Successful Musicians Podcast – Episode #14: Simplifying and Demystifying Music Production with Kris Bradley of Produce Like a Boss

Successful Musicians Podcast Episode 14

Interviewee: Kris Bradley

Interviewer: Jason Tonioli

Hey, this is Jason Tonioli. I’m a piano player that grew up believing it wasn’t possible to earn a living and support a family with music. I’ve proven that idea was wrong, and I’ve met hundreds of other people who have found success with their music. This podcast features stories of musicians who have found their own personal version of success and fulfillment in both music and life. This podcast is meant to inspire musicians and help them believe in their abilities and motivate them to share their talents with others. This is the Successful Musicians Podcast. 

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Jason: Welcome to the Successful Musicians podcast. Today, our guest is Kris Bradley. She’s an incredibly talented musician that realizes that she’s a producer as well – songwriter producer. 

Kris has done some amazing cool things like she does stuff with Sony BMG, Rolling Stones Magazine, Fox, Lincoln and Miramax. I could keep going on and on and on, lots of projects.

Then, what I’ve learned more about you, Kris, is that I found out that you found this love for teaching and helping other people. You become this mentor/coach person and you’ve created all these courses and things to help other musicians to find success in their music or just figuring out what that means to them. 

Maybe just to get started, tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you end up getting into music? I know you’ve got a couple of cats. But tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got on this path.

Kris: Sure. My mom had me super young. My mom had me when she was 16 in the 80’s.  If you can imagine what growing up around that kind of music was like. It was awesome. I got everything from Guns and Roses, to Heart, Led Zeppelin, to Mötley Crüe, who my mom went on tour with by the way.

But here’s the kicker, my great grandma, it’s who we lived with for the first eight years because my mom was so young when she had me. So, I also grew up with Big Band, jazz, swing, and all these great classical music. In fact, the first piece I learned how to play on the piano was by ear, way before I was five. I remember I wasn’t old enough to take piano lessons yet, but I learned how to play “In the Mood” by Glenn Miller by watching and listening to my great grandpa.

So that’s where it all began. And if you fast forward that kind of how that turned into me becoming a producer. I always tell people that I kinda became a producer by necessity because I really thought I was gonna do a songwriter artists thing.  I was doing that for a while, in fact all throughout my 20’s – I was always like, either plan some kind of gigs somewhere. I did everything from plan for our bar gigs, to basking in the streets of Sta. Monica, 3rd Street Promenade, touring the world with an all-girl tribute band to Led Zeppelin called Lez Zeppelin.

I was doing everything I could like hustle and make money and I was working on my songwriting chops, and the next chapter for me after all that was, I wanted to become a professional songwriter. That’s what it got in my head. It’s like “I wanna get paid for the right songs.”

And so, they say, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. It’s like the book started out the show. Pat Pattison -Writing Better Lyrics; Julia Cameon – The Artist’s Way; and then a lot of self-help, empowerment books like Think and Grow Rich, The Power of Now.

I am on this journey. I want to be a pro songwriter and I started getting into it and I started connecting through different services, people with publishers and pitching my music and they’re like, “You need professional demos.” You can’t keep bringing us these half-husk demos. Turns out, there are 500 bucks of pop or more.

Jason: If they’re cheap.

Kris: So, I’m like, Okay, I’m running out of money, and I decided to learn how to do it myself. And I remember the moment I made that decision because I moved to Nashville, and here I was writing 2-3 songs a day. They don’t mess around there. It’s a schedule.

So, I am watching these really awesome songs pile up on what I call the “hard drive graveyard” because if you can’t get them out then it doesn’t really matter, they’re just collecting dust. I remember pitching a song to a publisher and she said, “These are really great songs.”

She listened to a couple. She goes, “If you could just produce, you’d be the full package.”

Because I told her, I can’t afford demos. shows.  She said, just learn that thing and you’ll be unstoppable.

I went all right. I went home and I decided to learn how to produce. And as a singer/songwriter who is not technically inclined and didn’t grow up in an era or age of smartphones and computers even, it was very challenging. I didn’t even own a computer until I was 30.

