Mastering Impactful Storytelling in the Music Industry

I always say reserve the right to change your mind. Like, it can change over the years and I think you'll figure it out more and more the more you test it out and interrogate it. You'll be like, oh, maybe actually that wasn't what I meant when I was trying to articulate this feeling, maybe I actually mean this. We as humans are like evolutionary, we don't stay the same, so I wouldn't expect someone to stay the same throughout their whole career, that it's okay to evolve. This episode with Rosanna is quite special for me. We talked about storytelling, we talked about why, and I even used her time to my own benefit and talk about the podcast and why I do it. I think this is an extremely important episode and Rosanna is so amazing to talk with. I hope you like it. Hey guys, welcome back to the Sound Connections podcast. Today we have Rosanna on the podcast. Welcome and thank you so much for being here. Thanks so much for having me. So we met, I can't remember how long ago, I think six weeks ago, and we talked about PR, we talked about the podcast, you had questions about

what we do and I had about you and it was really interesting conversation, very lovely. And one of the things that the podcast have been focusing on for a long time and will continue focusing on is innovation and entrepreneurship in the music industry. But one of the things that we haven't talked to us about, which is kind of weird, is artists and it's also about storytelling, it's about, uh, sort of also to center things around the main person who is delivering the worth, uh, to the industry and we're going to talk about that today. We're also going to talk about branding and PR for companies in the music space. So I'm looking very much forward to this for Senna. But before we sort of start the podcast, could you set the scene and explain who you are and what you do? Sure. Yes, my name's Rosanna, um, I'm based in London here in the UK and I'm an impact led storyteller. Um, I like to say that instead of a publicist or like a comms expert, I really believe in impactful stories and quality over quantity. Oh, there's this already, there's so many things to dissect because, sorry, because I'm a

storyteller, uh, as well in a different way, but I haven't always been aware and one of my biggest mistakes in my career that you know I still do to that day is having quantity, uh, over quality. Not because I choose to do that, just because I don't choose to do the opposite. I don't choose, you know, I don't consciously choose quality to be the most important thing in the process and you know I've had my fair share of consequences of that, uh, which is interesting. So hopefully I'll, um, I'll understand how I've been an idiot in the past by having this conversation. That always like that, no, um, jokes aside, can you, can you dissect, uh, what do you mean by impact led storytelling? Um, impact led means, um, it being impactful basically for whoever we're helping tell their story. So essentially that could mean different things. Um, but we want to share a story that people remember and a story that lasts, a story that they can build on and build a career from

versus like, oh, there's a new single one, it's about this, oh, there's a new album, it's about this, oh, we have this new PCA. Um, so impact led meaning it's something that is long lasting and can be built upon for the years to come. Yeah, so the same way for example that you would, uh, work with a, now I'll take it from an entrepreneurship side and we do consultancy and amplitude, um, for early stage startups is about saying, okay, this is what you say you're gonna do, let's go back to the basics, you know, what's the market, what's your, what's your problem you're solving, what's your solution, sort of how do you want to phrase a narrative, how do you want to place yourself, what's sort of the branding going forward towards investors and this is sort of course my world, but you can draw up hellos to anything within storytelling to that I guess. Absolutely, we do the same thing with the story, it's like, um, break it down, take it back to the very basics. Why are you doing this? What's your why? If you don't have a compelling why, there's something wrong, there's something wrong, like what are you building everything out of, like what is the thing that you reflect back on when on the hard days you

know if you don't know why you're doing something, um, it's going to be very hard to continue and push down an avenue without having those pillars in place. Yeah, and it's so interesting, like the same way, I'm just taking it back to sort of my domain, if you don't have a why and you entirely focus on the how, whenever a pivot is necessary, whenever a big change is necessary, you have a hard time doing it because you've been so focused on the how. Yeah, rather than the why, and the why is the base of everything you do and the how can change based on having a why that stands, not still, but is the anchor, um, and then you have the freedom to change things. Um, okay, let's go into all the gold. First thing, uh, I, we need to understand a bit, uh, where you come from when you talk about impact like storytelling, you come talk about Marina comes, which is your company. Yeah, um, could you in a

