guess I’m just going to book my own shows. I already had all the equipment because I had been doing these shows for other companies. So I had the pianos and the sound system and the lights and all that thing. All I didn’t have was a really was a website and some promo video. So that was just a matter of filming that really quick. And then, making everything up in a, putting everything up in a hurry and then, it’s not like gigs just roll in it takes a while before people find you or before people we’ll book, we’ll even book you because there’s all these other companies online, it’s like anything when you go to buy something, like you’re trying to find the cheapest price or the, the best quality product for the cheapest price. But at that point, I knew it was like, all right, I don’t want to work for any, I don’t want to depend on anybody else for my income, I’ll take gigs from other people, but I need to be, I need to be in control of it so that if some, if somebody is sick or if I want to go to somebody’s graduation party, whatever, I can schedule that myself and not have to feel bad about it When you’re, when you work as music all the time, like you’re working the schedule that everybody else is off. I work every Friday, Saturday, and then, people that work Monday through Friday, they’re off on Friday and Saturday. So stuff comes up, people say hey, I want you to, we come to so and so’s graduation party or so and so’s going to get married or funeral or whatever. That, that’s part of it too. It’s like my mom, passed away that year and it was like, I. I didn’t want to have to be at the liberty of somebody else to be like, I need to go to my mom’s funeral. I can’t go to this gig or whatever, I needed to be able to take that situation. Cause it’s not like a normal job where you get, PTO or any days and depending on the gig you can’t just cancel the gig. You have to find somebody to fill in for you. that’s that out of necessity, and I still deal with those same sort of. Issues, but at least it’s my company. And so I can make the final call as opposed to somebody else delegating like, this is what you got to do.
Beverly: 20:35
You have a little bit more control and all of that, as much as entrepreneurs can, we have a little bit more control over what happens and even like our reputation out of that what does that look like? Which is super important as a small business owner.
Frank: 20:48
Yeah.
Beverly: 20:48
I’m assuming there’s like trends in this. Do you see, maybe it’s with the music, maybe it’s with the style, maybe it’s a type of events. What are the trends that you’re seeing in your industry right now? What is happening in the dueling piano world?
Frank: 21:02
For the last 6 months everything Taylor Swift pretty much has been, like, the thing that everybody requests all the time just because, she’s in the news a lot and the Super Bowl that’s 1 thing that’s. She’s ever since she came out, there’s always been like, one or two Taylor songs that come up, but literally in the last six months, it’s just like everywhere you go is like Taylor Swift,
Beverly: 21:20
you have all of her catalog entirely to be able to play.
Frank: 21:24
Not all of it, but I can deliver quite a few Taylor Swift songs at this point in my
21:28
life.
Frank: 21:28
Other trends. I started in 2003. So back then there was no there’s no iPads or iPhones or all that stuff. So you had to memorize literally everything. And you weren’t allowed to have books on stage. Now 2024. The trend started right around 2010 11 that people started bringing iPads. I’m like, Oh, I can look up the lyrics for this song. And now It’s become like a thing that everybody does all the time nice. That’s a trend, I do it a little bit, I try not, there’s some people are a little bit robotic and they only look up the words every time and then they miss the interactive part.
Beverly: 21:59
Any other what’s the most popular? What’s the song that you get requested the most? If you can, I know there’s a lot of like classics like piano man and some of that stuff that are like super classics, but. I’m thinking like of all the ones that I’ve heard.
Frank: 22:11
Don’t stop believing comes up all the time, piano man. Anything from Elton John, Benny and the jets or anytime a movie comes out and there’s a song in a movie and the movie is really popular, then that song suddenly becomes popular again.
Beverly: 22:23
Interesting. That is a trend for sure.
Frank: 22:26
Yeah, so a good example is I’m still standing from Elton John was already a big song. But then it was in the movie sing. And so that, that comes now I have a whole new generation of people that are requesting that song that wouldn’t have known it otherwise. Another example a great example of the song tiny dancer from Elton John was never really a big hit when he released it in the seventies, but then it was in the movie almost famous, which was like a movie right around like 97, 98, which is before I got into doing pianos. But when I started the gig, I noticed that this song would come up all the time and I couldn’t figure out why I’m like, why do people want to hear this? Like, how do they know it? And everyone, every musician that. Had been doing the gig before me. You said Oh, the movie almost famous. Cause it’s in that movie and the one scene. And then I watched the movie and now I understand why everybody wants to hear it all the time.