So, I’m basically learning basic things like Copy- paste in a word doc. I was learning very basic computer things let alone dealing with a piece of software that you could create music in.

So, I just like pulling my hair out like I couldn’t get my microphone to work. I had all these tech issues and eventually overcame it through sheer grit and persistence, finding various mentors, finding various videos that I could find. And then eventually I started saving money on my demos and then people started hiring me to do their demos. One thing led to another. I’m a producer by accident. I started doing music in film and TV and all these other avenues. I’m gonna shut up and let you ask the next question before I go any further.

Jason: So, as you were growing up, did your mom encourage you to do the music? You said you’re touring around a little bit, was that something where they’re like, “Hey, you should have a music career or it was one of those where they were like, “Duhh, don’t do that,”

Kris: I was never encouraged to pursue music as a career. I grew up with, like I said, my grandma, and the piano in the house, so I used to put on shows in our living room and like everyone always supported me from “You’re talented, we love what you’re doing.”

But I remember even specifically saying to my mom that “What if I want to do music when I grow up” and her saying, “That’s not what you do to pay the bills.” You need to get a 9-5. I remember her planting the seed – you need to be something like a corporate lawyer, so you really have a great, consistent income and basically don’t try to use music to pay the bills.

To just rewind a little bit, my mom and I don’t really speak anymore. We kind of have a strange relationship but she kicked me out of the house when I was 15. So, I have been on my own ever since I was 15 years old. I didn’t graduate from High School. I didn’t go to college or anything like that so I was all the more determined to just kind of show my family and the world that I could make a living with my music which I think was part of my fire.

Jason:  When you told me earlier that you’re getting your Two Comma Club award on stage with the Clickfunnels, so that’s exciting. There might be a fun picture to maybe send to mo.

Kris: Yeah, right. That’s gonna be my holiday card. “Hope you’re well. Wish you were here.”

Jason: That’s exciting. Oh, good for you. So, you started to figure out what you could do with this coaching. You’ve worked with a lot of different artists now and you probably see a lot of those same things that you went through and a lot of their stories as well. When these people are coming to you, what do you actually do for them? Let’s say somebody’s like, “Hey, I want to be a musician.” What’s next?

Kris: Usually, people come to me as a musician saying I want to be a producer, or I want to learn how to monetize this. To kind of pick-up where I left off, I said I became a producer out of necessity, which turned out to be a pretty profitable career for me. Definitely, like really excited to be able to sit at home, not even have to put on real pants and be like tracking vocals for this client, doing jingles for these clients, sync over here and all of a sudden, I’m making 6-figures as a musician from my home studio, right?

I’m working with these various artists and every time they come over, they say things like “How do I do what you do?” Because when I leave here today, I’m gonna track these vocals on this demo. I’m gonna go to a bar job or I’m gonna go work for Uber or Lyft.

And so, “You just got to learn this, you got to do this” and I started explaining how to start recording and even sharing that you don’t have to be a professional producer to be able to turn this into monetization.

As a singer, if you can track your vocals, you can collaborate with producers and musicians all over the world that will pay you for that. So, one thing led to another with me like teaching people in person and I realized that’s not sustainable. I’m going to shoot some YouTube videos. That’s where it all started. And before I could even get a YouTube channel off the ground, I mentioned it to a friend who went, “NO, you got to read this book launched by Jeff Walker, and you got to create a course” which sends me out that path, right?

So that’s what led to me creating courses and what I found with singer/songwriters is that they had the same challenges that I did which is not being tech-savvy, feeling like this is way over my head. I could never do this. It doesn’t help that producers in the industry love to tell artists, “You could never do this, you need me.”

It really begins with empowering. To answer your question, the musician understands that this isn’t over your head. You absolutely can do this and while there’s so many different opportunities you can pursue with your music, you’re not limited to maybe what you grew up thinking it was, which was “If I tour and get a record deal, then I’ve made it, which isn’t really quantifiable. It’s kind of like well, what does it mean to you? Right?

So, for me, while I went to Nashville thinking I wanted to get a publishing deal, I realized that my friends that had number one records, that had publishing deals didn’t make as much money as I did.

