all right hello Daniel grim it here
welcome to the make a living producing
YouTube channel the place where I make
crappy drawings and you learn how to
build a successful music production
company so before I dive into this topic
I want to remind you that down in the
description there's a link to my free 40
minute class shows you what I'm doing
with my consulting clients music
producers helping them build five to
six-figure online music production
businesses as well as a link to my
awesome make a living producing Facebook
community so I encourage you to join
that and get into the conversation so
what are we going to talk about today
again I'm going a little off-topic from
what I normally do with my consulting
clients at least in the first 10 weeks
you know we got to focus on just
building their brand getting them some
quick wins bringing in clients and we
typically don't get into you know
passive income strategies until after
all of that work has been done but since
my last video was on selling beats I'll
just continue that pattern for those of
you that are interested and today we're
gonna talk about selling sample packs
these could be drum sample packs
instrument sample packs whatever you
want it to be we're gonna talk about
selling them now I'm not a sample pack
mogul or anything but I do have some
experience with it and it's been pretty
cool for my business back in 2016 the
very beginning of 2016 I purchased a
drum sample company called woodshed
audio that had a good little start going
going for it and there was an
opportunity to buy it so I did and in
the first year switch over here so yeah
January 1 2016 to January 30 err I'm
sorry to December 31st 2016 we did about
about $19,000 in profits so nothing
crazy there's guys out there that
really just go nuts on the on the sample
pack game and do really great for for us
it's been more of just an extra income
stream you know just some nice extra
cash thousands of 2,000 a month
depending on how they do so let's talk
about the reasons why you would want to
do a sample pack well I just showed you
one would be some extra cash but - it's
part of our authority building you know
this is really for people who have
developed a unique sound that is theirs
and want to use their authority to sell
a product you know people who look up to
them and say wow you know I love that
guy's sound I would love to incorporate
his sounds into my music right so that's
one of the reasons one of the other
reasons outside of you know just making
some cycas that we'd want to do it it's
part of our part of our empire if you
will and I have known people that have
done the opposite way funny enough they
created a they may not have had a name
built for themselves as a producer but
they made a really really cool sample
pack and actually use that to launch
themselves as a music producer people
like wow
this person so these these sounds are
really kick-ass I love this producer I
want to check out what they do and they
get clients so you could go either way
but it's built around you know an
authority outside of money making us
some extra income it's a good authority
builder so no matter what way you go it
will build some Authority for you
now I think the toughest part of a
sample pack is you're creating a product
so it has to be good it can't just be
you know I know a lot of people just
make sample packs it's kind of a you
know a money grab you know like oh I
heard you can make money doing that
someone to make one and unfortunately
with those a lot of those packs you
you can tell they did that not a lot of
thought went into them so a couple of
things to consider when you're making a
sample pack or you're considering you
know what should I make
should I make well it should be
something that you're good at you know
so say what am I good at is it a
specific genre is it you know is it drum
samples as an instrument samples you
know what what are you really good at
what do you feel embodies your sound you
know now kind of similar
what's that kind of special angle you
know what's unique about it you know so
what am I good at what could I create
what would be easy for me to create
that's authentic to my sound and what
would that special angle be about it you
know is it the fact that it's a lot of
samples is it the fact that it's a lot
of different kinds of samples drums and
instruments and presets is it the fact
that it's a small pack and very focused
on one thing you know what's what's kind
of the angle that you're taking right
what's the angle now some of how I like
to research now when we're creating
creating a pack and put research down
here whoops
help if I could spell right
can't write kids bill okay so research a
couple ways that we do this one there's
ways to obviously go out and font and
figure out what where's the gap in the
market you know is are you finding a lot
of this kind of samples but not this
other kind that may be a good indicator
of a gap to fill or you may just say hey
there's a there's a kind of sample pack
that's doing really good right now
that's performing and I feel like I can
do either a better version or my own
unique take on that you know that's not
that's not bad either I mean think about
it there's a million different ice cream
shops they all make ice cream it's the
same product but they all have their
their own you know angle to it their own
ingredients their own experience some
you get the ice cream yourself some they
scoop it for you some give you these