couple minutes just explain to me how your career path taking you to where you're now? Yeah, sure. So, um, I have always loved music and, um, when I was getting to that point in school where you either do like sixth form or college, I applied to, uh, a performing arts school, um, called the Brit School and I applied, I auditioned and I got in into their music sector. Um, so that was the equivalent of doing three A levels in music and I was at the Brit School, it was fantastic, it was like, it was one of the best educational experiences I've ever received and ever undergone. And by the time I had got to the end of my time with Brit, I was, I was kind of done with education and so I needed a job and I had met through difficult circumstances in my life, I'd met someone who worked in the music industry called Angie Jenkinson and, um, she helped send my CV to one of her best friends and I ended up getting an

interview for an internship at Universal, which was really exciting. Um, the label was Mercury Records. I ended up getting the internship, working my butt off. Um, I remember the head of press saying to me, you're the best intern we've ever had, and I remember being like, great, let's keep going. Um, and by the end of that internship year, I actually had three job offers as well. So I had one from Polydor, one from Mercury and one from a regional PR company as well. Um, and then yeah, I took the job at Mercury, which turned into Virgin EMI when it merged with EMI. Um, and I was at Universal Music for just over six years in total before I moved to Apple to run the PR for Apple Music in the UK and Europe and I was doing that role for two years before moving to Platoon, which is, um, a company that Apple had acquired in 2018

and I was their artist communications lead there. Um, so overseeing stuff in like South Africa to New York and LA, um, which was really exciting and a massive role and, um, a big learning experience. Um, and simultaneously working at Platoon, I also launched my own company, Ambitious. Um, yeah, I'm sorry, well, it was a pandemic, so hey. Um, so I also launched Morena, um, Morena Comms as it's known now, and we started working with independent artists. I had a non-compete basically that was signed off by the head of Apple Music, which was like a really crazy thing to go to the head of Apple Music and be like, hey, one launches business and but he was like really encouraging actually, which was incredible. Um, and then yeah, ended up leaving Platoon and going all in on Morena Comms where we deliver, um, boutique PR services and bespoke campaigns. Amazing. Well, it's

quite an impressive career we've had in a very few years. Um, yeah, so I'm very excited to have this talk today. Okay, let's sort of start at the basics, uh, and I think most of this, uh, this talk today is going to be about, um, assist and I'll try to throw it back into, uh, the narrative of where I come of where I come from, uh, so entrepreneurs and innovators listening to this conversation also can have a clear idea of how to draw learnings from it. Uh, so is that okay that I'll do that? Yeah, absolutely, I'm excited. So when you talk about an artist and we talk about PR, uh, we've already touched why and you can expand on that point or some different point, but what is the most important thing that you need to tackle in an artist coming to you for services? It is the why. I, we have a lot of artists coming like emailing, DMing as well because I run something called the Indie Artist Club as well, which is helping artists in the early stages of their career. Um, and a lot of the music is good

Like people have like some sort of bio like maybe they've used the EPK that we provide or they've created an EPK like things are good maybe the branding is like you know getting in place but you know sometimes their why is you should listen to my music because it's good and it's so hard to work with that um it's like well just listen because it's good and I want to build my streams it's like well why did you start making music in the first place who are you trying to speak to with your music what are you trying to say with your music and when they have these things in place that then informs their branding and how they speak on social media the tone of voice they know who they're speaking to and everything becomes way more cohesive hmm I think uh I don't want to take technology too much into this conversation but I think it's very appropriate um I uh we work a lot with AI uh and we also have uh doing a lot of research and development

Within generative music uh and we some of the tests we're doing is much further than people believe and think um yeah and well I what I've seen like when I said to you I could like I am shook by what you're doing like yeah I'm sad that I'm speaking to you really and not your AI host we should have said that actually had a guest last week that had an AI host join in on the conversation uh you missed out of that okay um but what I'm trying to say is that music not anytime soon but already now within certain aspects of music have already come to the place where it's like in the 20 to 10 percent percentile of music out there when it comes to quality in the aspect of um like music musicality uh like production