Beverly: 23:10
So what advice would you give other people looking to get into this industry, specifically how to get started or what are some best practices? What are some things you would tell them if they want to get into this industry and be successful?
Frank: 23:24
I would say specifically the music industry. If you want to focus on the mobile, the dueling piano side of it, you can, but I think this industry is very unique. And like you said, a lot of people think that you can’t make a living doing music. So if somebody is really passionate and wants to, what is some of your advice for them? Just keep. Doing it, keep going after it. Everybody, especially in the beginning is going to tell you, no, and they’re going to tell you that you can’t do it. And they’re going to tell you that they can’t afford you or whatever the situation is, there’s going to be like a huge wave of negativity and discouragement that says you can’t do this. Like you’re not famous. You’re not an American Idol. And that’s part of the issue is, people recognize American Idol and they recognize music videos and they say oh, the only success that you can have is to become that. If you’re, if you want to be a musician and you want to make money, the only way to do it is to become famous. And that’s a fallacy, there’s every touring artist that you know has a bunch of people in his band that you’ve never heard of before and Those are the people that I work with on a regular basis if that makes any sense guitar players drummers for example, Bruno Mars the musical director for Bruno Mars is a dueling piano player from Michigan. But he’s making, he’s literally been to all the continents. He’s been in Tokyo, Australia, North America, South America. He’s just been everywhere and you can bump into him at Walmart and you wouldn’t even know it. And that’s the reality is if you can swallow the pill of, all right, I’m really good, but I’m never going to get famous. But who cares I can still make money doing this then that’s really what you have to focus on you have to focus on the fact that Maybe I’m gonna play on a cruise ship for the rest of my life or maybe I’m gonna play in a theater or maybe I’m gonna back up some musician or maybe I’m gonna work in dueling pianos. Maybe I’m gonna work at Disney World There’s tons of work at Disney for every kind of music
Beverly: 25:22
interesting fact about me, Frank, as I tried out to be a dancer for Disney World.
25:27
Alright,
Frank: 25:28
okay. Okay, cool.
Beverly: 25:30
Interesting, unknown fact about Beverly, yes? I went to Eastern Michigan for an audition. I actually chipped out. It’s one of my big regrets. But, There’s a lot. If you’re in the creative space, a lot of opportunity at Disney for people to get their feet wet and get great experience with a company that does a lot. They have a system like you want a system that the Disney way is a definite system.
Frank: 25:54
It’s a, it really is a niche. being a musician, I guess
Beverly: 26:02
but there’s so many diffe you can do a lot that I don’t think people opportunity for you in th know, my husband and I me So there’s the whole other side of that too, right? So you think of, obviously him and I are not famous. We wouldn’t even be close to that, but that is an avenue you can continue. People go to college for that and they do stage production and all kinds of things. It’s still related to music, but it’s just not. Famous, like you said, like it’s, there’s a lot of opportunity.
Frank: 26:34
Yeah there’s a lot of opportunity and a lot of parents really discourage children. A lot of parents force their kids to take music lessons when they’re little and then they get older and then they say but don’t do anything with it. You know what I mean? And that bothers me. It bothers me. The other day, like I posted about Jason Kelce, thank his band director, Music in schools, I think is really important and the skills and the, the things that you learn in band can be applied to so many other avenues,
Beverly: 26:59
music is so powerful. Like for me personally, my dad played guitar growing up and like literally it’s the soundtrack of my youth. Like I associate his singing and songs as part of my childhood. And he was in a Beatles cover band and he was Paul. And he would play Beatles music all the time. So when I hear a Beatles song, I can directly relate it back to my father. And it’s a very strong, very positive memory for me. And that guitar actually means so much to me that it’s that’s the essence of the soul of my dad. It’s just a very cool thing. Music is just very pop very powerful. And I love that you’ve been able to do that for a living because we need more art like that being created.
Frank: 27:45
The drug for me is that’s awesome. You know what I mean? Like I gave this person this feeling and, and turns into more business. I know it sounds a little bit it’s, if you deliver if you deliver a feeling, or you give somebody a vibe, the cash register starts ringing, and by default, it’s not like I’m trying to whatever, I just want people to have a good time. And then if you do that. Everything else falls in place.
