Interview with David Hooper: Is Being Rich Like Flipping A Switch?
Bill Baren
I work with coaches who are struggling to get clients. I help them get high-paying clients today.
How do you stand out when everyone in your line of work pretty much follows the same advice and does things the same way? What if you were able to get awesome inspiration from a totally unexpected source?
The music business!
Sound crazy?
Here’s the thing: A copycat never builds a blockbuster business. What David Hooper, my podversation guest, has to share about the music industry and marketing will give you a completely fresh perspective on your business.
Hooper is widely known for helping musicians create six-figure incomes. I wish everyone could hear his perspective on the vibrations of money and the power of charitable giving.
And what he has to say about the way that musicians respond to their audience will help any entrepreneur get in the groove.
If you prefer, you can listen to the episode here.
Here’s What to Expect in This Episode
- What’s the Rich Switch—and how does it go beyond the Laws of Attraction?
- What can speakers and coaches learn from musicians?
- Is “instant success” actually a myth?
- How to be co-creative during a speaking engagement
- What can practicing music teach us about business?
- Why chasing the buck doesn’t work in real life
Selected Links from the Episode
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Bill Baren: All right! So, I have been looking forward to having this podversation, and why one of the reasons why I have been looking forward to having this podversation is that my guest has a lot of music industry roots and he helped musicians create six-figure incomes. And the reason why I'm so excited about having this conversation is because I spent twelve years myself in the music industry. As some of you may know, I owned a record label, a distribution company. I was doing production. I was doing all kinds of different things. And so, it's awesome to be able to have a conversation with somebody that's going to take me down memory lane for myself.
So, my guest is David Hooper. One of the things that I want to say about him: first of all, not only is he successful but he's incredibly prolific. I mean, he's written a lot of books and I want to talk to him about how he wrote so many books in relatively short period of time later. And, most of his books and most of his materials center around helping musicians create prosperity and also how to use the law of attraction to create wealth. And I can't wait to dive deep into both of those subjects.
So, welcome, David.
David Hooper: Thank you, Bill. Glad to be here.
Bill Baren: Cool! So, I know that personally I don't have a lot of musicians in my audience, but I would bet that there are a lot of things transferable from a musician to let's say, a coach or a consultant or a healer. So, what have you learned that makes the most difference in helping musicians to create that six-figure prosperity and what of that do you think we can apply to the audience that's listening to us?
David Hooper: You know, I think the biggest thing for musicians and anybody can take away from this and you'll certainly relate to this as a speaker, somebody who gets in front of an audience, Bill. When a musician is on stage, the really good musicians ... it's not just about them. It's about the audience as well. There's a give and a take.
Bill Baren: Yes.
David Hooper: Like, if you believe in like, yin-and-yang or energy or ... we can get really New Age or woo-woo, if you want to, but --
Bill Baren: You could go as deep as woo-woo as you want.
David Hooper: It's not just a one-way thing, and I hate so many people especially when they're beginners in business. When they're just getting started, just getting their business off the ground ... they think, "What's in it for me?"
Bill Baren: Yes.
David Hooper: "What's in it for me?" and of course you're going to think that way because you're worried about keeping the lights on, the electricity, get the car payment done. But, it really is a two-way street, and I've found that when you give, you're going to get some in return. Have you ever these shows where they're multi-night shows and maybe you've caught a couple of nights up on, for example, a big band ... say, Van Halen will come to town?
Bill Baren: Yes.
David Hooper: And, sometimes, the crowd is a little bit more into it than others. Sometimes, the singer onstage David Lee Roth, for example, will have to work a little bit harder to get the energy back from the audience. And, sometimes, we had to do that to speakers, podcast, writers. There's absolutely a give-and-take, though, and I think a lot of people are unaware of that. That's a great first lesson I think that anybody can take away from musicians.