Elements uh melody lyric composition um quality of vocals whatever and this is going to happen so much more I believe and I have a theory because I talk with a lot of very clever people that I just try to sort of make conclusions based on what they say is that there's going to be a very big need for inter-human connectivity very soon much more so than there's been before and what is going to differentiate an artist from AI generated music is not going to be so much the actual music but rather the connection that you provide through your music and in the why has always been important but I believe that within 12 months from now the why is going to be essential for you to have any relevance in the market and there's no longer going to be a space for you just being good at music absolutely it's that authenticity it's you showing up as who you are

Um and honestly we don't work with anyone who doesn't have a good why um because for me it's essential as a as a as a publicist but I definitely see it coming to the forefront more and more with companies and like corporate clients that we're speaking to as well that why has to be so strong yeah I know we don't shout out uh you know uh other podcast hosts or authors on the podcast but like I read uh Simon Sinek Start With Why um who's a brilliant thinker in this space and that sort of transformed how I work because I've always had a great a subconscious understanding what my why was but there's a very big difference when you start making it uh concrete and out of the world uh because I believe that finding your why can fundamentally change your how and it can also filter out the noise around what you do so you have the opportunity to center exactly on what you should focus on and

Now putting you know now I'm you know saying things on your behalf but assuming what I said was correct could you maybe speak a bit about the practical implications of finding and defining your why it creates a road map and a strategy like if you can articulate it well um people are going to come on board pretty much immediately if it's compelling enough um you know as a publicist and a storyteller I can help refine language and but if it's compelling enough like everything else falls into place branding colors like audience like I don't know if you remember like back in the day when square when Squarespace was launching but there was a color called millennial pink and it was basically a color that increased conversion rates like psychologically people just really enjoyed this millennial pink color and it actually increased conversion rates into

Like people signing up to Squarespace and stuff like that like so there's amazing things that you can look into when you know your why and who yours it informs who you're speaking to it informs how you speak and it informs like um the colors and the typeface like the fonts and stuff like that and the imagery that you use um more people will come on board quicker than if you didn't have that makes sense okay I'm gonna put you on the spot I hope it's okay I haven't I haven't cleared this with you okay I would love to do a live exercise on the podcast with you talk about the why of the podcast and can you can you guide me through it I have not prepared for this either all right so I'm putting us in a in let's call it a client uh um client PR relationship right now because I believe we can dissect it afterwards so sorry I'm putting in the spot but let's assume I just showed up on a Zoom call you just trying to get free PR services yes is this is this a whole ruse

Will this ever go out I am a genius okay all right let's try let's try to do it uh that was not the intention but I think there's some learnings we can get from this so I'm a client I show up hey I'm Jacob I run the Sound Connection podcast um and then you can we can start talking about why yeah so I basically have a whole questionnaire that I go through with clients when I do a consultation if you don't want to use that we can yeah I think well it's a formula it's like you know there's reasons behind each question um and we get to the why more and more and we talk about like what you what you are okay with talking about what you're not okay with talking about um like there is a formula so if we are going to bring it back into like the really simple terms of the podcast um I'd ask you to tell me like why you do it and then interrogate you about that a little bit more and refine it more with you

So if you want to tell me um why without having all of the pre questions that I have before it yep yeah in order to interrogate you yeah um let's just go so you tell me your why and I'm going to ask some questions that kind of makes you think more about that yeah and it will either reinforce it or help you like update the language around it okay so I'll try um again I haven't prepared so I think there's several points to this uh I think the primary most internal purpose of why I do the podcast is that I've been listening to podcasts for 10 15 years this is how I learn and I have not found a podcast in the music industry space mixed with innovation that I feel like speak to the way that I learn um and that's sort of the base um then there's multiple elements on top of it I believe that people are oftentimes in the same space as me where the music industry can be incredibly hard to