Beverly: 28:08
I think that’s one thing with being an entertainer or a performer. It is an exchange of energy between the audience and you, it’s never like one sided if it’s done well, but this phrase, Frank, I am in the business of nostalgia. I love this from a marketing perspective. I’m just letting you know that I am like my, all the dings went off in my head. Yeah, super powerful. And. We connect music to times in our life, whether it’s a song that was popular when we were a senior in high school, or we first fell in love, or the song that we first danced to with our husbands at our weddings, or whatever it is, there’s a very strong memory connection to music. I work with a candle store, and we also say Smells like if you smell something, it can take you right back to a person or a place. It’s a very strong, vivid memory attachment to it. And this idea of the experience of nostalgia, I just, I’m like digging it, Frank. Okay. I get like leeways right into my marketing questions that I have. So how, what has been some of the most effective marketing tactics and approaches you’ve used to show exactly what you do and how people feel when they come to a show like yours?
Frank: 29:24
In terms of marketing, a big part of it, like you helped me about indexing my site. That was like, That’s something that I think a lot of people don’t even realize. And funny story. I think you went through the same thing with Amy and Amy didn’t get it until she called me and I tried to explain to her, I’m like, you gotta, you have to do this in order to get found on Google, it’s a thing that people don’t realize that everyone just makes a website and they’re like, okay, I need traffic to my website, but they don’t realize like you have to drive your own traffic to your website, so that’s been a big one. Facebook I never really bought into the facebook marketing thing, but you know in the last maybe two three years I started doing it a little bit, where you pay 20 bucks. You can hit 5 000 people or something can really Pick your demographic that’s that’s been good. Instagram Is also really hot that seems to be the one that The clients that hire me seems to be their platform of choice that they find me on, which I don’t really do a lot of Instagram, but I do a lot of posts where I post something on Facebook and it automatically posts to Instagram as well.
Beverly: 30:22
You do a lot of videos and I think that kind of idea Of showing people what a show typically looks like. Cause if you say, okay, so there’s gonna be two pianos. There’s gonna be two guys are going to talk. This is what’s going to happen. They’re going to play some music. It’s by request. That doesn’t sound very exciting. If you just lay it out, it’s a whole nother level, right? The power of video is so important for what you do.
Frank: 30:48
Yep. Yeah. And it’s capturing that, capturing the things that happen in the moment. It’s I have tons of video, but if I could, if there’s so many moments that it’s like, God, if I had this moment on video that would sell the whole thing on its own. So that’s one of the biggest challenges is getting good video either by from a client that made a video on the phone or. If I could, a lot of times I hire somebody, but then, you have to pay that person to come to whatever venue or whatever place and even then, maybe that gig, maybe something goes wrong or maybe it’s a stiff crowd or an older crowd and you want to do all these things and they’re not really into it A lot of people that come to me that want to hire me have seen the concept somewhere before, either in a bar or a wedding or something, and every version is different, and I deliver many different versions of it, if that makes any sense. Cause there’s like a band version, which is like with a drummer and a sax player, it’s like the. The comedy version, which is more comedy it’s hard to get a video when I’m selling a show, I have to feel out like, okay, where did you see it before? Or what are you looking for? Are you looking for the funny stuff? Are you looking for the musical stuff? If it’s somebody that’s been to doing pianos many times. They’re easy because they’re like, we want this, yeah. The hard clients are the ones that they saw it somewhere in passing, or they went with a friend to a bar or they went to somebody’s wedding and the wedding they had doing pianos. And and that’s the first time that they saw it. So then they immediately think Oh, this is going to be awesome for my event. But they haven’t really thought about all the things that have to go into making that happen. Most notably, a lot of times people pick out a venue. That doesn’t hold enough people or that’s not conducive to get in the pianos into the venue or whatever the situation is. I tailor the show to whatever, they want at the time.
Beverly: 32:39
Has there been one marketing campaign or something that you’ve done that’s been the most successful for you that’s gotten the most customers?