Doing actual work as a producer, it was a very, very sobering moment when a friend was at my house, and I was thinking he had to live on it because he had the latest, single with the latest like a hot country star. And he said to me, “Kris, I need you to show me how you do what you did.”

And I had this moment where I went, “Wait a second. You’re the definition of success and you’re asking me how I do what I do?”

At that moment, we defined what making it meant for me. I was like, I make a great living doing what I love and guess what I own everything. For him, it’s like he had to write for so many years before a publisher would give him a publishing deal. And then guess what? He got that number one, all that money.

Jason:  for the publishing go?

Kris: Exactly. So, whenever someone says oh, you got a hit song, it’s like a million dollars or 500,000, I’m like, how long did you write for free? How many hours did you put in? Break it down. It’s not a million bucks, not 500k.

So, I started teaching people by simplifying it and then you know, that began one product which I called from From Voice Memo 2 Demo. Then, people started getting massive results, right? They’re like, “Oh, my God, I thought this was so hard. I can totally do this now.”

People were starting to book work as a session singer and songwriter before they even finished the course. But then you solve one problem, and you create another. All of a sudden, you’re going I don’t know how to manage multiple clients. I don’t know how to price my services. I don’t know how to run a business like oh, like a beautiful, beautiful problem to have, right? I’d rather have those bigger problems.

So, then I started creating other courses and resources to help them learn how to build businesses, because the same thing happened for me when I started getting multiple clients. It’s like, okay, you got to learn how to project manage, learn how to delegate and outsource and do things that aren’t in your zone of genius. And so, I started teaching them that and yeah…

Jason: So, I’m gonna rewind back. So, let’s just hypothetically, let’s say we have a kid who’s just getting done with high school and they enjoy music, and they played around in logic a little bit, recorded a couple songs, and they’ve decided, Okay, I’m gonna go, over to the college paths, going to college, and I’m going to sign up for the sound engineering or whatever courses they provide. What if you’ve got a person sitting in front of you, let’s say it’s one of your kids. What do you tell them?

Kris: That’s a loaded question.

Jason: Oh, so close to home for me. I won’t give away who it might be but it’s a real scenario that I’m going through right now.

Kris: Here’s the deal. This is actually very put by somebody on my team, and I have a team and one of the team members said this, because he went to Berklee. He did all the top notch music, music courses, college, all of it, you name it. And what happened? He left school and he had no tools to monetize. Great skills. Made some great friends, right?

No tools to monetize. Started working with me and within three to six months, made more in that period of time than he had in the entire previous two years as a musician. What he said to me was this:

“If you want to find yourself, go to music school. If you want to create a career, go produce like a boss.”

Here’s what I got to say.  Ask yourself once again, are you pursuing that because in your mind, like, you think that you know making it means XYZ? So, for example, I’ve tried to go take classes on recording, and even a production program where I got there, and they act like everyone’s going to have access to that big old console and this great gear and these great rooms. It’s a new era. It’s a new music industry. Most people are working from their home studios. And so, for me, this goes with anything that I do, I don’t like to cram my brain with unnecessary information. It stops me from getting to my goals. So, if I know what my objective is, the fact is redefining what making it means. If making it for me means that I can make 100 grand a year or more just turning on this microphone and working from my bedroom. Why in the world would I stuff my brain with information on a patch bay or console or something I’m never going to work with?

It’s not what is right or wrong. It’s if it’s right or wrong for you and what your goals are. You want to work in a big studio, absolutely – go either apprentice in one or go to music school. And then when you intern, they’ll have you clean the toilets for the first year. Just saying.

But, you know, if you’re thinking that’s the only path where I think we get caught up is that people don’t know there’s other options. People didn’t know there’s other options besides getting a record deal, because they’ve always been told, oh artists have to starve for their art and then Big Old Daddy Warbucks in his glasses and suit and tie come to rescue you. That is the myth. That’s what I want to bust.

Oh, we live in a day and age where people get paid to play video games for crying out loud. You can get paid to make your music. It’s really up to you how you want to do it.

