Impress Potential Clients

Sloan

Sloan

Sounds like shit!
Oct 22, 2006
5,072
0
36
Atlanta, GA
www.sloanstewart.com
I was just wondering what seems to seal the deal for most of you when negotiating work.

While I have received acclaim for the work I have done, I always feel like mentioning that I work out of my mom's house with presonus gear may negatively affect the perception of my professionalism.

Also, since I am based out of a residence, it seems difficult for clients to realize that this is not to be treated as a non-profit venture. In turn, deposits or advance payments are tough to negotiate.

For those of you in a similar situation that work often, what are some ways you attract and connect with clients. Is there one thing that really seems to push the client to choosing you, like your room or a certain piece of gear, etc...

I am not worried about return clients, everyone so far has specifically expressed how pleased they are when working with me, which is comforting.


Thanks for your input.
 
I am in a similar situation and tbh, there are two things that make an impression on clients:

1) Gear: people love gear, love things with lights, knobs, love brands, even if it sounds stupid. Things like AKG, Neumann, Mesa Boogie (maybe Mesa doesnt impress so much on the US..too common) makes people go 'wow'. Also 'tape' is a great way to impress people. Man, i hate this, but it is true.
2) your work: do great work and people will come blindly to work with you. Make your stuff sound better than the other studio full of fancy gear (today that IS possible). Promote yourself and your work on social media and all that yada yada it is always said.

but deposits and advanced payment will always be hard on this position. Sometimes even on 'pro' studios it is.
 
Yeah, the gear thing always bothers me. I have never been in a position of making much money, so I don't have anything super expensive at all.

I recently lost a job to someone else that has a console etc - to me, it doesn't sound good. I feel I could have done a better job and even though they are happy with it, it sucks knowing it could be better. I hear lots of sub par stuff in this area. My stuff isn't the greatest, but I definitely bust my ass to make it sound as good as it can.

Having a console is not practical at all for anything to me right now. I am all in the box and don't foresee that changing anytime soon. Besides that, what are some pieces of gear that have helped you landing jobs?
 
Just say something like
"We're just gonna track here. I'm gonna take it to my friends real pro studio to mix it by myself" Srs, not srs.
 
Fuck people who are impressed by gear and not by the work you put out.
Who wants to work with such fuckheads anyway :p
 
^ It's comforting to think that but the reality is most musicians are influenced by stuff like that, even if they are a decent band and pleasant people overall. Many care about the experience as much as they care about the finished product, if not more, even if it's on a subconscious level.
 
I suspect it's not just this profession where superficial things matter. Whether they should or not is highly debatable but generally fall on the side of the more professional the appearance, the more likely clients are to expect (you only have one chance to make a first impression as they say) professional standards of doing business.
 
I recently learnt a lesson the hard way. I had a minimal setup (M-Audio Profire 2626, Alesis M1 Active MKII, M-Audio mics etc.) and I had a lot of work, put out some good sounding records (e.g. http://benevolent.bandcamp.com). I decided I want to go "Pro" and get high-end gear, so I borrowed around $15,000 from a friend and got some stuff to impress the clients (Avid HD Native + OMNI, Kemper Profiling Amp, TC-Helicon VoiceLive Rack, Blue mics etc.).

It all came crashing down so fast because I had to raise my charges to pay for the loan and that lead to zero clients. I missed six months of my loan payments and finally my friend had to take all the gear back so he could sell it off and clear the loan from the bank. I'm left with nothing because I sold my old gear and now I'm slowly trying to get a minimal setup so I can charge less and get more work.

Just keep doing what you do and let your work speak for itself. If your clients want pretty lights, knobs & faders and don't care about the final product... then you're better off not working with those guys.
 
superfreak said:
I recently learnt a lesson the hard way. I had a minimal setup (M-Audio Profire 2626, Alesis M1 Active MKII, M-Audio mics etc.) and I had a lot of work, put out some good sounding records (e.g. http://benevolent.bandcamp.com). I decided I want to go "Pro" and get high-end gear, so I borrowed around $15,000 from a friend and got some stuff to impress the clients (Avid HD Native + OMNI, Kemper Profiling Amp, TC-Helicon VoiceLive Rack, Blue mics etc.).

It all came crashing down so fast because I had to raise my charges to pay for the loan and that lead to zero clients. I missed six months of my loan payments and finally my friend had to take all the gear back so he could sell it off and clear the loan from the bank. I'm left with nothing because I sold my old gear and now I'm slowly trying to get a minimal setup so I can charge less and get more work.

Just keep doing what you do and let your work speak for itself. If your clients want pretty lights, knobs & faders and don't care about the final product... then you're better off not working with those guys.
Click to expand...

Man, that's a pretty rude experience you got there. Hope everything will be better soon!

Back to the subject, I think it's much a bla bla thing. You know, like a car seller ahah! Let the client speak first, then you know what he expects so you know how to talk to him. Doesn't mean you have to lie at all, it's just about guessing how you can present your stuff to this particular client if that makes sense.
 
I use a computer plus L6 Toneport UX1 and mix with headphones (ATH M-50), period. The way I do get away with this is I never advertise myself as a recording studio or anything to to with that. I "offer mixing and mastering services". Anything beyond that is irrelevant, like gear, place, rooms and such. I do my job over the Internet, so I never have to meet any of my clients or show them anything. They get what they pay for: a service.
 