Frank: 32:48
So on my part of the, part of our show is like requests, right? So all of my requests. That go out like before every show we put out these pieces of paper that say do you want to hear a song? Do you want to celebrate somebody’s birthday? So when you get to the show, those are usually at the tables. And so all of that has my booking information and QR code and stuff on there. People subliminally don’t even realize they’re doing it. Sometimes is there, they’re writing down, they put it in the purse or whatever they. Give it to somebody else or, there’s some, sometimes I have requests that are left over at a bar and somebody finds it and they like, what’s doing pianos, so I think I, my request slips, which are the cheapest part of everything that I spend money on. It probably cost me 10 bucks to print out, a couple hundred, a hundred of them. But they’re everywhere, and everybody in order to request a song, you have to use one. You have the information’s right there in front of your face when you’re doing it.
Beverly: 33:38
Nice. And you’re using QR codes. I think that’s something our listeners, if you haven’t tried that yet, it became very popular during COVID. You can even customize your QR codes with your colors. You can put little images in them. We use a QR code generator that’s pretty Fancy that does all that stuff for our clients. So you can get pretty branded even with a QR code. Yep. To make it easy for people to find you, which is really powerful if you’re in a space like that where where is this guy? I need more information and be able to like, look you up quickly, that’s great. No need to spell anything, no need to like, this is my address, this is none of that. It makes it super easy and seamless.
Frank: 34:16
That’s the hard part is every company has the words dueling Pianos like in their title. So when they’ll come to my show and then they’ll call a different company thinking it’s the same company. So that’s the QR code and that, that, that helps people just go directly to your.
Beverly: 34:31
It gets them right to you, as opposed to having to do any kind of searches and find you. We always talk about marketing like the path of least resistance. Like you don’t want to create any excuse or reason for people to drop off, or to get frustrated. Making it as streamlined as possible and getting them to you is huge. I love that. That’s a great tip. Our next segment is the lightning round. Are you ready to be asked rapid fire questions and share your favorite tools and insights? Awesome. Okay. So what is your favorite way to connect and network?
Frank: 35:05
For me it’s like the organic way with musicians or clients on the gig, like at least 15 or so people come up to me after the show’s over and they want a card or they want to know, like, when are we available? That’s usually my opportune time to say Hey, we’re available on this date. Give me your email address. I can send you a quote or here’s a card, and I, that’s also my opportune time to ask the other musicians that are also there with me if they’re available on the same date. in terms of like social media or something I use Facebook primarily. I know it’s like old school nowadays, it seems the messenger function, like everybody in my industry in terms of musicians, all use Facebook messenger, if they need to connect and we don’t have their number. So that’s best one for me for what I do.
Beverly: 35:49
What is your favorite business or marketing book?
Frank: 35:52
I have a couple of them, but the, I read the intelligent investor from Benjamin Graham. And then another one is called a random walk down wall street from Burt Melchior. These are both and they’re both books about investing, but there’s also like a lot of like life lessons if I apply this to the rest of my life, then I can, apply to business. Or networking or, relation, business relationships in general, if that makes sense.
Beverly: 36:18
So what is your favorite podcast?
Frank: 36:23
That’s a tough one. I do listen to a lot of like investing podcasts. So I listened to the intelligent investor. I listened to a lot of history podcasts. I listened to cause I’m on the road a lot of times. I’m not as on the road as much as I was before, but like I would, I’ll drive five hours. Down to ohio play a gig and then drive home after so a lot of times i’m listening to It’s called real dictators. It’s a history podcast about history and all that stuff
Beverly: 36:48
No, we’re history nerds over here too. What is your favorite business tool or app to
36:53
use?
Frank: 36:55
I mean for my business I have to use the guitar tabs app a lot because it’s the biggest database of chords and lyrics for songs. There’s a fee with it. I think it’s maybe 40 some dollars a year. But you have access to like a hundred thousand tunes. And you can save them, you can share them, you can edit them. So that’s. That’s, for my business and what I do being able to access a song in a hurry is a really kind of important thing. So I use that probably more than anything. And then like in terms of marketing, I’d say probably Facebook. That’s where I do the majority or the Facebook Instagram combination basically.
Beverly: 37:30
What’s your favorite way to refocus or reduce stress?
Frank: 37:33
To refocus every stress. I, I do woodwork in my garage, that’s like my way of shoving the world out for a little while.