Jason: I think it’s only getting easier. I think the hard part that I see as I watch a lot of these musicians that struggle is they don’t seem to want to dive into some of the business side like you’re talking about, like the whole idea of taking a marketing class or even just studying marketing or even reading a book. It’s like, oh, I don’t want to do that. Well. Okay, are you happy with where you’re at now? I guess, you know, pain must not be bad enough for you to decide, maybe I want to move this direction just a little bit more.

Kris: Absolutely. I’m a firm believer and I don’t know where this originates. I certainly didn’t make it up. But it’s like, “If you want to live a life that most people can’t live, you have to be able to do what most people aren’t willing to do. Nobody in a position of greatness and wealth and success has got there by saying, “I’m just going to do things that make me comfortable that I want to do.”

Jason: Just even be unwilling to pick up the phone and call somebody to go show up and just go for us gotta like yes, that’s scary, but 95% of people aren’t going to do that one little thing and that might have made the difference.

For those who don’t know my background, I spent time in a software company after I’d worked in the banking industry for 12 years. So, I got the real job and was able to help pay for my music habits which was really helpful when it comes to making music when you can afford it to do that, but when I left, we started a software company, but it was software for banks. And I was the main guy calling on all these banks and banks are not easy to talk to. And if you’re just this little brand-new software company, they don’t like answering the phone or talking to you. We were very successful over time, but our average number of phone calls and emails to one person in order to turn into a sale ranged from 72 to 76 touches before we would close the deal.

And you know, I’ve heard people with sales efforts, hey, you got to try at least six times in order for it to be successful. Well, we were over 70 times in order to be successful. Show me that person that’s willing to do that. And that’s the reason you know, I think it’s the same thing in music or anything. If you’re willing to show up every day and try again and learn and get a little bit better. You’ll find it’ll eventually something’s going to click for you if you’re willing to work that hard at it.

Kris: Absolutely! I have been told NO. That’s probably the most feared word in my vocabulary as a musician that has been in the hustle and grind for over a decade is “That’s what we’re looking for. Nope, nope. And you just keep going. Keep creating.

We have a saying in one of my programs, we have a coaching program where we show people how to get paying clients as producers and one of our mantras is Create, Release, Repeat, create, release, repeat. Stop creating something and then putting it on this pedestal and thinking like this is it! This has to be it! You give it all this energy you don’t keep going, keep going. Keep doing more. It’s all about repetition and volume is a big part of it. People say oh, what’s more important is quantity or quality. And I say, “The quantity will bring the quality.” Just keep creating.

Jason: The thing that always pops into my head as if you’ve seen the movie Dumb and Dumber when Jim Carrey sitting there and he’s been “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance?”

It’s like a firm No but Okay that means No, didn’t really mean NO.

Kris: I love that you brought that up because I think it’s really important to not really be super persistent through all the nose, right? Determination is a big part of success in this industry. But I think to be able to be objective enough, to course create is a very big part of it as well.

So, if you keep making (was just going with sales kind of language now) an offer, and people keep saying no, the difference to decipher between when you need to up or change your offer and when you just need to keep going, it’s a fine line.

I know a lot of musicians that haven’t grown in the last five years. They haven’t developed any new skills. They say they want, for example, your objectives have to be in line with your actions, right. So, if you’re saying I want to write pop music for the market and be on the Spotify playlist, but you’re making music that sounds like it’s from the 90s and not in a cool retro way, but I’m dated and that’s the music I like, you’re just making to serve yourself. Imagine showing up to somebody’s house with a bunch of vegans and going but I like steak so I’m going to cook steak and if you don’t eat it, what’s wrong? There’s a bunch of vegetarians, right so I think there’s a way to understand what’s marketable as well and see how you can comfortably fit into that without feeling like you’ve completely sold your soul.

Jason: Oh, totally. I think the humility factor. I think a lot of times their friends and family as musicians, what you talked about earlier, everybody’s like, Oh, good job, you’re amazing. And we get built up. And so, in our mind, we’ve got really all that but then there’s also kind of the imposter syndrome that I think we all deal with where we don’t think we’re worthy. I don’t think we can so it’s kind of there’s two competing worlds.