huge sizes some or boutique and you get
a little one scoop and that's what you
get and it's the best in the world so
you can research what's doing well and
what angle you know what what's your
angle on that bring your specialty into
that also what we what we want to know
the kind of questions that we want to
answer are let me go ahead and get a
fresh screen here and this is with any
product really or service it's important
until we can really feel like we can
confidently answer this we haven't found
our best idea yet okay so we want to
know
who it's for and how will it help them
okay
who's who's the audience and why do they
need it
what will it allow them to do why should
they have it you know now to be honest
I'm a drum sample junkie so I just like
buying buying them and I think there are
a lot of people out there that they just
love buying drum samples they always
want to be especially people that do a
lot of work because they're constantly
searching for they get bored of the same
sounds they're making you know a track a
day for clients and they're always
searching for new things but we can't
can't just Bank off of those you know
it's easy to get a couple of sales when
you make a sample pack but we want to
make sure that it's something that is
has some staying power if you will so it
needs to solve a certain problem for a
certain kind of person so who is it for
and how will it help them so when you're
researching you know deciding what to
make these are the two things you want
to be very very clear on okay now let me
dive over to number three and obviously
there's a lot to this guys I'm just
showing you a couple of couple little
tips that I've picked up along along the
way of running a sample pack company and
doing these for a couple years so three
when you're making a sample pack again
you've got to treat it like a real
product you know I see a lot of people
make them they say hey I made a sample
pack here it is and maybe they have like
you know a sound like a demo of a demo
track that shows it and that's and
that's great that's a good start but
think about why you like a product and
why you buy it let's say it's an iPhone
you know you like the features you like
how it looks you like how its packaged
you know you see the commercials the
commercials sound you know look cool
there's cool music and
and there's there's more to just the
phone itself it's it's this experience
you know you like everything about it
the brand identity all the way down to
the features of it and what it will help
you do so we got to do the same thing
when we released a sample pack okay so
some of the my little checklist of
assets is this looks messy but that's
right obviously you want to have like a
feature list what it contains what the
format of the samples are if there's
loops what tempos just kind of a feature
list of what they're gonna get you want
to be really clear about that obviously
there has to be some kind of description
you know that's when we that's when we
talked about there that's when we'll
talk about you know what it is who it's
for what it'll help them do what it
includes and then that can go into your
features where you get a little bit more
detailed we also want some kind of cool
like visual stuff so either a graphic or
if you want to do like a software box
and I like there's a company called see
if I put it up here place it dot net and
you can make software box like mock-ups
and stuff so maybe you go to I don't
know if you're doing it yourself if you
can't do graphics I mean hire someone to
do it I got a guy gosh I can't remember
his name but he was on Fiverr and it was
like five bucks for a for a software box
and it looked really good I just sent
him a couple pictures some text and like
the colors I wanted it it was for a
course I did a long time ago and it
looked really great so for five bucks
you can get a pretty great you know
graphic or product box for it so it
needs to look like a real product it
can't look cheap what else do we need
obviously you know a demo what does it
sound like and I would recommend doing
at least two to three
and it's also cool to do you know how
they sound in a full song and then you
can strip it back and show like how they
sound so load so let's say you're doing
drums you make a really cool song if you
made I don't know an indie pop drum pack
and you create this really cool indie
pop song as your demo people like yeah
this is great I create music like that I
need to have go-to sounds to help me
accomplish you know the you know indie
pop stuff whatever and so you have the
whole track and then you strip out the
instruments and just have the drums you
know it's a show it kind of both
scenarios there also this is a little
bit more in depth but are a little bit
more involved rather a product video
goes a long way and even if you're using
just like cool like stock video from
pond5 you know with with text and you
have the demo song in there just
something something visual where people
can see it and be like wow it's almost
like a trailer for a movie that's gonna
really really sell it so those are the
primary assets that that we try to use
some we don't have videos for but that's
our mistake but the ones that do the
best have some kind of video and demo
tracks and a really great graphic we're
super clear in our description who it's
for and how it will help them and why
they should need this why they should
want it and of course go into the
feature so they know exactly what