Bill Baren: Yes, and it's really amazing that one of the things that ... and I think this applies to musicians. I think this applies to speakers, applies to coaches ... it applies to anybody that creates anything that people listen or consume or watch. And, one of the things that I noticed is that there comes a time where it's... becomes a co-creative process. It's not just me and my own little bubble and what I think people want. It's like, it's me giving them something, seeing what their reaction is, changing it up a little bit, creating a different energy and then seeing what their reaction is. And so, it truly becomes this co-creative process as opposed to like here's what I think people want and that's it.
David Hooper: Yes. Yes, absolutely, it is. Steven Pressfield ... I don't know if you're familiar with him --
Bill Baren: Yes. Out of...
David Hooper: Has a great book called "War of Art".
Bill Baren: Yes. “War of Art”. That's it.
David Hooper: And, Steven Pressfield calls the people who just kind of go for the money ... he calls them "hags". There's an artist that's going to give what he has within him but at the same time, yes ... you have to listen to your audience and your audience is really, in my opinion, those guys are in-charge. Because when you think about it, let's take it back to music for a minute but it's also speaking. It's also anything that you would do. Why do people listen to music? Well, it's not because of the artist that's involved. It's because of the way music makes them feel when they receive that.
Bill Baren: Yes.
David Hooper: And I think as business owners, we should keep that in mind. That's really not about the product. It's certainly not about us. Those things are just standing in the way of the goal that our customers or our listeners have which is to feel good, to have their needs met.
Bill Baren: Yes. Absolutely. So, I know that having had the experience of being in the music industry and having had the experience of being in the music industry when the whole thing completely collapsed because of downloading and so many other things --
David Hooper: Yes.
Bill Baren: I know how difficult it is to make it as a musician and it's, you know, the odds may be similar for somebody to, you know, make it as a coach, for example. So, what's the hardest thing? Did they -- you think musicians need to overcome in order to make six-figures? Like for them, what's that hardest thing where it seems like you've noticed the pattern like if you could eradicate it, you'd make a lot of difference?
David Hooper: Well, I think this would really apply to anybody and that's just being in your comfort zone and a lot of the ways that musicians or any creative people do that is by waiting for somebody to come to them to offer them. For musicians, it would be a record deal. For authors, it will be a book deal and say, "Hey! Bill, I got this million-dollar check and a TV show for you and here you go" rather than you going out and doing what it takes to get that TV show.
Bill Baren: Yes.
David Hooper: And because we're in the entertainment industry with music, we really sell that kind of thing. We sell those stories of like, "Hey! You know I had to live in my car" and we've kind of what I call like "white trash wins lotto" kind of story. It's like, the guy in the trailer park and all of a sudden, he's a millionaire, you know.
Bill Baren: Yes.
David Hooper: The Clampetts or whatever the TV show is ... The Beverly Hillbillies, right? It's not that way though usually. It's usually because of hard work and we just sell the dream because that's the thing that's easier to sell in, and that gives something back to the audience. We go back to that, talking about giving to the audience. We all want to believe in the dream but unfortunately dream really isn't quite how we've consumed it for so many years.
Bill Baren: It's so interesting how this, you know ... the stereotype of like the overnight sensation because it's a good story, right? Journalists love that particular story so it gets a lot more play than the reality which is you're not going to get discovered. You are the one who's going to do everything that you can so that a person by person more and more people know who you are and want a little piece of what it is that you are offering, right?
David Hooper: Yes. Yes, and that is not sexy. It's not sexy to think about driving around to two hundred radio stations and signing autographs for thirteen hours or doing whatever it is that you have to do to, you know, to kind of claw your way to the top.
Bill Baren: Yes.
David Hooper: That's not sexy. You know this as a speaker, people see you for one hour on stage, but I was talking to the guys from the Doobie Brothers and we talked about the "one-hour on stage" philosophy. It's not the one hour that you're paying for. It's the other twenty-three hours of the day that it takes to get there and that's getting on the plane. That's dealing with three or four other guys, sometimes, booking agents. Who knows what you're dealing with? A lot, though.
Bill Baren: Yes.
David Hooper: And, plus you've got to develop the skill to be able to actually do that one-hour on stage. That doesn't just happen. There's a lot of prep work.