I had the opportunity to kind of get together with a bunch of piano musicians a couple months ago, and at that event, we sat down just as the piano, and they were all sitting around the piano. And I got up there and it was literally like hey guys, I just wrote this new song and I want you to legitimately like beat this up and tell me that I’m horrible and give me feedback on what I could do better? Just give me honest feedback. Don’t tell me it’s great because, maybe it was but there’s always something you can make better. And I kind of put myself out there and it was scary as could be because you’re just totally exposed. That fact that I went and kind of tried to be humble enough to be like, okay, yeah, okay, that was a good idea. You know, it’s just that feedback came in, and just to be able to objectively step back and look at what, whether it’s your music or your funnel or your website or whatever and be open and like seeking to improve. That makes so much difference.

One of my favorite’s books, it’s about Etymology.  Etymology is the study of words. It’s where words come from. So, it’s kind of like a totally nerdy educational type of subject that people look at but the word humble comes from the word humus in Latin and humus says it’s like dirt or soil that’s super fertile. And if you have fertile super humus soil, then your plant when you plant it in it, it’s gonna grow much better.

So, if you think about being humble enough, what you’re doing is you’re making yourself fertile and just open to the feedback and the water and then and so when that seed does fall in that, it’s going to be able to grow so much better than if you’re just like, I’m not going to really listen to this. You know, this is how I like it, makes all the difference. It’s super uncomfortable.

Kris: 100%. I think that was a big turning point for me as well when I stopped taking the feedback from friends that told me I was great and said, but okay, I need to get mentors. I need to be a seeker. I need to seek to improve and be prepared for that because it’s really scary.

I remember the first time a publisher was like sending really bad songs and I remember her going. “Have you ever co-written before?” and I just took that as the biggest insult. I was so sensitive. I was like, what are you saying?

But it was true. Like I needed to do something to expand where I was. Oh, yeah, I was very stuck. I totally agree. I love the origin of the word humble; I’m totally going to write that down.

Jason: I’ll just send you that one. So, you’ve done co-writing and you’ve coached a lot of people. Is there any session or time that you think back of like, I really improved and had one of those big “aha” moments to make yourself better as you look back? Is there anything that comes to mind with that?

Kris: Oh, absolutely. I remember, I was in a demo phase where everything just sounded like a demo, and I couldn’t get it to sound any better than a demo and I didn’t get it. And I had heard of using like reference tracks before like to mix with and stuff. But I just remember going to a friend who had a lot of success in film and TV and he was always producing for film and TV and I was like, “What is the secret?” Where am I wrong? Help me.

He goes, ” Kris, you’re trying to reinvent the wheel every day. He’s like, let me show you something and just pulled open like his session and showed me how much of it actually started with the reference track and a lot of it was reverse engineering. It wasn’t like to make a sound like so much to know that the client wants this. And if you pull the track into your session and go, Okay, how long was that verse? How long was that intro? What kind of drums are happening here and just pay attention to the math and then create a song with similar math. You don’t have to make it sound exactly like it. But you can borrow the elements that will make them say, yes, like that for me… I was like, so excited to just go home and start with the end in mind and have this massive intention. And that was like every song I made from that point on I monetized. No matter what because wherever I wanted to do, I would just look at the market and go okay, what’s working? What is selling? What is getting placed?

Reverse engineer and it’s not the same, by the way, if anyone’s listening and goes, Oh, you’re a copycat.  NO. Even Tony Robbins says, success leaves footsteps, right? It’s all about modeling math. You can go back to ancient Kungfu masters that talk about doing this. It’s all about learning the forms first, it’s actually a kung fu practice or call that Shuhari. In the shu state, you’re learning all the forms and literally modeling them like form-perform step per step. Then, you start to kind of okay in the Ha state start to go okay, I can improvise a little bit. I’ve got my basics down. I’m going to throw in an extra dance move, right? But then when you get to the Ri, you’ve discarded everything you learned, threw the playbook out and now I can sit down and produce without a reference track but using that as my launching pad for so long, allowed me to create commercially profitable music.

