[00:00:00] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Hey and welcome to the song saloon today's episode is with zach fishman who has his company magic nothing Zach Fishman and I met during School of Song. It's a company that I've mentioned a few times on the podcast. We're both really big fans of them. And, so when I met Zach and he told me about this project, it was at the very beginning.

So I think he had about, you know, 200 something followers and we were chatting about, you know, music marketing with social media and, uh, social media ads and things like that. And. Since then, we recorded the podcast, and this is two months later, finally releasing the episode.

And he's sitting at 33, 000. So what he's doing is working. And I think he has a lot of, uh, really valuable insights and a unique perspective in sharing music. And his, his main tagline is music marketing doesn't have to suck. So I think. You'll find he has a real positive approach to all this stuff that can sometimes bring a lot of us down when we want to focus on the art.

And he kind of makes the case to make it kind of about your art, or if it's not bringing joy to you to, to not engage in it. anyways, I hope you enjoyed this episode. There is explicit content in here. So yeah, now onto the episode. Enjoy.

[00:01:13] Zack Fischmann: Hi, I'm Zach from Magic Nothing.

[00:01:21] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Hey Zach, thanks so much for coming on to the Song Saloon.

[00:01:24] Zack Fischmann: It's my pleasure. What's up, Jordan?

[00:01:26] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, good to see ya. it's been really exciting to see your process with Magic Nothing. Um, you started on Instagram. Instagram is kind of your focus right now. Is that right? You're not as much on TikTok and other places?

[00:01:39] Zack Fischmann: Yeah, I haven't touched anything else yet except for I posted one or two shorts on YouTube and then realized I don't have time right now.

[00:01:47] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, okay, and the whole premise, I'll let you get into really what Magic Nothing's about, but it's a music marketing Um, and the tag you go with is music marketing doesn't have to suck and that's in about every piece of every video, right? Um, and it's been really fun to see because it's grown so fast on Instagram So something's clicking and because I remember when we talked I think you were at like 200 followers, which was pretty fast for a week or so.

And now we're a few weeks in and you're at like, I don't know, what are we at now?

[00:02:21] Zack Fischmann: I think we hit like 6, 000, uh, today. So, You know, and granted followers is like, not really, it doesn't tell you a whole lot, but it certainly tells you that there's something resonating with people. Right. So like, for sure, that's a thing that's, it's like a, a sign that people are resonating with the message that I'm trying to put out there, or maybe just the way I'm putting it out.

I'm not sure yet. I'm figuring that out at the moment.

[00:02:46] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah. And you are a songwriter yourself. We should mention, uh, Zach has a project called Marmalade Mountain. You can go listen to Zach's music.

but yeah, tell me a little bit about origin story of Magic nothing. how to come about.

[00:03:00] Zack Fischmann: Okay, so Magic Nothing started, the name started as a, my backing band for Marmalade Mountain. I didn't have a band, so I called my band Marmalade Mountain and the Magic Nothing cause I didn't have a band and I just wanted to like, I thought it was more fun for promotional purposes. It was a marketing thing.

You know what I mean? I was like, Oh, it's just like, this sounds like fun and it's silly and people show up and they're like, where's the Magic Nothing? And I'm like, that's the whole point. Um, Yeah. And then it turned into a record label and like, I wanted to make this show list app thing at some point. And then it became show promotion stuff.

It's actually the label that I released my music under the name magic, nothing. And I've released some other music or was going to, it's complicated. And then, It was kind of by accident after a show. I started realizing that, um, I was noticing a need where people in the creative fields kind of need help and need to work together and collaborate on things for obvious reasons.

Like if I'm a musician and I want to have a photographer for a photo shoot or a video person or a graphics person to make a flyer, I wanted to create a hub for those people to engage with each other. That was the original intention. And, you know, Coming out of school of song workshops, obviously, which is a huge, that's how we met and a huge in, uh, influence for me in one of my favorite organizations ever.

shout out. Those guys are amazing. Um, yeah, and basically I just started realizing that workshops would be a great way to build the community and also would be. just a service that I could offer to make money to survive. So I was like, Oh, the, the workshops will pay for me to survive and to build out the community and bring people in.

So I can bring in people interested in music stuff. And then maybe I could partner with somebody to bring people in who are interested in photography stuff or all these other things. That was my original intent.

And while marketing the first course, which is the music marketing course, that's just become.

major focus that I was not expecting. So that's basically how I got to where it is now. And it's very early. It's very early. It's been a month and maybe a half since I launched.

[00:05:18] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Right. So you're saying the focus being more music marketing as opposed to a community where all sorts of different creatives come together and

[00:05:28] Zack Fischmann: Well,

[00:05:28] Jordan Smith Reynolds: pieces of the

[00:05:29] Zack Fischmann: we'll, we will see. Um, I'm curious and I'm unsure, like my, my original intent still stands and I'd like to get there. That's what I'm kind of envisioning and working towards. Um, To be honest, but I'm not going to, I'm going to evolve and listen to the, you know, to the people. I can see the writing on the wall that there's a big need here.

And so I'm going to try and, uh, fulfill that need and offer what I can and just sort of see what happens. And if it makes sense. To build out into other verticals. We will. And if not, I'll just continue doing what I'm doing, you know? Um, but I'm trying hard to like, listen and like, see how things go and respond to them.

And so that's, yeah. So it's really focused on music marketing at the moment and probably could be indefinitely if, you know, if I wanted, but we'll see how it plays out.

[00:06:19] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah.

I would like to ask you about your experience with Instagram because you've experienced really rapid growth on that platform. what I would like to hear from you is how you think that could apply to a musician trying to do the musician thing. cause what I've noticed about your stuff, and I know you can get a lot more granular about it, but I see, you know, it's very, intentional each, each piece and it's, um, you're getting really good quality.

stuff that someone wants to hear, um, and applicable things that they can go and immediately apply to they're doing to grow as a musician. as a musician trying to grow on Instagram,

[00:06:59] Zack Fischmann: Mm hmm.

[00:06:59] Jordan Smith Reynolds: you know, posting performance stuff may not be as effective as, I guess what I'm trying to say is like, yeah, maybe like the marketing piece of it.

I guess musicians are not as comfortable with being kind of talking head. Uh, like,

[00:07:14] Zack Fischmann: Sure, sure, sure.

[00:07:15] Jordan Smith Reynolds: advice. Is there, is there something to, the advice piece of it have a lot to do with the growth, do you think? And is that something that musicians should have to kind of implement or I'd love to hear your take on that.