they're paying for now this is a cool
one because no one else can really tell
you this well they could tell you but no
one really talks about it there's a lot
of ways to to sell drum samples okay
a lot of different platforms
Shopify big cart oh you know various he
ecommerce platforms right I'm gonna tell
you which one I recommend is using and
you'll you'll see why so I recommend
using a company called
sin Dowell and there's a couple reasons
one its affordable - its flexible and
what I mean by that is you know you can
just put it anywhere on your site
basically if you have a button on your
site send down just gives you a little
link and they can click the button and
it has a really easy checkout thing that
just pops up kind of overlays on top of
your website or you can send it to a new
a new window so you know you're not
bound to like having to use Shopify are
having to use this you can use it with
any web so if you move websites all the
sindelle stuff stays the same so I like
that's just flexible you know thinking
in the future I may want to change
website you know platforms and I don't
have to start all over and start with a
new platform and you know migrate all my
old sales data I just I like it for that
reason it's super easy to use stay host
the files everything's there they just
walk you through how to set it up you
can do coupon codes and you can do
subscriptions with it you could do all
sorts of things any any option you can
do with it so it's super easy to get
going and set up the links with PayPal
and stripes you can accept both methods
of payment and the supports really good
too but here's the main reason here's
what you with you don't probably don't
know that this exists or that this is
even important and we'll talk about this
in the a little later on but has a
really good affiliate program and the
the insider insider secret for you is
that so if oh well first let me explain
affiliate is
essentially you're giving the
opportunity to for other people to sell
your drum samples or your product and
make a commission off that so there's a
lot of these big audio blogs and big
audio YouTube channels that if they like
the product will promote it to a huge
audience and you split the split the
profit with them so it's a great way to
if you don't have a big audience yet
that's I mean that's how we made a lot
of money is on affiliate sales actually
if I go back over here to our numbers
you'll see the gross income here's
twenty five thousand but the profit is
nineteen so six thousand dollars of that
went to affiliates so they earn money by
selling our products so that's what
that's about so the reason that's
important as it pertains to sin Dow is
because sin Dow is what pretty much all
of the big audio bloggers and big audio
youtubers use there's a couple that use
different things but in general they
they already are familiar with sin dial
they like it so if you ever get into a
relationship with with some of those
blogs that are gonna help promote your
product they're already very familiar
with Sindel you don't have to make them
sign on it for something they've never
heard of it they're not used to it makes
it easy for them and the easier you make
it for them the more likely they are to
promote it so there's your little
insider secret their secrets alright um
what do I have next oh because I'm going
to get asked this question
how much do I sell them for how much do
you sell a sample pack for so the real
question is it it depends
right and that's not a fun fun or the
real answer is that it depends and I
know that's not a fun answer but it does
I'll say this if I have to throw a
number out now there's guys that sell
high and you know high-end stuff and
there's guys that or just make it super
cheap I wouldn't go super cheap because
then people are like what's wrong with
it
the super high ends you can definitely
try like the hundred hundred fifty
dollar sample packs you may know what
company I'm talking about they just did
an incredible job of a building
Authority around the brands and making
just crazy crazy incredible products and
getting big artist producers to endorse
them so I think you could definitely get
to that level I find that the $30 range
seems to be a good a good range for a
drum sample pack it's not too expensive
but it's still an investment it's still
you know worth the price of admission
you know if you're selling whatever
twenty a month it's oh gosh math 600
bucks something like that start getting
you some extra income so that's four
copies a week sorry
no five five copies a week sorry so if
you're selling five copies a week
a little 600 bucks a month a nice little
bump so I like the $30 $30 range
personally now what's cool though
and where you can really start making
some more money is two things after you
have a couple of products you can do
bundles so if you have two products that
are 30 bucks 60 maybe you do a bundle
for 45 you have a bundle for 45 so for
15 bucks more they can get two so we
make a lot of a lot of our income from
selling selling bundles and promoting in
them that way
now when they check out there's another
cool thing you can do a syn down I'm
actually gonna go a little deeper into
this than I planned because why not
it has an option let's say you have
let's say you have four packs okay and
you make a bundle of you know two of
them for 45 then when they check out you
can give them like some kind of crazy
upsell so it says wait before you check