Jason: Speaking of these kinds of backups, we’re talking business to Tony Robbins. So, as you’re working with producers, or just anybody who’s wanting to get in the music business, is there like a couple of courses or is there a book? What’s the top three or five types of things that you would say were the game changers, that every producer and musician person if they want to monetize what they’re doing, they really need to go through?

Kris: Well, I can tell you right now that I looked for books, and I couldn’t really find the exact one, but I am trying to write that book right now. And he mentioned it. You want to turn the launch by Jeff Walker…

Kris: …and that was for the coaching side of things. I think I can talk about that stuff all day. But as far as going pro as a musician and not as an educator, I would say that the books that fallen into that with Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Kleon, How to Better at Almost Everything by Pat Flynn and then I would say that if you want to carry that over into funnels and marketing those apply as well, but then let’s add a view to that and go launch and anything that Russell Brunson has written so Dotcom Secrets, Traffic Secrets, and Expert Secrets as well as Building A Story Brand by Donald Miller and probably a million others coz I am an avid reader, I’m not gonna stop there, but I love to read.

Jason: Awesome. Are you a big podcast person too? Listen to their podcasts as well?

Kris: Yes, I have seasons where I go pretty hard on a lot of stuff and then I have to kind of pull back, especially as I get really deep into falling more and more in love with marketing. I realize how much, and I think this is important to mention how much you can get wrapped up in that masculine do-do. Achieve strategy, strategy? Energy.

I found that when I go too far in that way and I don’t open up and maintain that artistry in that receiving, allowing, like feminine energy that I get imbalanced and that no one can do that, but they’re gonna love the strategy. And so, what I’ll do is I’ll go through seasons where I get heavy into it and then I pull back and I go, Okay.

There’s actually a way like Abraham Hicks for example. I’m a big fan of Abraham Hicks works and stuff and being able to say, “I don’t know what the next step is but if I ask for guidance, I can be led to that and then let the book fall off the show. But it can’t just be this whole thing, like listening to every teacher and every strategy thing. I get off, you know what I mean.

Jason: Awesome. I see so many similarities to what you’re doing where you get too busy and then all of a sudden, the creation part of it stops so what do you need to be able to give yourself more hours in the day? Do you go hire people because I watch some people or they’re like, Oh, I just don’t want to learn it. I’m just gonna go hire somebody to do all my Facebook ads or I’m gonna hire somebody to do all this so how do you find that balance?

Kris: To unpack a couple things there. So, I have a team. I have hired and I’ve built over the last couple of years because as I added education into my workflow, the fulfillment aspect of things couldn’t have sustained that including running a community and all the things that we do with our coaches, I couldn’t have done that. by myself.

But even before that, as a producer, I had interns and assistants, but you know, with Produce Like a Boss, I do outsource things to people on my team, so I focus on what’s in my zone of genius, but I do think, and you just nailed it. There is a difference between delegating and throwing money at a problem to make it go away and going, “I don’t want to learn that I don’t want to see that.

And I think that this comes back down to do the work, be the 1%. You want the 1% results, do the 1% and a lot of that is going to be white knuckling the beginning because you cannot delegate properly, if you don’t actually know how to quantify success.

I did that. You know much money I lit on fire with my first Facebook ads guys. Gladly did it. Now I know better. And I’m like, I will never do that again. Doesn’t mean I have to get in to do it myself, but I had to learn enough to quantify success, right? So that’s what I have to say about that.

And then as far as making time, time blocking is a big one for me. It is like batching similar tasks, so that you don’t have to context switch, right. And then also, before jumping into any task, I do this thing called the DAD method. Delete, Automate Delegate.

So first, I’d say, why am I doing this? Do I need to do this? How does this move the needle on my career and what my goals are for the month of the year? If it’s not important, I delete it. If I can automate it, Okay, for example, an email sequence, If I’m going to start a relationship with a client or student and they haven’t purchased, I’d like to keep following up with them

Can I write that sequence? And then AUTOMATE it to go out to every person that get that tag on my list so that I don’t have to put it in my calendar and follow up in a week and then to exactly then DELEGATE would be anything that’s not my zone of genius that I need to get off my plate so I can focus on bigger picture stuff.