Beverly: 37:40
Yeah, it’s one of those things where you, when you’re creating something like that, you can’t think about anything else. You have to be super hyper focused, right? So all those thoughts don’t come running in. I think as entrepreneurs, we are oftentimes very busy thinking about all the things. It’s nice to have something to do that. What’s your favorite marketing tactic? We talked about this, but what’s your favorite one?
Frank: 37:58
Again, the Facebook Instagram blast, if I have a good video or a good, photo and I Have a gig coming up and I want a lot of people to be there. I can like I said, you paid, I can pay 50 100 bucks and hit like 10, 000 people or something. You know what I mean? And you can you can narrow your audience. That’s pretty much again the requests are good for marketing. in a way I’m marketing myself all the time. Every gig, every time I’m shaking a hand, every time I’m meeting somebody new that’s like a, like I said, it’s like an audition. So that’s also like my biggest marketing tactic is just, just being a good person, being friendly, yeah, I don’t know.
Beverly: 38:32
What’s your favorite source of inspiration?
Frank: 38:36
Oh my gosh. From everywhere. Lately it’s from the kids, it’s they want to do things and it’s everything costs money. So it’s I need gigs. Part of my inspiration is just, do I want to do something else? And during COVID, that was like my task for the first time I’ve been, doing the pianos for 18 years, And then COVID hit and then suddenly I had to do something else. And so that’s my inspiration is, the more gigs I have, the less the less I’m driven to, to take another job and not that I wouldn’t work another job, I absolutely would. But I just I want to do this as long as I can because I have the ability and because it is like a rear form of job opportunity or whatever. So I guess that’s my inspiration is like, I can be doing something else. And I, to back up during COVID, I did teach lessons. Like I had maybe 20 students. I worked at like a school of music, which I also liked, but doing what I do now is what I really like. So that’s my inspiration is basically make enough money to not have to do anything else.
39:30
Who’s
Beverly: 39:32
your favorite entrepreneur to follow?
Frank: 39:34
I’ve always been attracted to me. Bill Gates, I guess just mostly because he took something that didn’t exist and brought this like version of it to the world, and then suddenly everybody needed it, or, everybody’s platform other entrepreneurs and I’ve it’s 21 years Now that I’ve been doing it too, which is like really nuts
Beverly: 39:52
you survived the lightning round. That is the end. And everyone’s always so okay, take a deep breath. Two more questions, really. One is what advice now you’ve had 21 years, you’ve, or more of doing this, what advice would you give the young Frank? Who’s just starting knowing what you know now?
Frank: 40:10
Invest your money more. Once, once you reach a point where you’re making enough money, where you can save it, you should really start in investing it as well. Because at the time everybody told me put some money in an IRA or put something in a retirement account. And I didn’t do it for the first 10, 12 years. And I wish I would have, because I have way more money than I do now, because I didn’t really understand what any of that meant at the time. That’s my biggest one is be smart with your money. Whenever you’re starting a business or you’re starting to go out on your own to do something where you don’t have a check coming from a business every two weeks or whatever, if that
40:46
makes sense.
Beverly: 40:47
Yeah, there’s sometimes there’s no money, or sometimes there’s a lot of money. You have to figure it all out. Yes.
Frank: 40:54
And my business is very much like that. There’s, the month of December, I had 23 gigs, which is that’s a lot for one month. But then. February was slow. So I had not as many gigs as I have in previous years for February. So it comes in waves. Like sometimes you make all this money in a short period of time, but then the next month you’re not going to make as much money. So you have to budget yourself. And that’s something I did too. Once I started my own business, I put myself in my own salary so that I pay myself every week and then the rest of the money that I make on a gig gets reinvested into the business. And then I give myself, raises every year, like a percentage wise or whatever.
Beverly: 41:31
Okay. So what’s, I have lots of people who are small business owners now that listen, but also people who are aspiring business owners. What is one easy thing that you could tell a business owner or an aspiring entrepreneur that they could do today? Just, hey, if I was going to start a business today, this is what I would do. What is one easy thing they could do to either improve their business or get their business started rolling?