Navigate and I have access I've had access to many years with great mentors but still then it's been hard to understand the full picture of the music industry and I'm trying to use that podcast to for my own egotistical reasons to understand those but also share it on top of that there's sort of an that's a wrong word because it sounds wrong ulterior motive where there's a financial incentive on top of it yeah that we have a business we're growing and the branding and exposure that the podcast gives is very beneficial um and so that's both personal brand and business brand so that's sort of the why okay love it so that is kind of your business why as well so we would need that to tell your story that last point um okay something about me is I'm very direct with clients as well so I'm just going to go for it how I speak I love it and all I heard on the first point was

Me and your why is about you and how you learn the second was saying oh I think my people might learn the way I do but what really needs to happen is you to define how you learn because I learned through storytelling that engages that engaged me the most in school if someone told me a formula or like a sum or whatever great if you told me a story of someone buying apples and blah and I can visualize it and visualize the story it goes in and stays there so if you're trying to articulate something like that it's better to talk about ways of learning and how you know maybe bring in some personal elements that you might want to share you might not want to about how um you know I'm bringing some data as well because you love data 40 of people um learn better by this style and um I wanted to create a podcast that could help people um the way this style of learning has helped me

Just reframing it a little bit instead of saying like oh I did this because I didn't see this and I wanted this and then the secondary being other people might find this useful. Um, actually what you're doing is really powerful and you're downplaying it. Yeah, but let me let me dissect the first part again because that's a brilliant comment. So we had the conversation before we started the podcast and yeah and we talked a bit about um ADHD and we also talked about dyslexia. I also have I would call it mild dyslexia but enough for it to be very difficult for me to handle both ADHD and the dyslexia which basically means I it cost a lot of energy for me to read articles um and the music industry information flow right now is primarily built on that uh even when you go to conferences I don't want to offend anyone most of what's said from the stages is pretty useless um it's

Because it never really goes into the depth that it deserves it that there's a lot of political elements to you in a conference setting like people can say something people can't say something it's very public people don't know each other you never get to the place where I get the things that I don't already know to some degree and of course I know probably more than most so to dissect the first point is because of my let's call it disabilities in receiving information from the most used media in the music industry uh I had issues with gaining the information that I need to build my business upon is that it was it a good so much better yeah really so much better um and I think just taking the eye out of the conversation like you can bring that in later but why does this exist this exist this exists to be a different format of learning you know because I discovered that you know people like there's people like me that learn in this way and um gain information in another

Way like I recently posted um about my dad like my dad sends me articles hundreds of articles like just sends me links to articles or PDFs or whatever and I actually ended up saying to him look dad you like I can't read at the rate that you read like um I actually don't read what you send me as much as I'd want to and want to please you and I struggle with it and he started sending me voice notes of him reading the articles to me and I've been able to listen to these articles that he thought might be helpful for me and my business because he has changed the way that I am able to receive the information and I think that's what you're doing with this podcast and it's lovely um so articulating that um better would help your why oh that's amazing I can already I can already feel like um I'm not saying this just to

Say like a deeper sense of purpose with my words if that makes sense um yeah okay let's criticize this more uh we don't need to go too long to it but I love this and I get free uh PR training so it's great yeah I know lucky you all right let's uh let's address some more points and what you heard uh oh sorry I yeah sorry all good let's address some more criticism that I can address right now no do you know what I think that's a good starting point because I think um once you take that away and work on that then we can go to the next level if needs be and but think about like if you have 30 seconds or a minute to talk to someone in an elevator those points that you raised took ages and the third one was irrelevant to telling the story of the podcast um so and that was a business case which is great we all have businesses we all need

To live and make money and pay rent um your audience your audience doesn't really need to know that they kind of already know that when they you know if you hear an ad or a sponsorship or something people are very understanding that podcasts need funding in order to run and support the hosts um so that scrap that part you definitely for business keep it but for your storytelling not needed I would just frame it like go into the research because you are research led and research driven how many people learn through like audio or storytelling maybe look up and the increase in listening to audiobooks or just podcasts in general um and then apply it to what you're doing with the podcast basically and say how you're meeting a need and not meeting your own need but you can bring your personal story into it to make it more compelling afterwards that's amazing I one of the fun things with doing these exercises

