while you're not getting paid what you're worth we'll talk about that in this video
stay tuned always remember the bigger your brand the bigger your back
current music video plus travel all music video requirements are
re none refundable so y'all just better get it together bro and look he ain't got nothing
too good that i ain't got bro look you hear me look look at look what that man for a video bro
is
a i understand your frustration i want to make this video to help you out and then also hopefully
help out tens of thousands of other people out there that end up watching this video we're going
to talk about how to go from let's say in the beginning you're doing work for free and then
you start charging a little bit a few hundred dollars and you start working your way up into
the thousands and then you want to work your way up even to the tens of thousands that's what we're
gonna talk about in this video right here no no hard feelings at all i just i can relate because
in the beginning i used to get frustrated like that and sometimes i would think about letting
it be known and actually publicly post about being frustrated with rappers or rappers not respecting
my pricing and people wouldn't pay me what i want for beads there's a reason why you shouldn't do
that and it comes down to persuasion and influence and then business 101 supply and demand let's
talk about it in this video also behind the scenes of two music videos welcome to the video
good morning everyone welcome to a new vlog cooking
and shout out to the videographer that posted that story thank you for giving me today's
topic of the video what's up everyone we're in my hometown lancer michigan shoot a music video
for the artist named tay the name of the song is you wouldn't understand office project notepad
i'm 11 bro all right you guys get bigger
they don't come like that man they playing it's like they'll wait to drop a new song until they
actually have a music video for it but i think it's good to kind of like put out some songs
let them pick which song they like the most then you spend the money
all right so first and foremost let's just talk business 101 which is supply and demand
okay you and i we can decide what we want to charge what we think that we're worth
but at the end of the day the market's always going to determine if we're worth that or not
now what i mean is let's say tomorrow's like music videos are a hundred thousand dollars just because
i say a music video is a hundred thousand dollars doesn't mean that anyone's gonna pay me a hundred
thousand dollars so value what you think your time is worth that's the price you put out there
and then the market decides if you're worth that or not right now myself with music videos i'm very
very booked and my plans for next year is to be double what i'm at right now as far as my minimum
also another thing is like the bigger the budget the more you're able to do and put into something
it's the value of what you think you are worth where you're at right now with your career i hear
nightmare stories from guys all the time where they tell me about man the guys that i work with
they complain and they're only willing to pay this and they got all the money in the videos and they
cheap and don't want to invest in themselves blah blah blah i always think the whole time they're
saying that is like man i remember that stage that stage sucks you're working with the wrong clients
like the guys that are complaining about your prices aren't the clients that i'm working with
and they're not the clients that you want to work with either because if they're complaining about
your prices they don't respect your time or your value or what it is that you're doing for them
you gotta only go up in life and down and wait are you hungry
all right guys we're in the car now on our way to detroit michigan i'm from lansing michigan
this is an hour and a half drive it's all about being professional imagine if mcdonald's like hey
burger king cheeseburgers ain't got [ __ ] on ours come over here i'm a strong believer and
you don't come up from speaking down on others another thing is you attract what you put out
so when you're putting that out there what you're really saying is i'm struggling to get paid what i
want i'm dealing with a lot of people that aren't agreeing with my pricing business is not good
right now you're showing desperation you want to be showing the opposite perception is reality so
the perception of what you're putting out there is again business is slow right now people aren't
valuing what i'm worth and i'm having a hard time going over my pricing now let's talk about the
opposite hey how much for this this is my price and i'm booked for six months business is booming
there's no deals prices are going to be going up very soon we're booked out business is booming
that's what you want to attract with perception showing people that you're busy busy is good busy
means look all of these people value me in my work so i'm always busy showing that you have authority
is showing that you're busy look at me i'm going here doing this i'm going here doing this
it's social proof i'm not doing all these things for free i'm charging and i'm charging what i want
so when i tell you my prices if you don't agree with it you're going to continue to see me busy
and i'm going to continue to be making moves and working with other people there's a line here it's
not like there's no one in line so i gotta hire someone to stand at the corner holding the sign
up like cheap videos over here cheap beats cheap studio time come here no picture two restaurants
one restaurants parking lot is jam-packed with cars the other restaurant parking lot is empty
which one do you think has better food let's say the empty parking lot has better food the
jam-packed one that's perception let's say you got a rapper 500 followers and a rapper with 50
000 followers which one do you think charges more for a feature the one with the bigger
following tailing is you know it's like okay that's one piece to the puzzle of 50 pieces but