Here's my personal take. Maybe I'm just jaded, or making excuses...

Getting clients is basically impossible. I record out of my home, and despite having extremely high end gear and producing better sounding product at cheaper prices, people are just not interested because it's a home. I lose out to all the local "real" studios 95% of the time. Most of my work comes from mixing and mastering from bands through the internet, but even those clients are dwindling, and I don't know why. Possibly because my old source of bands has switched to a guy who claims to be especially good at "mastering for vinyl," which as you may know, is a common misconception regarding audio and wax. Good thing I didn't go part time at my day job like I was planning.
 
Heabow said:
Let the client speak first, then you know what he expects so you know how to talk to him. Doesn't mean you have to lie at all, it's just about guessing how you can present your stuff to this particular client if that makes sense.
Click to expand...

This! Everyone's different and everyone is looking/listening for certain things from you. Learning how to coax information out of a potential client is very important! If it's done right, they trust you off the bat and will pretty much tell you what they want you to say. Try asking open-ended questions to get them to open up like "what is it in your favorite songs, sonically, that really makes you feel them", "what kind of sound do you want yourself to sound like", or anything like that really. People love talking about their musical visions and aspirations, find these and then you should instinctively know what to say to be on their level. I also LOVE to bring these questions and topics up when someone is having an off day and getting bad takes. It sometimes put them in the right zone mentally and makes the recording go much smoother.

One of my BIG selling points is that I've been recording and mixing things since I was 11 in my first band (oh how terrible those recordings were haha). That REALLY makes people's eyes bulge, I love that! Try to think of a thing that sets you apart like that, it can make a great selling point. Sometimes people ask me straight away what sets me apart, you gotta have a GREAT answer to really wow them. Maybe someone you recorded wound up being signed by a big-name label, or your recording made its way onto the radio, or that an album you worked on is big in another country, or even something about your sound that no one in the area is able to hold a candle to (like your guitar tones or drum sounds). It may even be an insignificant point to you too, but worded right and spoken with confidence, you'll look and sound more professional. Just my experience and 2 cents
 
Soundlurker said:
^ It's comforting to think that but the reality is most musicians are influenced by stuff like that, even if they are a decent band and pleasant people overall. Many care about the experience as much as they care about the finished product, if not more, even if it's on a subconscious level.
Click to expand...

Yeah of course, that is if I think I'll be hitting up a professional recording studio!
But the way I understood (or maybe I just assumed it) is that he doesn't advertise himself as a recording studio, but he tells the bands that it's a project/home studio.
So if a band walks into a project studio expecting big time studio experience for project/home studio rates then some kind of alarm goes off in my ears already.

And don't get me wrong, of course appearance matters, stuff has to look tidy and neat, and it would be good if the room you record in is seperated from the rest of the house (could be kind of awkward if the bandguys meet your mom on their way to the toilet lol), your social skills should be good etc...
All those things don't have a lot to do with gear though.

So if someone is impressed by a shiny unit with a lot of knobs and lights, even if he has no idea what it does then well...he's not the kind of person I really vibe with to begin with.

Of course nothing wrong with bands that want a certain sound, know something about production and how to archive that, and then pick the facility to work with based on their gearlist. But they should never forget to also check the engineer that sits behind all the fancy stuff too.
 
I don't mean to keep bringing him up, but Colby Wedgeworth from Sacramento uses Superior and podfarm and charges $3000 a song. He's super good at what he does and has work setup through The Artery Foundation. You just have to be good at what you do and be in the right place at the right time.
 
Or Bob, the other guy in the area. His "studio" is two connected rooms in a rehearsal warehouse so naturally every band in the area knows who he is. But he has the reputation on being the Little Ceasars of recording studios. He can do loud, quantized autotuned stuff super quick but he uses the same drum samples and effects with every band/genre he records. So he's booked solid for the next 8-10 weeks but it's mostly cookie-cutter demo stuff.
 
I think being a musician or in an active band helps. You make connections and people work with you basically because they like you and or like your rates or location. Record one band that gets a little attention and use that band to push your social media presence. Have a website or facebook with samples of your work. Go to shows and pass out cards and make small talk. So many steps to take but all are as important as the next. Mainly local bands will hit you up based on something you did for their friends band. Even big studios get slow or have "off" seasons. Money's tight nowadays and people need security knowing their stuff is gonna sound good more than seeing bling bling gear, IMO.
 
I'm in the same boat. I own a home style studio at a commercial location. I had a band come in that paid $400 for a single at House of Loud Studios (some overbooked engineer there), then came to me and I did a single for almost nothing. The difference was night and day and they were so stoked on how it came out yet they still wanted to record at House of Loud. I literally can't get local clients, even if I tell them I'll work for free. That being said, I've done work for bands in Italy, France, Canada, Texas etc. Local guys are not impressed by my studio and I'm not part of the "scene politics" so it makes it difficult. I've been dead for about 2 months and it's so damn frustrating
 
If you're in a decent market you should be able to rent a commercial studio for reasonable money. I have a couple of spaces I work out of in addition to working from home. I lay out the options for my client, "it's $X if we go here, if you can only do $Y we can still make a great record at my place."
Also, I think a lot of guys think if they turn out good work they can have an unmade bed in their "studio" and it's cool. It isn't. No one wants to see that shit. Just b/c you work from home doesn't mean you can get away with a space the looks unprofessional unless the band are buddies.
 
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