And we'll sort of go over to other things now is I do a lot of this you know similar work as you're doing with me right now for uh clients within sort of we have a very single service we provide which is investment readiness like what kind of story would you tell based on your business that would increase the chances of investors resonated with your message um that's what we take and there's of course elements of this maybe not down to the personal level that we're doing right now but that you know consistent we've seen help increase the chances of a business getting funding the interesting thing is when you do these exercises yourself it's incredibly hard because it is and I believe I can I can be brilliant doing this for other companies but I need outside help all the time in order to do it for myself yeah um but I think there's an element of you know people most of the time not being able to be non-biased or listening to things for the first time uh and sort of sorting through the

Ingrained subconscious explanations to why you say what you do um yeah so amazing okay we've uh we've uh we've gone through the free training thank you so much and now what's next on the list um so how practically would that sort of be okay you have an artist that's found the why to some degree um how would you go about the next steps um so again we do like a you know a formula questionnaire where I ask a number of questions to help define and then refine their story and we make sure that these updated uh comments and anecdotes and stories are in their bio so we make sure the bio is up to date and then we write the press release essentially so in the questionnaire is

Is like our questions about the music and the project as well and um you know who they sound most similar to although everyone is different and everyone has an original sound like if someone were to say you sound similar to someone else who would that be and who are your influences and that goes in the bio and the press release and stuff like that so um everything is built off the why and this question it after the why everything else gets billed out and then it informs all of the press materials yeah and what is the importance of press uh in modern day and age could you walk me through the sort of the impact um for both the artist and external um stakeholders if through doing this uh press uh outreach yeah I mean there's a lot of importance in doing press at the right time so I wouldn't just say like PR and press is

Just important full stop um because I don't believe that is like an answer for across the board I think press is important in the right timing and with the right story so I wouldn't do press for the sake of it or encourage someone to do PR if I didn't feel they were ready for it or needed it at a moment in their career um but when it is the right timing press is great because it feeds in to the big marketing funnel so press is one of three marketing buckets it's earned media um it's based on sentiment testimonial you know reviews etc it can't be bought yeah that's advertorial if you are paying to be covered on a website or in a magazine that is paid advertising and advertorial the other buckets are owned media and so if you have an email list or a WhatsApp group or something that you own um you don't own your social media that's owned by Meta or Twitter or whoever and but

If you convert someone from your social media into an email list that is data that you own and then the other one is paid as I'm just I'm saying this in layman's terms so like I can bring everyone up to speed as well for the podcast I know you know um but yeah paid like you know ads out of home etc so earned media PR feeds in to those other buckets as well they work in tandem they work hand in hand if you go all in on PR and don't focus on you know um your own audience and make making sure they know exactly what you're doing and keeping them warm and you don't put ad spend or any advertising um it may not do as well um but PR in general like it helps the other two as well so if you get like good endorsements from a publication or an outlet then you can go back to um your owned list and say oh so and so said I'm really cool and they'll be like okay they think you're cool um same with

Paid, you can put paid spend behind articles and stuff like that or use it to inform ads as well, like take quotes from articles, pop them in an ad. That's why, you know, when you see billboards and stuff, there'll be five-star reviews from, uh, you know, The Guardian or whatever, is, um, it helps inform that decision to listen to the music, essentially that endorsement. So it's very powerful. Hmm. Yeah. And then it's again, um, oh, we'll touch point of that about also make sure you are consistent over a long time, right? You know, because one thing is having a great story, but keeping that story for a long time, I guess, is also important. Could you, could you dissect that a bit? Yes, it's super important. Um, I always like to have like as long a timeline as possible. We tend not to take on one-off singles for artists unless I think the music is hot and there's like stuff in the pipeline, but it's TBC but coming like within a few months. Um, but yeah, having a start stop campaign is really tough because you are, you know, let's go.