the mother 49 pieces are key factors in pricing as far as equipment i noticed that you mentioned
equipment trust me i was with a industry music video director this is two years ago i asked
him his pricing me and him use the same camera at this time i'm charging four to six hundred dollars
for music videos he says two to thirty thousand dollars i said two to thirty thousand dollars
that's a hell of a price range he's like yeah i said dude i charged 400 to 600 dollars for a music
video today he laughed and said what the hell you gonna do with that i'm like i don't i've shot 300
music videos all under this price now equipment you do have to have like a bare minimum let's say
on the studio you have to have a microphone you have to have a interface you have to have some
sort of speakers you can't expect to charge five thousand dollars for a photo shoot five thousand
dollars for a music video if you don't have a camera you show up with your phone so there is
a bare minimum of equipment but equipment isn't like okay this guy charges this much he's got this
camera i'm gonna buy the same camera and i charge the same no that's not how it works what is your
experience what is your reputation how big is your brand the bigger your brand the bigger your bag
remember that gem sound effect let me get three of them your pricing doesn't have to be compared to
the other people's pricing maybe in the beginning for example with my studio in the beginning i i
did become aware of what is everyone else around here charged locally for our studio time and i
think at the time it was like 35 and i was like all right i'm not as good as them i haven't
been doing it as long as them they have better equipment than me they have a lot more clientele
to me okay i'm gonna be 25 an hour let me do this once i got so busy that like people wanted 60 70
80 hours a week of studio time i don't have enough supplies supply demand i don't have enough supply
i don't have enough time to do that so i'm going to raise my prices so then i started charging
35 an hour just like everyone else now eventually where i am today i don't care what the other guys
around here charge because i know that my time is in extreme demand so i'm gonna charge what i feel
my time is worth regardless of the other studios around being thirty dollars an hour cheaper
or eventually fifty dollars an hour cheaper i'm gonna charge what i think my time is worth
don't become a product of your environment make your environment a product of you trust me i
live in a small city and you would think to charge some of the pricing that i charge for my services
i'd have to live in a bigger city but i don't let that discourage me and as you see a lot of these
vlogs and behind the scenes videos what are we doing right now we're driving hours away to go
get the bag i'm not dependent on my location i live there but that's where i begin every trip
from you know we start in lazy michigan little old lancy michigan but then we drive to the big cities
to go get the bag you got to attract the people that you want to work with and you do that through
how you present yourself how you brand yourself building your following establishing yourself
creating a reputation it doesn't happen overnight this is year 17 for me scott source can have the
same piano in 808 and clap sound as me but is this beat going to cost the same price as mine
no it's going to be way more he's scott storch if there's a song let's say i'm a rapper new song
featuring Cracka Lack versus new song featuring drake that drake feature is going to cost a lot
more than that crack-like feature because drake is a way bigger brand has nothing to do with his
lyrical abilities drake could get on the song and say the abcs but he's going to get paid hundreds
of times more than what i would get paid because he's drake bigger the brand bigger the back
oh wait is this yeah okay let's hear the accent shout out to Cracka Lack on the track my god
we out here to train michigan lansing yak nyc the whole east the whole west we are here we about
to shoot this video with the homegirl video storm you know what i'm saying we out here
to briefly add to the no effects statement from someone who's been doing this for 17 years over
and over time and time again i can tell you that less is more the word basic was the wrong word
clean and professional was the correct word almost anything amateur screams too much right so let's
talk photography right photographers you know when you edit your pictures you color correct them
amateur photographers do too much they add too much saturation they overdo it and it doesn't
even look like a picture anymore what you would do is you would open up a magazine pay attention
to how those pictures look compare your pictures to those there's some sort of standard right so
obviously always be creative think outside of the box have your own style and look but there
is some sort of standard there with music videos watch a lot of professional music videos i used
to never watch music videos until i added a tv in my studio and now i have music videos playing in
there all the time and one thing i noticed was like after not watching music videos for years
and years and years i used to think that they had crazy effects and i needed to add a whole bunch of
stuff to them and that was honestly never my style i never really liked that and then when i started
watching a lot of music videos like bro that's a lot of them are very simple i think simple equals
effective simple equals clean it lets the quality stand out listen to beats nowadays right the beats
with a million instruments and so much going on there's not enough room for the artist to
do what the artist does which would be the melody you know so you gotta simplify it scared me shout
to bee she's the artist of beautiful storm of this video [ __ ] right here what works for you might
not work for the next person right i remember when cole bennett came out he had the crazy
animated with the x's on the eyes right i thought it was very dope but what happened was then a lot
of upcoming rappers they're like yo can you do the call bennett the i thing it's like no that's not
