300 Film and TV Placements: Were You One of Them?
I nearly fell out of my chair when the CEO of a really great Music Library was sitting in my office getting ready to do an episode of TAXI TV recently. What surprised me?
He told me that right before he left his office to come to TAXI’s headquarters, he asked one of his staffers to tally up the number of placements his company had locked in for TAXI members. What was that number? THREE HUNDRED!
“Wow, I can’t believe that! That’s incredible,” I exclaimed, wondering why the vast majority of those placements had never been reported to us via email, phone calls, or postings on the Success Stories section of the TAXI Forum from our members.
The Real Shocker!
It wasn’t until the CEO brought it up during the TAXI TV Broadcast and elaborated that it was actually three hundred TAXI member placements in the first six and a half months of 2015! Holy $#!+! That’s huge!
And how many members reported those placements to us? Maybe a couple, as in two or three out of three hundred!
If you multiply those 300 placements, times all the companies that get music from TAXI and sign deals with our members, simple algebra would tell you that THOUSANDS of placements have happened in the first half of 2015, alone!
Why the Companies Rarely Tell Us…
You’d think that all those companies would tally up those numbers and let us know about the placements on a regular basic, but only a couple actually do. Why? Because they’d rather spend their time pitching music. That’s what brings in the money. And in today’s competitive landscape, they need to do all the plugging they can!
And what about our members? Why don’t they report their signings and placements? “Sorry man, it slipped my mind,” and “I thought the companies told you,” are the most often heard responses.
I get it… when a TAXI member gets a placement, it feels like their victory, and it is! They tell their family and friends. They tell other musicians they know. They take the well-deserved credit. And so they should; it’s their music, their hard work, and their success.
But, if you asked how many of them had ever even HEARD of a music library before joining TAXI, the vast majority would answer, “No.” If asked how many knew what libraries need, what music supervisors need, and how to give them what they need, again, the vast majority would tell you they didn’t know any of those things before they became TAXI members.
One of the things they DO tell us is, that they wished they’d joined TAXI years before, because now that they know the ropes, they’d be much further along in their careers and making much more money if they had. It is a numbers game, after all! The more you write and pitch, the more deals you’ll get, the more placements you’ll get, and the more money you’ll make. Simple math, and our most dedicated members have figured that out, and they’re also our most successful members.
Here’s the Secret Sauce Most Musicians Overlook…
When you tell TAXI about your deals and placements, other members hear about you. When they hear about your success, they often want to collaborate with you. That broadens your horizons, the number of genres you work in, and often multiplies the number of companies getting your music!
Success Breeds Success!
We’ve all seen new TAXI Forum members who join the Forum just to make connections and ride the coattails of our most successful members. But the successful members are generally drawn to other successful members. They’d prefer to invest their time and relationship building with people who are on equal footing, rather than carrying people with an unknown or non-existent success quotient over the threshold. Can you blame them?
So what’s the bottom line? There are hundreds, probably THOUSANDS of you out there who’ve not told us about your deals! While it must feel great to tell your family and friends about your success, emotional satisfaction only goes so far. How many missed opportunities have you missed on a business level?
This is All You Need to Do
We’d really like to hear from those of you who’ve signed deals and/or had placements through TAXI connections! I’d love to put some of you in our magazine ads, and would love to feature you on our website and in our newsletters. Let the world know! And not just other TAXI members!!
Music library owners read our newsletters and browse our Forums to see who the “good people” are. If you want to ramp up your success, simply shoot an email to us at: MemberDeals (at) TAXI (dot) com, and tell us which companies have signed you, and which TV shows, films, commercials, and video games you’ve been placed in because you’re a TAXI member. Investing five minutes in your career seems like the smart thing to do, and we’d appreciate it as well!