But the fact of the matter is, I went from producer to teacher – teaching production, which I fell in love with. And then now I’ve graduated to CEO right and now I have teachers that I’m teaching how to teach my methods so that I can be a visionary for my company, and not be in the minutia every day, but it’s been a gradual step up. And not everyone will want to do that. Some people will not, I love teaching. I want to stay here, and they’ll stay there. But for me, it was like I kept you know, Joseph Campbell says Follow your bliss. It was like “Oh my god, teaching is awesome. Oh, marketing is awesome. Oh my gosh. I’m a visionary. I want to build more cool shit. I want to build more products and help more people.

Jason: Awesome. When you told me you have a big goal, right when we were starting to tell everybody about the $100,000 goal that you have shared a little bit about.

Kris: My goal is to start with 100,000 100,000 musicians and help them go full time from their home studios using what they’ve learned through the art of you know our coaching which is how to produce and record yourself from your home studio.

Jason: Awesome. So, the measure of success with those is what do you want to be able to see them accomplish? I guess what’s the biggest payday I guess in your mind that you’ll get from that?

Kris: Yeah, we’re already seeing it happen now where students are going oh my gosh, like I don’t have to do these like $50 Bar gigs or these 200 Bar gigs and I gotta lug around my own PA and drive hours and they’re going, I just made $2,000 cutting a couple songs at home and I think that’s a really great start. Because we just launched a business coaching program less than a year ago. We don’t know yet but some of these students are probably already at 6 figures. So, it’ll be fun to see because I already see it happening like we’re on track for it to happen and it’s just like how many more people can we help with these tools?

Jason: I can see it in your body language, you light up when you talk about other people’s success. I think one of those things when I look at even a lot of people, you can accomplish so much by yourself and all of a sudden when you can teach others, it’s almost a bigger payday when you watch the other people succeed that you’ve been able to touch in some way.

Kris: It is! It is my biggest, biggest thing especially being on my own since 15. I was very self-focused for a long time, which I think is good. I think it caused me to do a lot of self-improvement and kind of help with that journey. But it was always like an addition, like, how can I get my money? How can I get my deal? How can I make enough money? Survival.

Then, I didn’t have to worry about surviving anymore and then all of a sudden Produce Like a Boss came along and as I was helping other people they would come to me and say “Kris, I just got off the phone into a movie.”

I have a student who just placed three songs in an Antonio Banderas movie, like no joke, big in the theater. It’s like a real deal, movie deal.

Jason: Big deal.

Kris: And I taught her everything she knows, like she came to us not knowing anything about music production. When my students come to me and they’re like, “Oh my God, and they get those successes. They come to me, I get it.That aha drug, the only thing I love more than getting that for myself is getting it for other people.

It’s like, still told, like, “Oh, you just got another sync placement, and it feels like a tenth, a hundredth of a size of heart fullness that I feel when I am helping my students which for me is like, “That’s where I wanna go, I got to move towards that feeling.

Jason:  As I’ve talked to lots of musicians, one of the things they see is just that payday of knowing that their art helped in some way. I think it’s just universal for musicians.

Kris, thank you so much for sharing. If people want to find out a little bit more about you, where should they go? What’s the website or where should they look you up?

Kris: You could just find me Produce Like a Boss anywhere.

producelikeaboss.com, IG, Tiktok is usually where I’m hanging out on socials. And if you wanted to, like get into an introductory level and learn how to produce you could do a free training at producelikeaboss.com/ready.

Jason: Awesome. Cool. All right. I have a feeling we’re gonna be chatting more and more. Yeah, you’re a total funnel, nerd and business nerd kind of like me. There’s very few of us that really just light up about these types of things, but I appreciate your time today. Hopefully you guys got some really good value out of this and appreciate all your thoughts.

I love how you just serve your people. It’s about when you’ve made it about helping others. And I think that makes all the difference and the reason why you’ve been successful is that it’s not about you, it’s about serving and helping others around you. So, I congratulate you for that. So, thanks so much.

Kris: Thanks for having me.

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