Bill Baren: Yes, and it's really interesting. It's like one of the things that I would love to take from musicians and bring in into my world is the idea of practice, you know. Musicians especially the good ones ... they practice and they practice a lot. There's their craft and they're doing everything they can to make themselves masterful of that craft to the point where becomes this unconscious confidence where it's like they get on stage and it just flows.
David Hooper: Yes.
Bill Baren: Right? It's like -- and it's the same thing for speakers. It's the same thing for coaches like how can you be in that flow where in this moment, everything slows down and you know exactly what needs to be said and you know exactly what needs to happen in order for transformation to occur.
David Hooper: Yes.
Bill Baren: And for a musician, it's the same thing. Like, how in this moment, everything that's happened with the audience, every note that I played so far ... what can I do in the next note to create that "wow" moment?
David Hooper: Yes. Yes, and it really is a combination of little bitty moments and how do you get to where you're able to do that. It is that slow and deliberate practice. I think that's probably the best thing about music in schools regardless of whether or not you become a musician for a living. I think it's important because it teaches kids, and we can all learn from this. It teaches kids that it's that slow, incremental process. You will get better if you practice and it takes a while. That's one of the ways that the music industry is changing and if you ask me, I think it's worst than downloads and I think it's worst than the devaluation of music and the Internet and all the things that have come with that. It's because we've got this thing called "American Idol" where people have the perception that you can just go on TV and all of a sudden become famous. It isn't like that, and if you think back in the day ... and I'm not sure exactly when you're in the music industry ... but I'm imagining at that time, you had musicians that were working hard. Musicians that were out playing clubs. They were doing it because they loved it, not necessarily because they thought they could become famous. And same for speakers, for coaches ... you really want those kind of people to work with. These are the people that you're going to hire great advice for coaches. You want the guy who's going to be doing it even if nobody knew he was doing it.
Bill Baren: Yes.
David Hooper: Not because he's famous.
Bill Baren: Well, I mean, I think it's the same in my current world as it was when I was in the music world. There are artists, people that are... that desired to be masterful at their craft. They care a lot more about what it is that they're producing than they do while making money, and then there's people who are chasing the buck.
David Hooper: Right.
Bill Baren: And they want to be the overnight sensation. That, you know -- those crazy reels on American Idol where the person comes up, has a lot of confidence and then screechy noises come out their mouth. Like...
David Hooper: Yes.
Bill Baren: How in the world did you ever think that you had anything to share? I just don't --
David Hooper: Well, I'll tell you how that happens. That happens because you're hanging around a bunch of "yes men". Great advice for anybody in business ... you're hanging around people that are just like you. You're not really stretching your comfort zone. You’d prefer just to hang out people that are going to tell you how great you are and then you get put in the real world. I mean, I was that way too. I was the best guitarist in my high school. Once I started taking college classes when I was still in high school, I found out how good guitar was, you know. And, yes. It's very humbling. Very humbling, and it can be inspiring, but a lot of times it will... It will ... I don't what the word for it is ... I guess, destroy you.
Bill Baren: Demotivating you.
David Hooper: Yes. Totally demotivating ... yes. You got to be ready for that and I think that you have to know that it's a long-term process to get good. Coaching businesses are not built overnight. Music careers are not built overnight, and it's what we sell. Unfortunately, we bought in to our own press when it comes to how easy things are. I mean, you mentioned me being prolific as far as writing.
Bill Baren: Yes.
David Hooper: And, I was thinking about it. When you said that, it was -- it didn't feel that way. Even if we were just a few years because I'm the guy behind the computer screen to hype in this stuff up. Man! Sometimes, those words just don't come and it appears to be a lot more quick than it is.
Bill Baren: Yes. I mean, as always I like to know who I'm going to be speaking to and when I looked at Amazon, I wanted to see what other books that I might not have known about that you have out. I thought, "Oh my God! This guy has written a lot of books!" And it feels so different from the outside, right? It's like, you're inside of that experience.
David Hooper: Yes.
Bill Baren: And, so what actually motivates you to get your butt in your chair to write when it's so difficult?