I don't know if I made that clear at all,

[00:07:27] Zack Fischmann: No, no, I, I, I think I understand what you're getting at, which is, um, I don't think the advice thing, like I don't, I actually didn't even want to be giving advice and I'm, I'm actually kind of cursing myself for going a little too far in that direction. I wanted to just provide information, but now I'm, I'm.

a very opinionated person and it's becoming obvious that I'm like clearly like biased, so I'm not going to try and pretend that I'm not. But I, I really don't think that the advice thing, I think that it helps that I have a massive potential audience and I'm aware of that and was aware of it going into it that I was like, Oh, there's a massive audience of people who want to learn this stuff.

Um, and And that's just because there are so many people who are musicians trying to figure out how to navigate this shit. But the reality is there's a massive audience for pretty much everything, because there is a massive number of people on social media. There's like 5 billion people on social media, right?

So 6, 000 followers, uh, Anybody can do that with anything. I think it just has to be very clear what it is you do, who it is you're trying to reach and what it is you're offering them. So if like, if you're a musician and you want to do performance and it's about your music, I believe that it's still possible, but you have to make it really clear what you are, what you're about and who you're trying to reach in order for systems like Instagram to be able to function properly.

Because they're designed to to categorize, right? And all algorithmic systems are, are designed to categorize, just, that's just how it has to work. That's how the code operates. So it's like, you know, I don't know the code, but I do know enough to say that's what hashtags are about. Like, how do you provide clear identifiers for each account that say, this is what this is about.

And so this is who you should show the content to. Um, and the problem is if there's a lack of alignment between the followers on an account and the actual content that the person is sharing, then the content is going to flop with the following. And then it, it can't grow because it's like, Oh, I'm sharing, you know, maybe I've built my account around maybe the reason people followed me is because I'm nature indie folk weirdo boy, which is like my music.

But then I'm posting content about music marketing. Guess what people that are into nature indie folk music don't want to hear about. music marketing. So it's like a, you know what I mean? So that would flop. The same content would flop with that audience. Uh, only a small subset of them are going to cross over and that's what I'm seeing.

So my Marmalade Mountain Instagram account right now is fucked. Like my reach is terrible. Everything's terrible because I started posting music marketing content there to build out magic nothing. And now I have to recalibrate. Marmalade Mountain.

So all of this is to say, I believe, and I can only say this anecdotally from my experience on these current things, but I believe if you just hyper focus on an audience.

I do think that you can really grow and build an audience quickly on a platform like Instagram, because that's what it's designed to do. And they have vested interest in that. They want you to do that. Um, because that keeps eyeballs and ear balls on their thing.

[00:10:45] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah. What would you say about Magic Nothing? Would your next strategy for that be to continue that account and re strategize and upload things to that account? Or do you think it's like, that account, you messed up the algorithm and you'd have to start from scratch?

[00:11:01] Zack Fischmann: Oh, you mean marmalade mountain? You're talking

[00:11:03] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, Marmalade Mountain.

[00:11:04] Zack Fischmann: So it's funny you ask that. So I created I just recently created just for fun and I haven't done anything with it cause I have no time right now, but I created a fake fan account and I have no problem just saying this. It's called Marmalade Mountain Fan Club.

And it says like the tagline is like a Marmalade Mountain fan account, definitely not run by Marmalade Mountain himself. So it's like, obviously, like I'm just joking. And, but also the reason I started it was cause I was like, I feel like the following on my music account is misrepresentative of the actual.

interest in my music, not to put myself down, but I just know that because I've run so many weird ads and done so many experiments with it that it's blown it out disproportionately in weird places. I have a lot of followers and all over the world that have no vested interest in my music project beyond the one time they saw my ad in India or whatever.

And so that creates problems with the algorithm that it's struggling with. So I don't know, but my guess, and I'll have to test this out, and I don't know if I'll have time, but if I do, I would like to just refocus and do something similar to what I did with Magic Nothing, which is just move into a very consistent and like kind of strategic approach with my content, which is like, this is the audience I'm trying to reach.

This is the consistency of content you're going to get from me with slight variations on occasion. But for the most part, I'm going to deliver something that you can count on and think about it like a television show. Like if I tuned into Sesame Street. every Saturday. And one day it was like cartoons giving lessons on life.

And another day, it was like a guy selling watches on, you know what I mean? On QVC or whatever. I'd be confused and I would never watch it again. Cause I'd be like, I don't know what this show is about. And I think that's probably what 99 percent of people's struggles on social media is about. It's unclear.

Not only to the algorithm, but to the audience as well. Like what is it that you're actually offering and what is your, what is your approach here? And I think most people just literally don't have a content strategy. They're just posting about themselves and wondering why nobody's interested, but you have to post something that's for your audience.

So it's a challenge.

[00:13:22] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah,

[00:13:23] Zack Fischmann: Does that make sense? Is this

[00:13:25] Jordan Smith Reynolds: it does. Yeah. So it sounds like one thing you have to do is define the audience and also figure out the content that that audience wants to see.

[00:13:34] Zack Fischmann: if you're trying to

[00:13:34] Jordan Smith Reynolds: well, also if you're trying to go,

[00:13:37] Zack Fischmann: if you're trying to grow, cause also none of this matters. You know what I mean? Like you can just post whatever the fuck you want and have fun and not care and that's fine, you know, and that might even grow. That's possible too. So anything can happen, but, but if you're trying to strategically grow an audience, then yeah, you got to understand who your audience is and try and give them stuff that they're going to enjoy.

You know,

[00:14:02] Jordan Smith Reynolds: yeah. So

[00:14:03] Zack Fischmann: do think it's that simple. Yeah.

[00:14:05] Jordan Smith Reynolds: yeah, let's use Marmalade Mountain as an example. You mentioned, uh, indie nature, uh,

[00:14:12] Zack Fischmann: D nature folk weirdo boy. Yeah.

[00:14:14] Jordan Smith Reynolds: weirdo boy. Okay. So if that's

[00:14:17] Zack Fischmann: weirdo boy. Yeah. Five words or less is my new thing. Yeah. I'm making this up, but yeah, five or less.

[00:14:23] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Uh huh.

[00:14:24] Zack Fischmann: Yeah.

[00:14:25] Jordan Smith Reynolds: so if that's the demographic you're reaching out with, and that's, I guess that's your artist persona, what kind of content do you think would fit well

[00:14:37] Zack Fischmann: Yeah. I, oh, I wish I had time to just focus on this cause this would be so fun. Literally. I think everybody here already knows the answer. to your question. I think you already have a vision in your mind of what that is. And that's the whole point. Like we already all know what we want from indie nature folk weirdo boy, right?

And so as long as I give that, everybody's stoked. And so we don't even have to say it, but it's basically being a weirdo in nature and having indie folk music kind of, you know, tangentially or directly involved in the videos every time. And like, I can think of an endless amount of fun things to do that all fit into that category, right?