Good, it takes, you know, when you turn on an engine and have to, you know, it takes effort to start to get something moving and then you have to put the brakes on it, then you have to do that effort again to get moving. So sometimes you just feel like you're in the same spot and rebuilding and rebuilding. And we've also had issues with artists where they're a certain genre, they're releasing a song in a certain genre, I've heard the EP or the mixtape or whatever it is, yes, great, and then they're like, oh, actually I want to add in this song and it's like a different genre. Yeah. And then we, so we started the car moving in one direction, then we have to go the other direction because we, they want to do this. Um, which is fine, you know, I tell everyone up front, like I've told you with, you know, the feedback, this is not what I'd advise or this is what I'd advise. Um, and give them, you know, my free advice. Um, and then I say, but I also say this is, this is just advice, you have to do what gives you peace.

And whatever you decide, I back you all the way. So, you know, we have the conversation and then whatever they decide, they won't hear from me again on my thoughts or opinions because they've made a decision. So I'm going to back them. It's not useful for me to be like, oh well, I said this and like, we can have that at the end, you know, conversation down the line and say, you know, let's review then if this hasn't gone as to plan, like what we could have done differently. But there is no point me being like moody along the way or, you know, not supportive of an artist. I just think, what's the point? I think there's so many parallels to be drawn to entrepreneurship here and I'm just trying to make it and get your comments on it. So, um, I see a lot of pitch decks and I see a lot of pitches and a lot of founders and, you know, one out of three, I would say, has a narrative like that's, I'm just going to take a hypothetical example, I'm, uh, we're a nazis, we're a company that provides marketing service for.

An artists and then if they do really well, we'll also, uh, sign them as management and promote a tour for them. Um, so it's within the same realm of service, but it's also in completely different business, completely different responsibility and where, you know, again, most of the people I talk with is positioning the will for investors, but investors also know this and I believe it to consistently be a big turnoff when you, um, have plans of driving your car in many different directions and not having one goal to go towards and then say, okay, now we've come here, now we can evaluate where to drive to now, but not having that conflicting Google Maps with too many stops and never really getting to real value. Now I'm putting a lot of conclusions in my words, but could, if you agree, could you nuance what I'm saying? Yeah, it's really tough because, you know, Marina Comms also is a vehicle, I would say there's two cars, you know, and they're gonna, they're not gonna.

Like they're not gonna be as powerful as one car moving in one direction, but you know, maybe they're mopeds, who knows? Let's just open it up because as I said, we deliver boutique PR services and bespoke campaigns. Um, I've done BIA for 12 years now and I really enjoy telling stories and in the right way, but I also started the Indie Artist Club to equip people starting out artistizing out and I would like to see that turn into a business that, you know, brings back income. At the minute it's a labor of love and I really enjoy doing it, but it's kind of taken off like more and more and I'm like, okay, let's make this like, if I'm dedicating so much time and more and more time, it has to have a return on my time investment and my personal investment. Um, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's just knowing that there's two different plans, there's two different business plans. Um, and that's okay for each of those, but my overall business.

Plan and, uh, it is like, it sounds funny when you say it to other entrepreneurs because I am by nature an entrepreneur. I was the one outside my house like trying to sell stuff like when I was a kid and stuff like that. I've always been an entrepreneur. Um, and I love just starting and creating things, but my business plan is not based on finances, it's based on health and happiness and being able to be in control of my schedule, being able to be like financially free from worry and being as healthy as I possibly can. Um, and it's kind of anti like that, um, capital, uh, couples of games kind of thing, um, that we live in. If I'm in a, in an entrepreneur's cohort, um, and there's like loads of us, it's called Opus Network and it's brilliant. Um, but a lot of it is based on like VC funding and like pitch decks and, you know, all of that like funding rounds, all of that, and I'm just like.

I, it, I'm switched off to it because it's not my goal and that's okay. Yeah, this is one of the things I contemplate a lot on as well because I am, I would say to some degree, I'm an anti-materialist. I'm not really, but like I have very little value attached to physical belongings and besides the comfort of having a house that can accommodate my family in a good neighborhood, I don't have any ambitions beyond that. But again, as an entrepreneur, we have 20 investors, we have, yeah, you know, super angels, we're sort of going into the VC space now. I have this side of a business that is required to make impact and there's financial expectations for that. But what I do find is I don't really find it conflicting because at the end of the day, um, my goal and I haven't fully of this either and we won't take a new training session for free now.