David Hooper: You know, it's funny because I've got a couple of books outlined right now and I'm not writing them because I'm working on launching a brand new company and people bring me in to do things and it's every excuse possible that I've got I'm using right now to not do it.
Bill Baren: Uh-oh. You might have --
David Hooper: So, I think it's like --
Bill Baren: Am I a procrastination tool for you?
David Hooper: Well, it's fun to think about that but the truth is probably not. Probably I would find something else. I saw a funny headline on The Onion one time. It said, "Woman has back-up problem in case first problem gets resolved." And I think that procrastination is one of those things, right? If it's not this, it's going to be that. And it is very difficult, but you talk about the flow and musician being on stage and I think once you can get in it, they say about -- They say that the hardest part of writing is actually sitting down to write. Writing is easy.
Bill Baren: Yes. So, I'd love to talk a little bit about you and your own experience in business because you have a pretty awesome presence on the Internet. You have a really good reputation, and you've created a certain amount of success for yourself. So, what's been your greatest "aha!", sort of like that big shift moment in your business? But not just that. What did you do with that big shift, with that "aha" that translated it into success?
David Hooper: I think the biggest thing for me and this was after working with so many musicians, so many bands was just taking a stand and not trying to play somebody else's game but playing my own. And, when you fly your freak flag ... I've heard it referred to as ... you find that it makes you okay for other people to come out of the would work to you, and that's the great thing about the Internet. We can do that as freaky as you want to get, man. You can put it out there and there's somebody who's just waiting for somebody like you and the Internet has certainly made what I do possible.
But, yes. I think just getting older and watching other musicians have success with that kind of thing and being able to finally feel comfortable doing it myself, not play somebody else's game, realizing that, yes, you know there are easier ways to make money. There are easier ways to be famous but maybe you don't want those things. Sometimes I think we get caught up in traps so whatever playing your game means to you ... I think that's probably the best advice that I could give for somebody who's looking to really not only start their business but grow big at it.
Bill Baren: Well, I want to talk about it in terms of you. So like, what's your version of the free flag? Like, what's your version "I'm doing it my way"?
David Hooper: Wow. We're going to get... Yes. Okay. Let's go. Let's go there. Let's go there. I'm in Nashville, Tennessee, and Nashville, Tennessee ... the buckle of the Bible Belt ... we have, I could look at my window and see three, four churches and it's -- I would say it's probably a kind of middle of the road community but a lot of the counties around Nashville and Tennessee in general fairly conservative and you have a lot of business people fairly conservative and just that kind of outlook on things. I am not that way. I'm probably left of Ted Kennedy in a lot of ways and being that kind of guy that's kind of going against the grade, it's not easy because a lot of people are going to relate to you. We hang out with people that we find comfortable as I've talked about. And just being who you are, in one hand, has been very scary. It's scary at first but was also extremely liberating to me because you find opportunities that you never knew existed.
And I was that way when I came into the music industry. I was a street promoter at first, started out doing that in radio and I saw this online thing about the mid-90's about 1995. People said, "Ah, you're crazy! You're crazy!" But being like that online guy made a name for myself in the industry when they started coming around. That got me a lot of business. And, in tune, also just kind of being the non-conservative guy at Nashville, you know, that's got me a lot of business as well because...
I think this is very precocious, it really ... and this is opinion here. I'd love to know your thoughts on it, Bill. I think we're all kind of doing the same thing when it comes to helping people, marketing, coaching, or any of that kind of thing. I think it's really about personality that segments us and separates us. Sure, there are best practices that some people are better at that than others but most of the time ... if you think about politics, for example ... we're going to vote for who we like. When George Bush got elected, people said, “Yes. You know, he's so presidential." Or they thought Barrack Obama offered hope or they like the conservativeness of a John McCain and Sarah Palin. We go for people that we like and I think that's the same way in business. So I think bringing that personality out there anyway that you can ... that's been very huge turning point for me and not everybody's not going to like you and if you can comfortable with that, you'll find a lot of people that do like you.