Like you can create an entire television show around that. And that's essentially what Instagram and all these social media things are changing out of social media into like, it's now the you show. Right and there's millions of billions of people that are all like What do I put on my show and they have no idea what to do and because they're not thinking of it as what other people are seeing they're thinking about it as What i'm experiencing and i'm just trying to share what i'm experiencing and it's that's totally fine and cool But that's not what people want to see and so sometimes it is it's just You have to think about it from both sides at the same time if you want it to grow.

And you know what I mean? Like it's, yeah, it's that, that whole, it's the Justin Conn strategy, which I think that's his name where he, like he was the first person to just like live stream his whole life. And I think that was initially very interesting. But when 5 billion people are live streaming their whole lives, nobody cares about anybody anymore.

You know what I mean? And it's really weird because it's like why am I watching this random person I don't know or met one time like at their parents house like eating a sandwich, you know what I mean? What the fuck is this? Like Mute and then you've just like got a dead follower. You know what I mean?

That's gonna ruin your algorithm So it's like it's really a weird. It's a weird thing that I just think It's going, the people who are doing well with it are learning how to find their niche and what they're about and just doing that thing, you know?

[00:16:56] Jordan Smith Reynolds: what advice would you give for artists that have a hard time, you know, I mean, I think artists in general are just like, they don't want to slap a genre on, on their music often.

[00:17:07] Zack Fischmann: number one. Yeah.

[00:17:09] Jordan Smith Reynolds: So, um, how do you, how do you help those folks?

[00:17:13] Zack Fischmann: Well, you have to decide first of all, if this stuff matters to you at all, right? Because one of the most important things to acknowledge is that Instagram is one platform and has zero interest in helping you. Uh, it's only if you could use it to your advantage. And if you don't like it. Fucking delete it, I really mean that, and with everything else too, Spotify, or TikTok, or any of these things, you don't need them, you only want to use them if they benefit you.

And if you feel like they're not benefiting you and you're frustrated with it and don't want to kind of work on getting better at it, just let it go because it's just going to make you feel shitty all the time. And that's so many people that I know, including myself at different times, and that's just a bummer and it's not necessary.

And all of this is going to go away anyway. So none of these numbers that we think really matter. Matter in the long run, it's just about how you utilize them to build whatever it is that you're trying to build. So the first thing is about understanding why you're doing it in the first place, right? Like, why are you using?

So if I was trying to advise somebody directly, and this is what we talk about in my workshops, one of the first things we talk about is like, why are you here? And until you answer that question, you can't do anything right. Because You're always just going to be bummed about the not getting some result.

No matter how good your result is, it's never enough. You know, a million followers. I want 10 million followers, a thousand likes. I wanted 5, 000 likes. None of that shit matters. It's like, why, why are you doing that? And for me, because I'm selling shit, it's super easy for me to be like, why? Because I'm selling I am going to run out of money.

You know what I mean? Like, if I don't sell these things, I don't have health insurance currently. Like, I don't have a job currently. I have to eat, I have to pay my rent, I have to survive. And so how am I going to do that? It makes things really fucking easy. And so, uh, the great producer, Phil Weinrobe in school of song, one of his great suggestions is like, you need stakes.

And when you have stakes, it forces you to kind of put everything into like, I know what I'm doing. So, or cause you have to, so number one, you have to understand why, if you're an artist trying to figure out how to navigate this shit show of social media or Instagram specifically, they're all the same.

Yeah. different nuances, but the same basic idea, right? Um, trying

[00:19:42] Jordan Smith Reynolds: and none of them want, and none of them really want to help you. It's, they want you to be on their platform so they can sell advertisements to people. But

[00:19:50] Zack Fischmann: basically. And I mean, every, everyone's model is different, but for free, for free social media, yes, that's absolutely right. That's their business model. Um, and It's insanely effective, if not the most effective business model of all time next to like drugs and weapons. So like, they're in the business of basically selling ad space and very target, the most targeted ads Of all time.

So amazing. It's an amazing resource too, if you know how to utilize it, but so that's number one, why understanding why you're doing it so that you're not just spinning your wheels for no reason, because that's a bummer. Uh, then number two would be, yeah, figure out what it is that you're about and what you're trying to do.

And what are you trying to communicate? And what are you, who are you trying to reach and starting to identify all these other sides around like, who am I trying to reach? What am I trying to reach them with? Where are they? When am I going to reach them? Who, what, where, why, when? And then once you've got that structured, it just becomes more clear as to what you're actually going to share.

So, you know, for Magic Nothing, it's like, I'm trying to reach musicians and, um, especially independent musicians or producers who are looking to build credibility or, you know, session people who want credibility or whatever, you know, or I'm trying to reach like music business people who might give me shit loads of money to do what I'm doing at like a higher level or whatever, you know, and I don't know how that will play, play out.

I still want to keep it real, but I also want to survive and have a good life. But, um, as a musician, it would be. Defining those things. Okay. Now I've defined, I'm going to use Instagram to grow and find my audience so that I can get people to come to my shows because I want a tour or so that I can sell merchandise because I don't want a tour and I just want to like make records or to like Build credibility as a songwriter so that I can get better syncs or, uh, uh, publishing deal.

You know what I mean? It's identifying your why. And then once you have that, yeah, I would identify my audience or, or yeah, myself a little bit. My brand, Indie Nature Folk Weirdo Boy. That's like, great. Now I've got my confines. Everything that I do fits into indie nature folk weirdo boy, and anything that doesn't is a distraction and confusing for my audience.

And if I go back on my Instagram, I could point out a million problems with it right now, and I just would love to fix them, but I haven't had a chance. Um, so, that's what, that's how I would think about it, and then I would start making stuff in that sphere, but doing it in a way that's like, I Fun and authentic, because if it's forced, it's going to suck and everyone's going to know it.

So it's like, then you still have to get good at making the media, AKA the content, right? And like being yourself and being comfortable on camera or not. You can even do it through, some people can do it through AI image generation or through drawings. I have a friend who's been drawing really sick animations or just drawing pictures.

There's a million ways to like fit in your sphere. I don't even need to go into nature. I could just draw pictures that all fit that. And it could be, you could already imagine that like cartoons that are about indie nature, folk music, weirdo boy or whatever. I can't, I already forgot, you know? And it's like all of that works.

So yeah, I've rambled on quite a bit, but you kind of get the idea I think of what I'm

[00:23:23] Jordan Smith Reynolds: for sure.

and so I actually want to dive into that piece of it, is making it more, um, an enjoyable experience, because your whole thing is music marketing doesn't have to suck. Can you, can you lean into that a little bit more? Like, what, how, how can you make marketing not suck?

[00:23:39] Zack Fischmann: Yeah by having fun like everything sucks if you're not having a good time, so it's like okay Well, that's on us right as a musician Marketing is fun. Like I like making content because it's, I get to perform, I get to be creative and come up with like fun, creative ideas for like skits or for like performances or whatever.