Like is it doesn't feel like it conflicts with my why and what I think my why is, which I haven't worked on too much, so I'm sorry, is that I'm obsessed with leaving an impact, not so much a legacy, but an impact. I want to make things that changes, uh, circumstances for others and that's what I find satisfaction for and I know you agree on this, but like at least that's the level I'm working at. Um, which is interesting. Yeah, okay, that's good. Yeah, because you can, you can do something that seems somewhat conflicting on the surface level to what you actually do, but very well might not be. Um, in your case, how do you, how do you, how would you dissect that this is not conflicting from you, like you having a goal of happiness and health and then doing entrepreneur's journey which is very difficult and you have financial gains and goals you need to live up to? Honestly, it's the same as.

You and I don't have like investors, like it's all self-funded, self-started, like here. So I would say it's you but less pressure. Yeah, I like that you don't feel the pressure, which is great. Um, I don't feel the need to grow exponentially at XYZ rate, like I'm very much happy growing at the rate that the business is meant to grow and like having the income that we are having at the minute and building on that, like it's very nice and living comfortably. But I'm also so ambitious in terms of work, I'm such a hard worker, I love just like sinking my teeth into like challenging projects and creating things again to leave an impact, like the Indie Artist Club and helping artists who've had really bad experiences with PRs to know what to expect when they do engage someone in a campaign and that they should be see be receiving a press update every week, like the bare minimum that you should expect. Um, so what I.

Always do is strive for excellence and I'm trying to teach these people starting out what that looks like in the music industry as well. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a small tangent and I'm gonna give you a compliment while doing it and that is, okay, great, um, when we talked last I think we talked for 30, 35 minutes and uh, I think I remember I said sorry a lot of times because I talked a lot about myself and I usually don't do that in a setting where that's not the agenda and I thought about afterwards and also simultaneously now I'm talking to you when I talk a lot about myself which I usually don't do. What is it, the thing that I sense makes that happen and obviously you know uh smiling your face helps but I think it's when you are a good storyteller you also inspire people to open up and attach, if that makes sense, when you tell a clear story uh to who you are and sometimes it's not even outspoken it's just

Having words with clarity that are consistent that makes people including me comfortable to open up, open up about myself and to draw a narrative to that um that's the same mission of an artist right you know the real impact and you would know this more than me but like my assumption of the real impact of an artist most of times is having people attach their lives onto your words to have this resonance between who they are and how they feel and what you express and that is the ultimate human connection we can have is when we resonate not necessarily emotions but resonate um this subconscious I don't know how to formulate this but like the inter-human connectivity. Yeah, oh yeah, I'm honestly, that's such a compliment so thank you. I try, I try to be um impeccable with my word um that's actually in a book that I'm reading at the moment called The Four Agreements that my business coach gave to me um and it's about uh making all of your

Words uh full of worth and not detrimental or not life-giving um perhaps that's a bit too uh airy-fairy for you but I try and I try to be as intentional as possible with what I say. Yeah and I'll give you a tiny bit of a shout out because you do run an assets course in your marina comes where I guess this is one of the things you spoke with, speak with us just about and um I think it could be really interesting for people to go into your website and see sort of where your services are including that um thank you but um maybe I'll just take it a tiny bit back and talk about myself because I'm assuming you've given me the permission now um you set a point about not having the pressure for investors which uh which is really interesting and uh-huh because I have maybe not as clearly defined a why but a pretty good sense of why of the impact I can also sort of distance myself from the expectations of investors or what might be

Perceived the expectations and let me explain you why because I'm a very practical person but I do understand nuances of the unspoken still and the way that I look at investors are that they, if they're professional investor they invest in a company from a portfolio mindset which means yes they invest in a potentially good business in a potentially good founder and the statistics behind that is not every single investment can work out and you need to look at through a statistics perspective they're going to return on the investment based on multiple investments some of them are going to lose money some of them are going to make more money and the whole game is uh have at the end of the day have a higher multiple look have more earnings than what you spent. Yeah so because I have a pretty clear sense of why I do it and I also explain it to investors I no longer feel the pressure of the only thing that