Frank: 41:57
There’s so many avenues to connect with potential customers and clients or whatever. And I learned this from another guy who’s a doing piano player who also works at a marketing firm just go on Facebook start following all the places that you want to play? If you want to play at this bar, follow their bar and then like their comments and like the things that come across. That’s the easiest way to get your name known because it just comes across people’s feed subliminally, and then they see it and then other than that, for every business is just drive. You just have to keep. Doing it in the face of rejection and in the face of people telling you’re not good enough and people telling you that you can’t do whatever it is that you’re doing there’s always going to be some form of, thumb pushing down and you saying This isn’t going to work and you just have to keep doing it regardless of all of those things. And it still might not work out, but you still have to keep thinking that it will if you, just in your mind, you just keep telling yourself that I can do this despite all of these factors. Eventually it just works., it doesn’t necessarily work that way for everybody, but one way or another, every entrepreneur kept doing something because they believe that they could either add something or start something or create something and they didn’t stop until they created it, and. Sometimes in the face of many failures many failures, and then the 10th time they make a billion dollars or something. And you’re always never plateau like you’re, no matter what skillset you have or whatever job you do, you can always learn something. Even 20 years later, I’m still learning things about the industry that I didn’t know or that I didn’t use or utilize that I can use. Just starting and you never, just realize it’s gonna come with a lot of negative forces that we’re gonna keep you from doing what you’re doing. You just have to keep doing it.
Beverly: 43:50
I think what you said to you about, there’s a couple of things that I think are really valuable is entrepreneurs are really good at overcoming failure, period. Yep. They’re extremely resilient in that. And the other thing is most people who tell you no, it’s not about you, it’s about them. They don’t believe in being an entrepreneur or whatever the case may be. So it’s their beliefs holding them back and don’t want you to succeed because of their beliefs. It’s not usually about you. And if you still push through, despite all of that, you know you’re made of the good stuff to get you here. Like whatever you want to call it, grit or whatever you want to call it. But that is the stuff that makes the entrepreneur and most failures are where I’ve learned the most. I don’t know about you, Frank, but those are the most powerful lessons that I have experienced in my life, career, relationships, the whole thing. That’s where the rubber meets the road and you realize Embrace the failures. I think that is a really powerful thing because you do, you learn the most and marketing. Has changed more in the last decade or two than in the previous 100 years. Innovation is key. I would agree with that. All of those things are very good advice
Frank: 44:59
when I started. And again, this isn’t that long. It was 2003. It’s a long time ago, but, there was no YouTube or Facebook or any of these things. And many of my auditions were done over the phone where, I’m going to play, I’m speaking with the director where he says, okay, put the phone on the music stand and play me three songs. You know what I mean? Whereas like nowadays, if you don’t have a video or you don’t have a website or you don’t have a Facebook page, people won’t even consider you as an option for one of their, for one of their events. So it’s changed. Exponentially, for sure. The place that I started at in Kalamazoo they used to take up a big ad in the yellow pages. You know what I mean? Nobody does that.
Beverly: 45:38
Marketing is so different now. And that’s part of the challenges. I think many entrepreneurs struggle with is how to keep up with the technology across all the areas, like from the accounting side to the marketing side, it can become extremely overwhelming. People who have specialized that can be. A great resource for you. The last thing I really want before we go is to have you share with our listeners where they can learn more about your business and keep up with you. Where can they find you?
Frank: 46:04
Okay. For booking and for information on what it all is is a mobile dueling pianos. com. That’s my company. You can go there and check out videos, photos. Sometimes our schedule, I haven’t been as great uploading the schedule onto the website. But then other than that Facebook and Instagram are primarily my social media of choice. I don’t really do Twitter or Tik TOK. For Instagram, it’s mobile underscore doing underscore pianos. And then for Facebook, it’s just Facebook slash mobile doing pianos.
Beverly: 46:33
As we conclude this episode, I want to give a big thank you to our guest, Frank, for sharing his wealth of knowledge and expertise in the live entertainment industry. Your insights have illuminated our listeners path and offer valuable insights and tips and strategies to enhance their digital marketing efforts, as well as some just general business information, which is great. I hope that our listeners found this episode as enlightening as I did. Remember to implement the insight shared today into your business and don’t hesitate to contact. Frank, through his information or myself. If you have any further questions or need assistance, stay tuned for more inspiring conversations and actionable tips to ignite your business and your marketing journey on future episodes of Spark and Ignite Your Marketing Podcast. And until next time, keep sparking and igniting.
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