I get to engage directly with my audience and fans. That's all marketing. Like playing a show is in some ways marketing. It goes both ways. I was, I had a post about this recently where it's like, Sometimes you play your shows to market your products and sometimes you market yourself to get people to come to your show, which is the product.

So it's complicated, but I like all that stuff. And it's all about figuring out how to make it work for you. And my whole thing is like, let's have fun with this. Let's make this a fun experience. Let's like do stuff that we like and not do stuff that we hate, because if you hate it, it's probably not going to help you anyway.

And that's why my whole thing is like, if you don't, if you truly hate. Social media, fucking delete it. Like, you don't need it. There are better ways. Just busk. That's how I did this when I was, when I first started, when social media I guess it did exist because it would just been basically had just started in 2005 was when I was busking and like, I met everybody by busking and that's how I got my gigs.

That's how I got fans. That's how I sold CDs. It's the same thing. It's like internet busking essentially. So right. It's like, you're just out on the digital street. I'm putting on your show, so what's your shtick? You know, like, and I don't mean that in a lame way, like, it can be lame if you want it to be.

If it feels lame, it's lame, but it doesn't have to be. I think that's something that we have to decide for ourselves.

[00:25:31] Jordan Smith Reynolds: I like that analogy too, because, you know, You. If you like a busker and you want to see them perform, you, you probably should be going to the same place regularly at a time when you know that that person's gonna be there again. Um, and you are wanting to hear the same music. 'cause if you go and you hear something different, like, yeah, that would mess with someone.

So I do really like that analogy for social media.

[00:25:52] Zack Fischmann: It becomes so clear. Once it's like, once you start to realize like, Oh my God, why have I not understood why my shit is tanking? And it's just fucking obvious. And like, obviously there are factors, but it's like all of us are scrambling and making like, and also the algorithms are constantly changing.

Right. So reels didn't exist. Couple years ago and reels are a new thing. That's very tick tock Tangential and whatever even the algorithm behind them is changing and all of this stuff is public Instagram shares It's not like seek, you know There are secrets about certain things but they share what they want you to do And how their things work because they want you to to use their shit and they want you to make good stuff because essentially they are the TV network and they want their shows to succeed.

They don't want you to make money. They don't care about that. Well, actually that's not true because now they have like shops, right? So you can have, you can sell products through Instagram and they take some, they have some deals going on around there. You can think of it sort of like a DSP for, for music.

I don't really know the details of it, but I just know that they're going to be taking something somewhere. So in that way, they have an incentive for you to succeed on their platform. And for example, they no longer integrate with Shopify unless you sell the product directly on Instagram. So that's how I know that they're making money off of it.

Cause they're like, we, you have to buy it here. Otherwise we're not allowing you to connect. So they're very intentional about that. So they, in that way, That's fine. You just have to be real about it. Okay, they're gonna take some invisible cut or I don't know Maybe that's listed somewhere. It just doesn't matter.

You got to work with it or just don't use it. It's fine You know, they're not our overlords. That's I think that's a misconception I think it's a feeling we get but I don't think it's a real thing.

[00:27:39] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, a lot of people fall for that for sure.

[00:27:43] Zack Fischmann: Yeah, and it sucks It sucks, but like I don't and people will say I'm wrong about this But I just don't think you have to do it, but you do have to be smart It's easier to come up with an excuse as to why something is not working for you than it is to figure out how make things work for yourself, you know?

So it's a challenge. I'm not saying any of it's easy, but yeah.

[00:28:10] Jordan Smith Reynolds: for sure.

I would also love to talk to you about, making a living as a musician because that has been tricky and, has changed a lot with streaming and everything else. And I know we talked about this, um, earlier on. We've, we've had a few conversations about it. you had mentioned kind of more like service oriented ideas or services offered from artists.

Um, and I want to talk to you about that. So just your thoughts on making a living as a musician through services versus like the music itself, uh, because To me, it's, it's very disheartening that music itself isn't really seen as a way that can generate income because that's kind of like the whole work and effort that's put in.

So that's kind of the two part thing. One, do you think, the music itself can ever really be a commodity again? And if so, how? And two, what money making sources do you see for musicians?

[00:29:07] Zack Fischmann: Yeah, we are treading into dangerous waters. I'm just going to be honest with my thoughts on it. And also this is not exactly my area of expertise, even though I have made a living as a musician. So I'm prefacing everything I'm saying as Simultaneously, I have strong opinions about this, but also I don't know.

[00:29:26] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Okay.

[00:29:26] Zack Fischmann: like, yeah, what is it? Strong opinions loosely held. Meaning like, I'll, I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but I'm going to share what my current belief is on this stuff. First, I would

[00:29:36] Jordan Smith Reynolds: And that's, that's a good preface because yeah, your focus with the company is music marketing. Not that your music will, will pay all the bills. So

[00:29:45] Zack Fischmann: right. And I always tell people, yeah, I always tell people that marketing your music doesn't mean you're going to get paid. It means you're going to pay money or pay with time

[00:29:53] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah. Typically.

[00:29:54] Zack Fischmann: To get people to hear your music and you have to understand that and you can figure out the hard part It's easier to easier to blow up on social media or Spotify than it is to make a living Consistently year after year like hard anyway So I have mixed feelings about your question about making a living as a musician and the music itself as a product or commodity.

I think to some degree, it's always been this way, where the music itself Definitely in my opinion has not always been the commodity or the product. I mean, recorded music has barely been around a hundred years, first of all. So this just wasn't a thing for, you know, the first 249, 000 years of human history.

You couldn't buy music. So it's an interesting thing. Or sorry, 249, 249, You know what I'm saying? Um, so I just mean to say like, uh, it's just not a thing. So I think the perspective that the music itself has monetary value is a weird thing. We all know it has spiritual value. We all know that it has innate internal value.

As a songwriter, you know the value of it to you because it's like, you're, you know, Sometimes it can feel like everything, which is complicated and that can be unhealthy too. But, but so I think that there's things to think about there. I think that there's, okay, so then let's go back to before recorded music, then it was just about performance or it was about written music.

And the, the value of your musicality was your contribution to a group, which wasn't necessarily your own writing, but you're playing parts or it's your contribution to. you're banging the drum or you're playing the trumpet to like, you know, or it's like, you know, to entertain the King. And if you do a shit job, they cut your head off.

So like, I think the perspective that things are worse, I'm like, I just completely reject that personally. I think it's never been better. That's my personal opinion. Unless you're at like, the, a higher tier than probably almost everybody that is going to engage with us is at. It's just like we all have more opportunity to reach an audience and to figure out how to monetize than we've ever had.

And so I try and focus on that. Um, the money, like I never got paid for my music before streaming. So I'm like, whatever, I'm making more money now than ever in that regard. So it's okay. I do know some people who do make a living just off of the streaming game, and they are doing it by producing a shit ton of music, and they're doing it in strategic ways in the same way.