Bill Baren: Yes. I know. I completely agree with you. I mean, there's only so much you can go with information. I think on some level people connect to your story. People connect to who you are. People connect to what's real and authentic about you. You know, just like you know this moment where I asked you a question that asked you to go deeper into who you are. And you know, the fact that you said, "Okay. We're going to go there" like that made you so endearing in this conversation where it's like we could feel who you are. You're like, "Okay. All right. I'm going to share a little bit of more about myself". And that was really cool and the more can do that, the easier the connection is. And you know, on some level we buy from people we're connected to.
David Hooper: Right.
Bill Baren: People who know --
David Hooper: Right.
Bill Baren: Like and trust.
David Hooper: Well, think about that with the music industry. I was at a Meet-and-Greet with... and I can't even remember who it was. I think it was Lionel Ritchie, and before he came in, there were some hosts. It's like, you know, getting the crowd all fired up. "Hey, Lionel's getting ready to come in" and everybody... There were people that literally thought that they knew this guy. They'd never met him before. They're getting ready to meet him, that they've been fans since you know, big afro Lionel from The Commodores back in the 70's. They thought that they knew him and they're telling all sorts of trivia and it was the weirdest thing to me because of course, I see that stuff all day long. There's certainly some people that I feel like I know. I mentioned like Steven Pressfield's read a lot of his books. Feel like I know the guy but I've never met him. And yes, that can happen when you put yourself out there and it's quite amazing what it does and I think it's something that we might under estimate because we look at things from business... like a business aspect rather than a fan aspect.
Bill Baren: Right. Right, yes. So, I want to go to one of your books. One of your books that I think is called "The Rich Switch"?
David Hooper: The Rich Switch? Yes, sir.
Bill Baren: Yes. So, you talk about this three-step system of how to create wealth using the law of attraction.
David Hooper: Yes.
Bill Baren: I'd just love for you to break that down for us a little bit.
David Hooper: Okay. Well, the first thing ... and if you're not a believer in law of attraction ... some people know this is "The Secret". When that movie came out, it was interesting to me because I had always thought about that from a business perspective. I have had a book given to me and it tells this story ... the beginning of "The Rich Switch".
When I was fifteen or sixteen years old by an old executive ... he was my friend's grandfather, works for Janesco Shoes ... huge shoe company here in Nashville, Florsheim and people would recognize the brands of Janesco -- but anyway, he was very successful and he's a guy that I looked up to and he gave me a book called " As A Man Thinketh" and it's that kind of stuff that we're talking about. But law of attraction, what it's more recently been talked about, and the three steps ... not really anything to do with law of attraction.
The first step is just write it down. Get clear in your goals, and I like writing it down because it does force you to get very, very clear. What I like to do is have ten goals at any given time and that could be, for example, make a certain amount of income. A lot of people will have maybe a lot of little goals or little list of wishes or dreams or whatever and it would fit within make, let's say five hundred thousand dollars a month or fifty thousand dollars a month or fifty thousand dollars a month or maybe five thousand dollars a month for you. So you write those goals down, and then everyday what I do is I write those goals down repeating the goals everyday but I write down three thing for each of those goals that I am doing to achieve those goals. So it's not quite like The Secret where you're just sitting back and talk about like having a gift guide that you're just wishing for it and hoping it's going to happen. This is actually you getting in an alignment with what it would take, for example, with that goal of making money. So you want to make five thousand dollars a month. Okay ... what's it going to take for you to do that? Well, I'm going to make one hundred sales calls this week. I'm going to ship out whatever samples so I can get reviews or maybe I'm going to write a blog post so I can get more traffic to my blog ... those kind of things. I do that every day.
Bill Baren: Cool. So that's step one. What's step two?