my style that's cole bennett if you want that go to cole bennett for that you don't get that here
you're on the wrong channel if that's what you're looking for over the years i've found my style
of what kind of beats i like to make and if the market likes those they pay for those
same thing with music videos if you're looking for a crazy all over the place thing i might not be
the best cameraman for you if you're looking for a very clean professional looking high
quality music video that's what i take pride and enjoy doing same thing with recording mixing and
mastering songs a lot of amateur mixes are very over mixed there's way too much compression way
too much eq you're doing way too much and if you just simplify it right it'll sound good less is
more what we're just talking about perception is reality right you know how many people we've met
that meet him and they think that he's famous be like this i know i'll let you be around me
a lot for [ __ ] that's what ass man build that following put some money behind you nothing wrong
and everything right with promoting your work your videos your music your pictures i never
thought i was going to meet him so he's telling me don't don't come up no you're playing with it
he wasn't doing no discounts you know why because his [ __ ] brand is booming his
name is booming there could be a guy down on the street somebody was going through these
exactly the same for three thousand dollars less and i went to johnny dank instead of
paying twelve thousand i paid fifteen thousand that johnny dean right because he's johnny
dang right when you work with me you're working with Cracka Lack
as you build your brand it don't happen overnight but over time you'll establish a middle name which
is [ __ ] right who's behind the camera right now it used to be malik brand it's becoming m
[ __ ] brand dog today i just added [ __ ] to me be [ __ ] detroit downtown Cracka Lack
so branding comes down to like three main categories one is gonna be authority two is gonna
be exclusiveness and three is gonna be scarcity so with authority that kind of comes down to the pair
of jeans from walmart the pair of jeans that are true religion that are hundreds of dollars right
they're both jeans but one is that name brand and that's why they sell it for so much one this
crew neck came from walmart and it was like 12 13 now if this same crew neck had a polo horse right
there it'd probably be what 60 70 most people probably wouldn't pay for it because it's polo
that's the brand so that's that's authority is the branding also authority is having a following
right cameraman one has got 1 000 followers cameraman 2 has got 100 000 followers you
automatically assume cameraman 2 that has 100 000 followers is better charges more has more
experience more wisdom more videos under his belt like more exposure comes from it all the above so
you got to do some reverse engineering and think of what is it that you want if what you want is to
charge more for your services what do you need to have in order to charge that and one of those is
always going to be authority every day i'm trying to continue to build my authority like right now
today documenting behind the scene process like a lot of cameramen they don't document and do these
behind the scene videos and not only do i do them but i have over 200 of them the second the second
right exclusiveness people want what they can't have again like with the restaurant being booked
and you know let's say this restaurant's got a two hour wait this restaurant they're wide
open you walk into the barber shop there's the main dude the best barber in the shop and he's
booked for the day he's booked all week you got to schedule something next week or the following week
he's obviously good let's say the other barber in the back corner i can get you in right now i can
get you one right now he's probably not very good he isn't okay no this is not where this is okay i
don't feel like okay this is [ __ ] alchemist it don't feel like us the police there go 12 when the
new shoes come out and they're selling out that's a good thing let's say a big artist comes to town
you pay him for a future you're the only dude in town that has a feature from this guy that's
exclusive that's why it's special it costs a lot now if everyone else in your town got a feature
from that guy it's not as valuable the last point is scarcity and that kind of comes with what i was
talking about being sold out not as available being booked in advance the first video that
happened today shout out to tay as of right now i'm booked out for about four to five weeks on
music videos and he was like man i need to get one in i need to get one in i had an opportunity
pop up and i was like bro i know it's last minute this was last night but if you are down to shoot a
music video tomorrow morning like we can do it otherwise it'll be in like five weeks he said
shoot i'm gonna hop on the opportunity let's do it you know so that's where scarcity comes in just
like in in sales when you go there and they're like hurry up while supplies last countdown you
know like 25 minutes remaining to take advantage of this offer that scarcity it's like oh hurry
up and that helps with getting paid what you want getting paid what you're worth for what it is that
you do so just remember charge what you think your time is worth where your skill level is at but
your branding is going to be the deciding factor and at the end of the day the market's always
going to determine if you're worth that or not you could throw out whatever price you want i charge
this much for this if no one pays you you're not worth it at this time yeah if you're still
booked and busy and swamped with business raise your prices again and then the market's going to
respond you're either worth it or you're not if your phone continues to ring that's a good sign
if your phone stops to ring maybe you're not worth it yet stay on the grind stay hungry subscribe hit
the bell to be notified food shot blows see you guys next video Cracka Lack tv we out.