They're branding it really well. They're strategic about where they release it, who they release it with, all that sort of stuff. And they're creating a lot of, you know, whatever lo fi beats type stuff or ambient type stuff or stuff that's easy to consume in large quantities and they'll corner a piece of the market and then they'll create things around that.

And you can do that in any sphere. That's essentially what a record label is all about. It's like cornering a portion of the market and then taking cuts off of everything in that market. And the artists. are going to struggle making money off of the music itself. Their job is to go out and perform and sell merchandise.

Right. So, um, in that way, I think, yeah, like making a living off the music, it, once again, it comes down to define, to figuring out what do you want out of it? You know, and I think diluting ourselves into, well, I want to be a rock star. Then it's like, okay, well, What does that mean? And what are you, what is the value that you're providing from your business as a rockstar?

And how is that going to work? And how many people feasibly can be rockstars at one time? Right. So that's one thing to consider. Then there's, yeah. Like what is your sale? What is your actual product? And this is why I like services because there's so many things that people need. and for me, I sell the service of running these workshops and providing a space and providing some structure and providing hopefully, my own perspectives.

I hope not to just tell people what to do, but that is in my tendencies and I'm aware of that. So I have to navigate that carefully. services are a great way of, you're like a mass, you want to be a mastering engineer, a producer, a mix engineer. You want to run a podcast. You can use your music to promote.

all of these things. It becomes like a marketing tool and it doesn't devalue the music itself.

I separate them, the music creation spiritual aspect, which is just pure and fucking gorgeous and beautiful and artistic. And then there's, what do you do with that? You know, like do you sell it? Because selling the music to a licensing company to me is no better or worse Than using the music to promote yourself and doing something else.

I think all of that's okay, you know um, it's all part of it, you know and like yeah, I think the way that people engage and Consume music too is really interesting. It's just complicated I'm, like getting lost in my own thoughts about it because there's so many ways to use music after it's been created to build whatever business you want because it's such a powerful emotional thing.

And from a marketing perspective, it's like, it's an incredible tool to reach people and to build an audience. Right. And this is why people license songs. Like, okay, if I want to sell a car and that car is like, I'm trying to find my audience for that car.

And then I've identified them as 30 something urban, cowboys. Right. Then I'm going to go look for a country song. Cool. By an urban country singer, and I'm gonna put it in the fucking advertisement so that everybody listening is like, I like this song, I like this truck, you know what I mean? And the association gets billed, and then they buy the truck.

So it's like, it's that, that's always been that way, at least in advertising. And even back in the day, I don't know. I think it's always been that way with shows. It was like, we're going to have a carnival. So we're going to bring in some like wacky vaudeville shit. And they're going to be like, hoo ha, hoo ha, like juggling and throwing things and like loud and rambunctious.

So music has always played some part of a bigger thing when it's in the context of economics and business. It's obviously different when it's in a spiritual realm. Um, even that can be a thing, you know, like it can just be a pure cultural experience too that has nothing to do with business, but we're talking about in the context of making money.

[00:36:22] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Sure. Yeah. So I love, I do want to get back to more marketing because that is kind of magic. Nothing's a shtick, but I do want to talk a little bit more about, yeah.

What, what's, what are some like unique services that you've kind of come across thinking about this or working with people? we've kind of covered some sync stuff, some advertisement things that music could be a part of,

[00:36:45] Zack Fischmann: Oh, like services people could offer. You mean?

[00:36:47] Jordan Smith Reynolds: yeah.

As an artist. Mm.

[00:36:50] Zack Fischmann: So many things. it could be anything like you can do, uh, teaching lessons. It could be, um, uh, healing work. Like, I've seen people who do like. music therapy or healing stuff, or it could be like life performance is a service essentially. It's entertainment, right?

Uh, it could be like writing songs as gifts for people. It could be, um, yeah, like mixing, mastering, studio work, engineering work. For me, it's marketing work. It could be But even you could build it into other things if you're clever, right? Like you could be a songwriter that writes songs and you could sell, I don't know, uh, bagels out of the back of your bike.

I don't bike trailer, right? And you could like write fun songs and you could be like the, this is the Jewish, most Jewish thing I've ever said in my life, but you could be like the, I'm a Jewish, uh, but you could be like the bagel bicycle guy, you know, like rides around and like sells bagels and has like a guitar.

I'm saying this because I did that with a friend for a while where we rode around and sold ice cream sandwiches and I played, you know, Turkey in the straw on the fiddle. And it was just for fun. And we sold out ice cream sandwiches and we were like, holy shit, that makes money. So like you can do so many different things.

It's just about figuring out what you like to do, but to dilute ourselves into thinking that we deserve to be paid just because we create art for ourselves, I think is, is, is dismissive of the reality of how our economy works. It, that could work in a system where everybody, where basic income is a thing.

Cool. And that's a possibility. I don't know. That's outside of the scope of this, but like, yeah, just because I'm writing about my feelings doesn't mean I should get paid for it. I need to be able to offer value to the people around me. To people, otherwise I'm a dysfunctional business. Every business has a responsibility to provide value to its customers.

And if you're not doing that, it doesn't matter how well you express your feelings. And I don't mean to say that as a diss, but I think we have to decouple business from art and we have to accept that art is beautiful and pure. And then if we want to run a business, we have to do the work to run the business.

[00:39:12] Jordan Smith Reynolds: I love that perspective. especially just reiterating that you can have really great art, really great songs. That doesn't mean money needs to be coming in for you because of that song is great. . That's not a given with a great song.

[00:39:27] Zack Fischmann: of money you make off your song is not representative of how good the song is. So it should never be a personal thing. And I think that's something that hurts a lot of people and it sucks. But like, just because you're not making money does not mean that your art is not meaningful or valuable in a non economic context.

It could be extremely valuable. To the right people, maybe just to your partner, who you wrote a love song for, or to like you, to your own healing, because you're, you know, your, your family member passed away and you wrote a tribute song to them. And it's a song that you sing to yourself because it makes you feel good.

Like that is, incredibly valuable and it doesn't have to make money. Like that would be to sell that, you know, I don't know. Is that any better than anything? It's just, yeah, just gets weird.

[00:40:18] Jordan Smith Reynolds: and I think your point about art that may not be, I guess like objectively great can do extremely well and make, make a lot of money. And that's, yeah, I think decoupling those things is really healthy. And I, I

[00:40:31] Zack Fischmann: Yeah, dude.

[00:40:32] Jordan Smith Reynolds: that on this. Um, cause I remember going to

[00:40:34] Zack Fischmann: so important.

[00:40:36] Jordan Smith Reynolds: yeah, I remember going to an event that was, uh, it was like a kind of sync music thing.