David Hooper: Step one. Step two is a mastermind group and this is something that was written about ... if you're familiar with the book "Think and Grow Rich: Napoleon Hill". So you bring in a couple people. I like to have five and seven. That's what Napoleon Hill recommends. Few people together for weekly meeting with a definitive purpose ... a singular, definitive purpose ... and it could be, for example, Alcoholic Synonymous. That's a mastermind group. Your church class, mastermind group. You've got a purpose. Toastmasters group were mastermind group without even knowing it and for business it's usually to increase income, to get more clients, to sell more houses if you’re a real estate agent ... that kind of thing. So find people that are like-minded and they want the same kind of goals but find diverse people and get with them. And the way we usually do it, we ask in a mastermind group. And there's actually this step within The Rich Switch but I'm just going to tell it to you. We ask what's working for you, what you need help with, and then we get somebody ... the mastermind, actually ... to give advice on what would help. What will be beneficial to that person? So they bring in some value within their receiving value. And that leads in to step number three.
I believe there's the give-and-take like I talked about with an audience. I believe that that happens with money as well that if you want more money in your life, you need to be ready to spend more money just because I believe that money is like a vibrational energy. If you want to get all woo-woo, just energy. Just piece of paper that we put some importance on it so if you want to get it in your life, you have to start spending it. Now I'm not saying to go out and be reckless, but don't be one of these guys where you're just going to like a Grinch-type where you're just going to hold on to stuff and never spend it because that's like choking something. It kills the energy and it -- I'll give you a music industry example. Hold on loosely. Don't let go. 38 Special.
Bill Baren: Yes. Cool. So what's next?
David Hooper: Well, those are the three steps.
Bill Baren: It's a --
David Hooper: Write it down, mastermind, and then have a give-and-take. And well, let me explain a little more about give-and-take.
Bill Baren: Yes.
David Hooper: I didn't go into this. I believe there's a charity element and if you really want to get in to the giving as far as spending money. I do believe that it's good to tithe if you're a Christian. If you believe in that kind of thing, but giving money to where you don't know where it's going to go ... people who can't possibly help you out, can't possibly ask for something in return, maybe a charity that provides water to children, Africa, something, that cleft palette surgery ... that kind of thing.
Bill Baren: Driving. Awesome. Thank you. So I want to go on a different direction with you.
David Hooper: Okay.
Bill Baren: One of the things that I love because all the guests on my show are pretty much in business for themselves, and it's great to talk about the transformation that you offer others like musicians or anybody with you know, your Rich Switch book. But I want to know a little bit more about your business because I often find that we learn much from seeing and hearing what successful people are doing and how they do it than it is from you know, systems or any of those kind f things. So... And you might not even be comfortable answering these questions, but that's awesome because I want you to be able to be uncomfortable.
David Hooper: Hey, I appreciate you asking them, though, because a lot of people would stop short of that.
Bill Baren: Yes. So one of the things that I found pretty fascinating on your... one of your websites, the musicianbook.com ... by the way, awesome-looking website! Just love it.
David Hooper: Thanks, sir.
Bill Baren: Yes. So, I just found it fascinating that you have this interesting system for your book. So, you give away your PDF of your book for free --
David Hooper: Yes.
Bill Baren: But you charge for the Kindle version.
David Hooper: Right.
Bill Baren: And then you charge for the printed book.
David Hooper: Right.
Bill Baren: And then I assume that you have some sort of a affiliate deal with Audible, right? Is that how the whole thing just...?
David Hooper: Ah, well --
Bill Baren: Break it down --
David Hooper: Well, the book is --
Bill Baren: The book strategy why you do what you do and all that.
David Hooper: So, I wrote the book and was kind of, writing the book, I felt like I had the book in me about marketing music for twenty years but I was sort of ready to move forward just kind of as a side note because of this success I'd had in marketing music online since musicians were the first people to market online. When books started coming online such as Kindle, when film and TV started coming online, people started approaching me and I was able to kind of expand my entertainment marketing, if you will.
Bill Baren: Yes.
David Hooper: So I got to the point where I was, you know, kind of ready to transition out of working with musicians but I really love the music business. I think that the music business ... Nashville would not be what be what it is today ... where I'm living right now and my neighborhood and the culture that we have here. It wouldn't be what it is without the musicians. So I wanted to be able to give something back.