out we noticed that you bought our indie
pop bundle do you want our big pop
bundle maybe that's another one out of
your four for just you know eight bucks
more they can add another one you know
so then instead of a $30 sale we're up
over a $50 sale so that's that's kind of
what we like to use we like to make it a
pretty good good price pretty fair price
here nothing too crazy nothing too
expensive and then we really push
bundles and upsells to try to get that
average purchase price a higher average
cart higher so that's one thing and then
you could take it the next step and
we've kind of experimented with this
with with schedules and you don't want
to do it too often but once you've built
up of a ton of products you can start
doing like let's say you just need some
money one month and you want to go on
vacation or something like she'd be
great to make couple extra grand this
month you can run a you know flash sale
do whatever
50% off whoops 50% off for 40 or 60
whatever you want to do 50% off and this
is when we make most of our most of our
money is when we do these big flash
sales so that's just a couple of pricing
strategies I want a little bit more into
that than I had originally planned but
figured I would so what we got next oh
yeah this will be the last one number
six obviously an important thing now if
you've already built you know some
Authority right you got a name you got a
sound people like it maybe you have a
mailing list maybe have a youtube
channel with some subscribers maybe you
got a Facebook group you know obviously
it makes it a little easy it's easier to
you know spread the message that you
have this product but let's say you
don't here's a couple of things that you
can start off you know start off with a
bang here how to sell them
all right so how to start selling one I
just mentioned it
that's the affiliates so reaching out to
blogs establishing a relationship with
them and saying hey I have this I have
this product here's who it's for here's
the pricing I've it set up for
affiliates if you think it's something
that you're interested in I'd love to
discuss potential partnership you know
because typically those big channels are
looking for more products to promote
that they can make money off of because
they can just send one email and
everyone makes money but you got to
build those relationships with them you
can't just you know it has to do
something for them you know so don't
reach out to them and be like you know I
need this and I want to do this and
because I want money you know reach out
use your intuition be cool and just let
them know what you got going on you know
give them the product let them try it
out and say hey I'd love to love to chat
about it if you think it's a fit for
your audience you know I'd love to
provide them with something new and
something cool and hopefully it'll be
mutually it'll it'll benefit the both of
us right so that's one way if you don't
have an audience to start that was a big
way for us to we'll be see I'm gonna
save some of these for a different video
I would do some Facebook posts but don't
do sales post okay so I'm not talking
about doing a post saying hey guys I
released a sample pack you know here
here's a link to buy it there's a couple
of posts you can post types you can do
one you know documenting the process of
making them you know you can kind of
just mention hey I'm making one here's
here's where we're at with it here's
what we're doing you know just get
people kind of excited about it but
you're not selling you know - again
without being salesy you can make a post
say hey here's what I've created it's
really cool there's a sound demo you
know if you want to check it out I'm
giving away some of these just comment
below I'll reach out to you and and send
you the free pack you know so you can
start kind of building a potential a
list of potential customers you know
reach out to each one I'm individually
whoever comments whoever shows interest
say hey appreciate you commenting on my
post thanks for reaching out to me
here's the you know the free download is
a cool if I hitch up later when the
products out so you can check it out you
know you don't have to do any opt-in you
could but you don't have to at this
point if you're brand new don't make
them do anything just say hey yeah
here's a Dropbox link with with them to
check out you know with with a couple of
them - to check them out let me know
what you think I'll follow up in like a
month when they're done and you know if
you dig it you can pick them up and
they're like yeah cool no problem and
then go back to those people in a month
when you do release it and give them a
special coupon okay and then once they
use it follow up with them and see if
you can get some testimonials from say
hey what did you think about it even if
it's just a little one sentence thing
then you can start building some
credibility right go back make a
Facebook post tag some of the people in
it that that bought it from you thank
them do stuff like that so that's where
I would start if I was just starting out
selling these and didn't build up any
authority so hope that was interesting
that was just kind of off
my head not very planned but I figured
it was a topic that we could discuss
since I was doing some videos in a row
on passive income stuff so there you
have it again there's some links down in
the description to check out if you dig
these videos subscribe and we will see
you next time