And watching one of these performances and just being like, Like, I really hated that. Um, and like, you know, that's my opinion too, but, I don't know. it did not feel very good to me. And, um, it's making great, great money. They do a lot as a sync artist. So, yeah, I really love the idea of decoupling that, for the

[00:41:02] Zack Fischmann: we have to for, for our souls. Like it's not, Business is business. It's its own thing and we have to be and I really just think as artists We don't have tools to develop those skill sets and that's literally what i'm trying to focus magic Nothing on is like we have to learn these sorts of core skills if you want to if you want to use them or Have them at your disposal and i'd love to offer way more.

I have so many ideas but once again outside the scope of this but Yeah

[00:41:34] Jordan Smith Reynolds: yeah,

[00:41:35] Zack Fischmann: there's no training. You're just out there on your own Hacking at a guitar and wondering why you're not getting paid. You know, it's like that's just not it's not the way

[00:41:45] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, great.

So bringing this back to marketing, I think the question would be why marketing? That could be to share your art with more people. And it could be because I want to be able to make a living on this, on this thing. So let's get back into the, the marketing piece of it. Uh, unless you have anything you want to, to, to add on to that.

Yeah. Feeling good.

[00:42:07] Zack Fischmann: this stuff. Yeah. I'm just thinking about this stuff. Yeah I love this shit. Like I it's so fascinating to me and so fun and like it's been a really cool experience getting to like Talk about these things because I don't think people Many people have or do or maybe they do and I just don't know.

I don't know.

[00:42:24] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, and I think it's it's really what we've just talked about is really a prerequisite to Starting to share your music. So I think that was a really good primer actually um Yeah, so so say we've kind of done that work and now we're at the marketing stage and we want to share Um share music with more people.

I know you've done a lot with kind of using ads as a platform Do you want to go there and talk about? Ads ads work. Yeah

[00:42:51] Zack Fischmann: Um, that's advanced is what I'm learning. Like I've run two workshops on it now and it's super powerful, but it's so freaking hard right now and it's just going to completely change because all these systems are just, everything's going to change. AI is going to completely change everything in my opinion.

So, um, you know, we don't need to get too deep into the specifics in that yet, but the basic core idea of it is just that it's so cheap to advertise and it's so easy to target an audience. And it's so it's extremely effective and just the way that it aligns with how streaming services perceive, um, what's the word I want to use?

The likeability of your music. I mean, Spotify is the same as Instagram. It's just trying to figure out what lane to put you in because it's like, and this doesn't have to be a bad thing. I know some people get frustrated by it, but once again, just Get it to five words for your brand, right? Spotify needs to be able to identify where you fit and who to show you to.

When you're running targeted ads and you can do this organically too, it's just harder because it's, you're not feeding streaming and like I'm starting to feel like streaming and viewing your content on social media aren't even all that different.

It's almost all the same thing, which is really just about furthering the brand of you for whatever year it is you do. Cause Instagram. I think younger generations don't even really. Go to Spotify that much. I do not have proof. Once again, this is anecdotal, but I think that a lot of people are just consuming media now through other means.

So, you know, you can advertise to convert into listeners if you want, or you can just post content directly. But the reason advertising is so effective for something like Spotify is because you're telling Spotify. You're just sending them qualified listeners for your music because you're, you're showing your music to an audience.

Then you're asking that audience to take an intentional step to go stream your music. And there's not enough of a barrier for them to like have a good reason not to do it. But there's enough of a barrier that they're going to be an intentional listener. And so therefore you're giving Spotify great information about your audience.

And so it's going to know what to do with you. And so you're going to get a lot of saves and playlist ads and things like that. You have to do it strategically. There's some complications and it gets really technical. And this is where a lot of people get fucked up and make mistakes. Um, and then it costs a lot of money and that sucks.

But if you're doing it right, you're going to get, it. And if people are resonating, you're going to get massive boosts and Spotify is going to know exactly what to do with your music. And I just think that it's so, you know, there's no magic to it. It's all, it's all just like very much a science. It's like, this is how these things work.

And we're just optimizing them. That's literally what it is. Like I come from computer science background. So for me, I'm just looking at it, like, we're just optimizing the flow of people from here to here, and then We're optimizing for specific responses on Spotify's platform, which are just based on metrics that we can measure.

So it's like very easy to optimize it in that regard. It doesn't mean that it's easy to deal with the people problems, meaning the coordination of. You know, how do I make the content and how do I like get all that shit together? Oh, I need to like get somebody to film the thing or I need to like edit the thing.

Oh, there's so many challenges along the way, but the actual optimization part is just one of those challenges. I think the challenge of it is there's so many different parts and most musicians don't have the technical acumen to deal with things like the ads manager and thinking about algorithms and the word optimization in general.

You know what I mean? Like these are things we talk about in the workshops because I'm trying to make this stuff accessible and it's fucking hard and people are struggling with it and I'm trying to make that easier for people and even that's hard.

[00:46:52] Jordan Smith Reynolds: When you talk ads manager, you're mostly talking about meta like facebook

[00:46:56] Zack Fischmann: Yeah, they're all the same, but yeah, they're, they're, you know, there's one for TikTok. You can make ads in Google, you can make ads in YouTube, you can, well, YouTube is owned by Google, I think. Right. Um, so Right. You could do this on anything, but ultimately I find the most value in Meta Ads Manager because I'm an Instagram dude, because I'm basically, I'm 39

It's not, if I was a TikTok person and my audience was on TikTok, I would do that, but I don't think that's where your streaming audience. I've, I've, I've just heard from the community of people that does do this shit, that TikTok is just not nearly as effective for advertising. It's more effective for other things, but I don't, I haven't had time.

It's too much. Just, I can't manage too many things at once, you know, um, it's easier to pick one and do it well than to pick five and do them all poorly. And it's better return.

[00:47:50] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Right, so you're focusing mostly on ads for Instagram and you mentioned like Spotify campaigns in particular

[00:47:57] Zack Fischmann: Yeah.

[00:47:58] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Have you looked into Spotify's? Advertisement options, and why would you would you recommend meta ads over Spotify's and and why?

[00:48:09] Zack Fischmann: It depends. On the situation, every situation is unique and there's like a holistic approach that you can take here. The main thing that I like about the meta stuff is that it allows you an opportunity to engage with the people who like your shit. Whereas if you do it directly on Spotify, all you're going to get is them listening to your music, but you can't write them.

You can't see who they are. You're not getting a lot of valuable information. And I don't think people realize this is how I perceive it. This is basically true for everybody. That's going to hear this. The things like Spotify are a marketing tool. It's not something that's going to pay you more than you spend on producing your music, unless you're really fucking lucky.