Also, after working internationally for a number of years, I understand that it's sometimes tough to send a book out internationally. And sometimes, five, ten, twenty bucks ... that's a lot of money to some cultures. So, when I was writing that book, I decided I'm going to put everything that I want to say in this music business book and I'm just going to give it away. I'm more interested in spreading the message at this point that I am making a few bucks off of a book but at the same time, I can't give away print books. I can't give away audio books. I can't give away books that -- you know. I'm not going to lose money on the deal. I'll give it to you like a digital version but I'm not going to print one and ship it to you. You're going to have to pay for that. So, gave away the digital version, spread the message and gave people an opportunity they can get a paperback, can get a Kindle version, can get a hardback, or get the audio download if they want to and that'll cost you ... I don't know what they cost. Fifteen bucks? So if you prefer it in that medium you can get that. But more or less I did that just to spread the message and also is a marketing task because a lot of people hire me to help them with marketing and I never do anything that I wouldn't try myself.
Bill Baren: Yes. So, what's working about doing it that way and what isn't?
David Hooper: Well, what's working is that it's reached a lot of people and I don't really keep track of the numbers anymore because at this point, I've sort of moved on. I've got something called redpodcast.com which stands for "Real Entrepreneur Development" and strangely enough, and this actually ... if you ask what's working ... this is what worked. Because people can get the book for free, people in other industries they say, "Hmm. You know I'm kind of curious." You know readers, man. Readers like to read and business people like to read and they were looking for something outside of their industry. They will read the book and then I would get a call from this speaker, for example. "Hey, man. You know these musicians. What they are doing is something I could use. Can you help me?" Comedians. "Hey, this stuff works for us too!" So it started branching out to non-music people even though it's a book for musicians. Anyway, long story short. I started looking at working with some other industries and that as kind of led to my new career, if you will, which I'd said redpodcast.com if you want more information about that. Still work in music although not as much as I used to.
What's not working? You know I can't think of anything. I think you have to go into something. If you're going to give something away, I think you have to be cool knowing that somebody might not respect it, for example. If I was to give money to a man on the street, he could use that money to go buy food. He could that money to go buy drugs. It's not really up to me once I give him the money.
Bill Baren: Yes.
David Hooper: I'm trying to help the guy out. I'm trying to do something nice, and at that point, it's his responsibility to do the right thing. So, you could, I imagine, get frustrated if you were trying to give something and expect something else in return because not everybody is going to respect something that they get for free. And that's absolutely happened. I know there are people that download the book but don't read it but they could also buy the book and not read it.
Bill Baren: That's true.
David Hooper: So, I would say that would be the down side. I can't really think of a... I mean, you know, I will say this: that some people say, "Oh, you've got to e-book" and that just drives me crazy, man, because... you know it's not an e-book. It's a real book. It's 272 pages put two years into it and they think, you know, that "e-book of affiliate" that has a bad name. Somebody will transcribe something or put up ten pages. They'll call it the e-book. But this is actually a real book that I'm giving away. It's not just a, you know, ten-page transcript or something that I just set off a cough. It's a lot of work. So, you know. Whatever. You got to, I think focus on the good and leave the rest.
Bill Baren: Yes. Definitely. So, one last question I want to ask you about your business because we want to learn by example. So if you -- if I was to ask you to share the coolest thing you do in any of your businesses to generate revenue, what would it be? I would love for it to be something you believe will have me another say, "Wow, that's cool!"?
David Hooper: Yes. This is real cool and this comes from the music industry. As I mentioned Nashville is a music business town. Specifically, we're known for songwriting. We're known for production and any time you write a song or any time you release something, when it gets used if you own the copyright on it, you're going to be able to collect fees through your licensing, through royalties, what they call like a performance royalty every time a song is played on the radio the songwriter, the person who owns intellectual property ... you get money for that. So, I was used to having checks come in the mail for my music publishing company and other things of that nature.