I can change is how hard and how intentionally I work. Okay the outcome I cannot control just based on mere wishes and therefore I can distance myself from the pressures of investors expectations and I think that could also be maybe um drawn parallel to artists that if you have a strong enough why you know the expectations of your partners your label your manager even though it's important you need to distance yourself a tiny bit away from the outcome. Absolutely it's yeah tying artists to metrics is really detrimental to mental health and creativity um and I think it's fantastic that you're able to rationalize like yeah it, I'm part of a portfolio you know I do my best and this is the business plan this is the why we're following this we'll change the how if needs be um and be like you know I can't change that outcome I'm a bit of like a

Warrior if someone invests in me I'm like oh my gosh how soon can I pay them back you know okay I um you know someone lends me money I'm like okay how quick can I get rid of this debt um that's the type of personality that I have because I don't like to have anything hanging over me um so it's brilliant to hear that you're just like yep I understand I and I can still do my work um which is lovely um but yeah for artists when they tie themselves to metrics or have the pressure of tying themselves to metrics and deliverables um it does stunt creativity and it is not nice to see. Yeah no I agree so much and there's a, that's a whole episode in itself about external expectations and how they might change your trajectory in a way that's not helpful um but I think that the essence of what we're talking about is you need a strong why and you need to stick to it um we're sort of nearing the end of the episode and I would love this too going on

For two hours but um I think this format of podcasting also have habits limits um what do you believe, what do you believe, I'm going to go back to one of the things that come on first new technologies yeah because artists and business that you work with needs to operate in a space that's through a lot of disruption right now uh-huh what is the best way to navigate this new technology this new disruption from a storytelling perspective I know we've talked about why but besides the why how can you go about preparing yourself in your storytelling for what's to come. Do you mean in terms of AI maybe AI is a thing uh changing ways of people consuming content or right um well I also have a digital marketing background and what I have learned and what I firmly believe in

is stick to one platform and do it well and that's not just saying you can't throw up content or and ideas on other platforms just to test them out but if you stick to one thing and do it well it enables you to take a lot of learnings from there and increase that and maybe um open up time to then move on to another platform i would encourage an artist or a company to be present on the platform where their potential clients are potential audience is so for companies that are trying to gain business linkedin yeah for artists with like a an older demographic perhaps it's um instagram versus tick tock which has more of like a hooky snippy kind of thing maybe like trendy dance stuff as well um and then just one thing and do it well yeah and that's where you can hammer home and you know your why i always say reserve the right to change your mind like it can change over the years yeah yeah you know and i think you'll figure it out

More and more the more you test it out and interrogate it you'll be like oh maybe actually that wasn't what I meant when I was trying to articulate this feeling maybe I actually mean this um so just because you said it once doesn't mean you have to die on a hill over it reserve the right to change your mind and change things up we as humans are like evolutionary we don't stay the same so I wouldn't expect someone to stay the same throughout their whole career that it's okay to evolve. Hmm no I love that I it's uh it's a phrase I've used for years I've reserved the right to change my mind it's one of my favorite podcasts that I used to listen to uh the host said that because and they said it consistently and often because they allow themselves to have conversations that were controversial uh but also not put themselves in a place where they need to stick to everything to discuss and not because you should have standpoints you change but in order to have free conversations or give yourself the permissions and answers to communicate to audience is like

I'm also on a journey and figure out what I stand for and how I present myself and um that's beautiful for Santa it's been great to have you on the podcast thank you I hope that people check out uh marina comes I know you're also doing exciting projects with clothing uh you have some amazing clients that we hope to see in the podcast at one point um and I believe that the storytelling aspect of what we do is essential at the end of the day artists are storytellers and if the business is representing artists don't know how to tell their own stories you're probably doing yourself a disfavor um and I believe even more with the advancement of technology strong into human connectivity based on fear intentional storytelling is going to be the way forward um we're not going to stand out from the noise unless we know how to do that uh and absolutely what you do

I believe is the base of having that successful differentiation thank you Jacob that's really kind thank you thank you so much for being on the podcast we'll talk soon thank you