That's such a tiny amount of people. So if you Think about Spotify as a marketing tool. It changes the whole approach where you're like, okay, I'm going to use Spotify to optimize my reach to find my audience so that I can get valuable information back to figure out how I can make sales to run my business, whether that's.

through touring or selling merchandise or whatever. Right. So, um, and when you start thinking like that, you realize that the things that Spotify is helpful with is just reaching people with your music and then giving you data about them. basic demographics and credibility. That's it. That's basically all you're getting from it.

And the, the, I think that there's this weird misperception that, that if you make it on Spotify, like you're made, but I don't buy that. Like I have 20, 000 monthly listeners on Spotify. I probably couldn't get 20 people to show up to see me play. You know what I mean? And it's like,

[00:49:47] Jordan Smith Reynolds: mm

[00:49:47] Zack Fischmann: It's depressing, but also it's not that's there.

I think of them so differently. I'm like, no, I know how to optimize this shit. It's easy to do that. It's, and I can get more people at a show too, but it's not just about me. I have to triangulate the fucking booking and all this shit. You know what I'm talking about when you put a show together and you're like, you gotta like make sure that everybody's like has enough cry.

It's like the Venn diagram of your crossover of audience so that you can actually get people to fucking show up. You Like all of these things are so nuanced and I've been doing them for so long that it's just feels second nature, but it's very annoyingly complicated in particular, you know? But like, yeah, but so anyways, I would recommend meta ads because then you can actually, not only are you going to get the Spotify streaming bumps and reach because you're going to trigger their algorithms, which is awesome and free, right?

And you're getting paid. paid, you're not going to make your money back, but at least you're going to make some of it back. And it's going to help pay for some of the advertising that you're doing on Meta. So you're kind of double dipping. You're getting this like social connection and like leads, right?

Every time somebody likes your music or comments or follows you, they are a lead. It's crazy that we don't think like that to me because it's like you're a business remember so like everybody who's interested in your shit is a lead and I don't mean this in a shitty way like The the word in the music world would be a fan and that's amazing.

But if you're in the business of like surviving and making money, you have to sell products. So it's like, okay, what am I going to sell to my fans, my merchandise or me? I'm going to show up, put on a show. So it's like, those are people who are interested in what you're offering. So that's super valuable.

So I recommend meta ads because you're getting all of that and you're getting Spotify as your end result rather than anything else. So you're going to get both. I mean, awesome. And if you advertise directly on Spotify, you're just getting Spotify. And it's often more expensive to get the same result on Spotify that you would get from a meta ad and you're missing half the reward, I guess, or the outcome.

I don't know how else to put it.

[00:51:56] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah, if there's no social benefit to to the Spotify numbers, right? It's yeah, there's no way to reach those people. I think that's the biggest downfall

[00:52:05] Zack Fischmann: it's going to change.

It's going to change like they're there. Yeah, I agree. And they're either going to have to build in social, we don't know where they're going to go because within a few years, they could be like, fuck it. We just generate AI made playlists for everybody. Like unique to whatever you want.

We'll just make you whatever music you want to hear. You don't, we don't need artists at all. So who knows what they're going to do, right? I'm not trying to be like, but that's a possibility and a strong business case for that. And they might do that, but also, um, either they're going to have to integrate social elements into their platform or they're going to have to evolve in some way.

But somebody somewhere is going to combine social and uh, streaming and then that's going to be the new thing and it'll be fully integrated in this whole, everything will change. And it always does. And I'm sure, I know people are already working on that. I know for a fact, like, I know of some specifically, but like, um, it's happening.

It's just a matter of, are any of them going to work? You know,

[00:53:06] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Mm-Hmm. . Uh, one of the things you brought up, which I think is really important is having kind of the product in mind. You know, it's like you're doing your music and everything and you're having, focusing on this growth and marketing, but I think having that why in place is really important. Right?

Where are you gonna point them so you can, if money making is the goal, what are you gonna point them to? Um, do you have any thoughts on that or like, yeah.

[00:53:32] Zack Fischmann: that's for everybody to figure out. Yeah.

It's for everybody to figure out, define your why. And then everything will just click because sometimes your why is not about a product. Sometimes your why is about getting a job. Meaning like if you want to be on a record label, you're no longer interested in running a business.

You're interested in getting essentially hired to work for a business as a musician, right? Like you're like, okay. The boss is the label and now you're an employee and like, you're not actually your own boss, like you're working for somebody else and there's nothing wrong with that. A lot of musicians I know need a fucking boss, you know what I mean?

So it's like, you know, it's all good and a lot of people want that. So in that case, you don't need To sell products. Maybe you do because maybe you want to sell products as proof to the label that you have monetary value, which would be a really fucking good idea. I would recommend it, but it all depends on your why.

So if, if you're trying to get a booking agent, you're trying to prove that you can get people to come to your show. And so all of your efforts are about that. If you're trying to get a label deal, it's all about showing them that you're going to be able to sell products, go on tour and make them money.

Um, and then they will. essentially hire you, right? And that's what like signing is. I think the way we talk about these things, I've, whatever my, these are my opinions, but yeah, like. That's how I see that. so you have to think about your why. And if you want to run your own business, like you and I do, where we're doing this shit ourselves, you have to figure out what it is that you're selling.

Mine's very obvious now. And so all of my music marketing for myself and my own music, I don't even know if I'm going to need it as much. Uh, business thing anymore, if it will become purely spiritual and joyful for me, which would be so sick, right? Because it might not be necessary for my living. But in the meantime, I've used it for, uh, all of my marketing efforts for Marmalade Mountain are just data and information and like resources that I've learned and that I can share When I'm, and that's what I'm selling in my product is that experience and training and also just like structure and all these things and knowing what people need.

And I had to learn that myself by doing it because I am that I'm the same as everybody that are taking my workshops, you know, it's just that I put in Several years doing it, that's all. Um, so yeah, my product as my music, music work was the information really. And the results, which aren't even particularly impressive.

I stopped them intentionally. Cause I was like, I'm just burning money. I've already learned what I need to learn. I could get more streams, but who cares?

[00:56:11] Jordan Smith Reynolds: mm hmm. figuring out the why. and I think what's cool too is, with your music, now that you're doing the music marketing thing, L. A. has such a great community for, for musicians, I feel like, that as you're doing live shows, What?

[00:56:26] Zack Fischmann: I have mixed feelings about that, but

[00:56:27] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Mix Felix? Okay.

[00:56:29] Zack Fischmann: Yeah.

[00:56:30] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Um, there's, maybe I should say it's, it's, Vast

[00:56:34] Zack Fischmann: Yeah, there we go.

[00:56:35] Jordan Smith Reynolds: yeah, it's vast.

There's a lot of musicians doing the thing.

um, um, But yeah, I think that's a good you found a product if you're even just looking at the marketing thing Um as your product as you're doing your musician thing, it's going to very naturally lead to people Going to your product. So

[00:56:55] Zack Fischmann: Products market fit, they would call it, right? It's just all lined up and I got really lucky and it was not my intention. But yeah, I'm teaching, I'm providing music marketing advice on a platform that people use to market their music. So of course there's going to be a lot of interest there. Um, And, you know, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy to run the business.