And it works the same way with books. It works the same way with really anything that you create. That to me is the game-changer. Only in the copyright, only in the intellectual property and being able to go out and license that. The name, for example, I mentioned RED podcast: RED. R-E-D: Real Entrepreneur Development. That is something we're hoping to come out with a series of products for -- For all I know, it's going to be one of those things like "Chicken Soup for the Soul" or "The Dummies Guide" or "The Idiot's Guide" where I don't have to have anything to do with them but I can license that name and that's going to make me money. And we've done things like that over the years. I've had stuff license of film and television, you know, recurring royalties for radio play. You know, there's a million, million different things that you have that happen within the music industry. Jukeboxes, certainly any time like in hours, we'll cut your song, you're going to get money on that and a couple of ways not only for physical copies but also the radio player, the video play. It's just a lot of money coming in. You just do the work once and get paid again and again. I think that's probably the coolest thing and that's why I'm really thankful for having grown up in the music industry.
Bill Baren: Yes. So, can you break that down a little more and how it actually works in your business right now to generate revenue?
David Hooper: Well, I started my company in 1995. I was in school in Memphis. I'd grown up in Nashville, though, and I would drive down what we call Music Row. And I didn't know much about the business of music then although I played as a musician. And everybody on Music Row was either a record label or a publishing company. A publishing company I had no idea what it was. All I knew was they had something to do with songwriters and they had this really nice building.
So when I went to school, one of my teachers told me, he said, "The money in music is publishing, and publishing ... just for lack of the better term. It's owning the copyright. You're owning." In music, we have two copyrights on a song. You have the sound recording which is a moment in time. So let's say Mariah Carey does a recording of "Santa Claus" or whatever that song is that she did ... the Christmas song. So she owns the recording of it but the underlying composition ... it's like words on a page that she's reading and in this case, singing, somebody else owns that. And that's where you make money in publishing. So, I started in that. He said the money is in publishing. I started a publishing company probably next week and started signing artist and then, you know, money still comes in from that kind of stuff. Book royalties are the same way. Album releases are the same way, and it gets into licensing. It gets into any time something's played on TV when I've got a song in the television show, for example. I'm going to make money on that. So that's kind of how it works for me.
Bill Baren: Great. Awesome.
David Hooper: You, know, we talked about two, Bill, beforehand. And I think this was -- I think this was before the tape started rolling unfortunately. We're talking about a book being used in a sitcom.
Bill Baren: Yes.
David Hooper: And I've done deals like that as well where if they're going to use your book in a sitcom, that could be a five-figure payday for you. If they're going to use it in a movie because you've got a popular book ... let's say, like "Fifty Shades of Grey". Well, if you want to use Fifty Shades of Grey, there's a lot of ways to work this deal but sometimes you make money off that. Sometimes they will say, "Hey, we'll give you all this promo." It's helping the book out so people will negotiate and do that deal for free but anytime somebody uses your stuff in a film or a television show, you get paid for it usually.
Bill Baren: Awesome.
David Hooper: Or you can get paid for it. Let me -- there's different ways to work this out. I mean, I would love for anybody to use "The Rich Switch" for free.
Bill Baren: Got it. So, is there anything you'd like to tell us about where we can find you? Any project that you're working on that you want to talk about?
David Hooper: Yes. I have a podcast: redpodcast.com. I do it with my wife. She's also an entrepreneur wherein right now we're in the process of launching the skincare line that a social enterprise to help women and also give you clear skin and that's LYFace.com. If you want to see my marketing in action, you can see that. LYFace.com.
Bill Baren: Cool. I'm on a RED podcast website right now. I like this black-and-white ... I mean ... black-and-red feel to this whole thing. It's awesome.
David Hooper: Yes. Less is more. Less is more.
Bill Baren: Less is more. Awesome. So, I'm so glad that you found time to come on my show. I appreciate your wisdom, and it was awesome to have you.
David Hooper: Bill, thanks so much. I love talking to people in the music industry. I hope we connect again and kind of share some old war stories because those are the most interesting stories I've ever heard. People that are working in the music business, working with creative entrepreneurs ... the funniest business ever.
Bill Baren: Awesome. Thank you.
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