That means that I can, there's a lot of people to reach. It's up to me to do a good job, delivering a good product, taking care of customers, taking care of my community, fostering like good experiences. There's so many challenges there, taking care of my own personal sanity and mental health, doing the work.

It's all hard.

[00:57:38] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah,

[00:57:39] Zack Fischmann: easy. Like anybody. This is one of my qualms with LA is they kind of sell you and music industry in general is it sells you like you can be a star if you're just really like, you know, it's you can just blow up overnight, but it's not like that. It's, you know, decades of work or experience or whatever.

And then once you succeed, that's when it starts to get really hard. And so I haven't even touched that I haven't touched that but like being a pop star I would imagine would be so fucking hard or a rock star or being a successful musician the ones I know Touring six months a year getting paid thirty five thousand dollars a year or whatever That is a hard job As you get older, you know, no disrespect.

That is a really hard job. So I think the, the, the realities of, of doing that, you know, some people are made for it. So people, you can make a lot of money if you're really fucking good, but for most people, you're just going to make a living wage. And that is brutally hard. So

it's a, it's a challenge, man.

[00:58:44] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Mm hmm. Well, I appreciate you, uh, Saying that like not sugarcoating it at all because yeah, that is really

[00:58:53] Zack Fischmann: No, it's easy to like blow up your social media relative to how hard it is to run a successful business or a music career. And so, And I'm not saying that to put down anybody that's struggling with the social media aspect of it. That's one aspect. The same people who might be struggling with social media might be doing a fantastic job performing and writing songs.

So it's everybody has different skills, you know, and at some point it's become clear to me that this skill I'm better at than other things. So people are resonating with it. And I think maybe the tip is more so like finding your alignment and what people are resonating with about what you offer. And then just rolling with that, like whatever's working for you, just lean in.

You know, maybe that's the thing. I don't know. I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't want to be like an advice guy, but

[00:59:45] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah,

[00:59:46] Zack Fischmann: it's happening.

[00:59:47] Jordan Smith Reynolds: cool.

What do you have, um, so you said you've got a few workshops right now. There's a content one, uh, coming up that's probably going to be running by the time this podcast airs.

[00:59:57] Zack Fischmann: Yeah, it comes up. It starts on the 19th of May. Very

[01:00:01] Jordan Smith Reynolds: the 19th of May. Mm

[01:00:02] Zack Fischmann: It's a test workshop. I'm trying a new, new thing.

[01:00:05] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah.

cool. So what's, what's next? We can follow you at Magic Nothing, um,

[01:00:13] Zack Fischmann: More workshops. Yeah.

[01:00:15] Jordan Smith Reynolds: More workshops.

[01:00:16] Zack Fischmann: workshops. More workshops. I'm going to be running music marketing workshops, primarily music marketing. Doesn't have to suck. I'm going to structure, figure out how to structure things to be the most useful for people and I'm going to continue evolving it.

I have so many other workshops I'd like to do that are all about practical skills and services in the creative, uh, world. fields, but specifically in music, I'm focusing on music right now. But right now for me, personally, music marketing doesn't have to suck. It's probably going to take me maybe even through a whole year.

You know what I mean? So I'm, you know, I already have a wait list up for the next music marketing workshop,

[01:00:52] Jordan Smith Reynolds: very nice.

[01:00:53] Zack Fischmann: and I'm just going to keep going, you know, and keep trying to provide something that people want or need. And if I'm, if I'm hearing or seeing that people need something else, I'll try and figure out a way to make that work in a positive way for people.

Um, so, but yeah, you can find me on magic. Nothing even better. If you just like hit me up on the website, magic, nothing. xyz, like sign up for the waitlist or sign up for a workshop, join the discord. We have our own community, which is like the whole point of that is that Instagram. is owned by Instagram. To be fair, discord is owned by discord, but at least we can just write each other directly.

It's not like I have to like get reach in order for you to see what I'm saying. It's just like, yeah, you can just be like, you can just check it. You know what I mean? So that's not a public thing. That's just for the people who partake in the workshops, but, um, yeah, take a workshop.

[01:01:44] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Cool. Yeah, and another thing I really liked that you said is, you know, we talked about how difficult this all is and how individual things are, and I think that's probably why you feel like going the advice route doesn't work very well.

[01:01:59] Zack Fischmann: Yes,

[01:02:00] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Because so much of it is individualized. Um, so, I imagine that's probably the hardest thing with structuring the workshops, is figuring out a way to make sure that it can, that people can take it and run in their individual directions.

Yeah.

[01:02:14] Zack Fischmann: a, it's a challenge, but it's the most fun and rewarding part, is being like, this is about you figuring out your path. And like, I'm here to provide information and structure around that process, but ultimately, and I'm going to teach you very specific hard skills. So you're going to come out of the workshop with like usable shit, not just like, Oh, cool.

Like I learned something. It's like, no, no, no. Like, you know, but the ads workshop, you have a running ad by the end of it. That's awesome. That's optimized for your shit. Um, or you're going to have like content coming out of the content workshop. That's, that's awesome. hopefully in the direction of you, but really it's about guiding you, each, each person through their process and doing that.

And yeah, doing that with lots of people is the challenge will just be, I'm about to find out.

[01:03:05] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah.

[01:03:05] Zack Fischmann: I don't know, but I'm about to find out.

[01:03:09] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Yeah.

[01:03:10] Zack Fischmann: Probably while people are watching this, I'll be, I'll be learning as that happens, you know, and I'm very excited. I'm so excited. It's gonna be so fun. Yeah.

[01:03:19] Jordan Smith Reynolds: great.

Thank you so much for coming on today. definitely check out magicnothing. xyz is the website. And magicnothing on Instagram. Um, yeah. I know I've, I've gained a lot just from, and to be fair, you're doing something right. Because every time I pop up Instagram, like it is your video that is first.

[01:03:37] Zack Fischmann: It's amazing. People are gonna, people are gonna, people are gonna burn out on me so fast. Watch in a month. I'm just gonna be gone. It's, it's fine. Like it's a moment and it will pass, you know, so it's all good.

[01:03:49] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Well, I hope not this, um, I'm excited to see what this is doing for you. and yeah. Yeah. Excited to, to learn more too. Just as you're, as you keep diving into this stuff. Thanks so much for being on Zach. I'll see you next time. Thank you so much.

[01:04:05] Zack Fischmann: thanks so much for having me. You're great Jordan. I really appreciate you.

[01:04:09] Jordan Smith Reynolds: Of course. All right. Thanks Zach. I'll see

[01:04:12] Zack Fischmann: Cheers. Yeah.