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Jumpstart Episode 20: David Hooper
David Hooper is founder of musicmarketing.com- MusicMarketing.com began as a music marketing site, but evolved into a syndicated radio show Music Business Radio (WRLT), print books, audio books, seminars, home study courses, and other content
- David loves getting into the minds of different audiences
- they look for the hungry customers and find the low hanging fruit
- got his first taste of working as an entrepreneur working gun shows with his grandfather at 12 or 13 years old
- thank god for Rambo!
- his grandfather provided him with anti-inspiration
- Seth Godin failed first. Hear his interview here.
- David loves reading biographies, recommends Paula Dean’s biography, It Ain’t All About the Cookin’.
- loves MindSet books (books), recommends As a Man Thinketh. Also, Think and Grow Rich.
- has traditional direct marketing business interests
- he loves the magazine and the online versions of Cosmopolitan, because it is attention getting and it builds curiosity – which sells products. Same applies to: Maxim, Shape, Ask Men, and the National Enquirer.
- a great book is Scientific Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins
- NSFW: Adult Video News is the most competitive marketing on the Internet
- ClickBank is a great source for innovation among affiliates and direct marketing
- the most effective form of marketing is word of mouth
- David shares his thoughts about the future of marketing
- Contact David at www.privatevictory.com
- you can’t get to where you want to go being who you are NOW. Being who you are NOW got you where you are NOW
- Meet others who are not like you
- Be stupid
- Get out of your comfort zone
Please SUBSCRIBE to the podcast is in iTunes, so you’ll get new episodes as they are available.
Jumpstart theme song “DLDN Instrumental (ft. Onlymeith, Mellotroniac)” by: St. Paul from ccMixter.
TRANSCRIPT
Dave: Welcome to Jumpstart. I’m your host, Dave Delaney. And my guest today is David Hooper, founder of MusicMarketing.com. Hey David, how are you?
David: Dave, I’m great. Thank you so much for having me today.
Dave: Thank you. I really appreciate the time. So tell us a little bit about MusicMarketing.com. What is it that you do?
David: Well Music Marketing is part of my company. I’m actually a marketing guy. And Music Marketing is something that I have because I used to be musician. And this is really the first kind of niche that I got into professionally. It just helped me sell more CDs, get more people with shows and make more money.
Dave: Sure.
David: I’m really just a general marketing guy and we work with all sorts of content, not just music. I’ve got a syndicated radio show that I own. It’s called Music Business Radio you might have heard it locally, and nationally it’s on WRLT Lightning 100.
Dave: Yeah.
David: But we’re also into print books, you know that whole thing is going digitally. We’ve got audio books. We basically have content, seminars, home study courses. And people know me for music and that’s what I market myself as here but we’ve got everything from Alzheimer’s to Christian books and Christian content to, I mean who knows…
Dave: Yeah.
David: Little bitty niches and that’s what I love about my job is because it enables me to get into minds of different audiences and find out how they think. And I think that’s something that’s really special because it, I think it makes me a better person, you know, learning about different types of people.
Dave: These areas… are these things that you decide to focus on before or did like a client come along?
David: You know what, at this point I’d like to have skin in the skin and play with my own money because I find that it makes it a whole lot more exciting…
Dave: Uh-huh
David: – to me. Now it wasn’t always that way but basically what we do is we look for… Well I’ll just ask you a question, like if you wanted to sell… You had a hamburger stand, okay? And you wanted to sell a lot of hamburgers. What would be the number one thing that you would need?
Dave: Meat and stuff…
David: Hungry customers.
Dave: Hungry customers.
David: Hungry customers.
Dave: Okay.
David: One thing you would need because…
Dave: Yeah.
David: I’m a vegetarian actually but…
Dave: Yeah.
David: You know there’s not really good meat in McDonald’s hamburgers, right?
Dave: Yeah, right.
David: So, yeah, so we look for the hungry customers. I guess that’s the bottom line.
Dave: Sure.
David: And try to look, you know that’s a low-hanging fruit, like what would be the easiest to sell. So we just create a product and service to people. We position it so they want it even more. But just having that low- hanging fruit makes our odds to success a whole lot better.
Dave: It sounds like an amazing career. At what point in your career did you discover that, you know, you wanted to do it yourself?
David: Well, I got a first taste of being an entrepreneur working with my grandfather. He was… I come from a white trash, redneck family.
Dave: Right.
David: And he would go to gun shows and he’s selling like, you know, bullets or cartridges. I don’t even know, what the stuff was they were selling, you know. They’ve got all sorts, everything from automatic weapons and missile launchers. I don’t know if you have been to one but it’s a real experience.
Dave: (Laughs)
David: I would tag along with him and I would help him because he’s this old guy and I was you know maybe the 12, 13 years old. And they would see this young kid there, and once I was finished with him people would come up to me and these old guys and they have to pay. You know, I mean…
David: Yeah.
David: Okay. And just will go, you know, unload bullets and ammunition…
Dave: (Laughs)
David: Things that they would … the tips.
Dave: Right.
David: And you know I figured out pretty quick. You know the next time I was there, I showed up for the (Inaudible – 03:41) and I started making it a business. But when it really became what I would call like entrepreneurship, is at the very end I had, you know, a bunch of cash in my pocket and I was looking through all this stuff and I remember seeing a box of what I call Rambo knives. This is how old…
Dave: Right. I remember Rambo knives.
David: Yeah ’85. It looked like a big machete and had a hollowed out handle.
Dave: Sure.
David: – on the end and inside the hand you start a fire, neon thread…
Dave: Yeah.
David: – matches…. I don’t know. You know there’s something (Inaudible – 04:14) basically it’s a survivalist knife. And this guy had this cheap Japanese or Chinese knock offs of these things. You know it’s like 3 dollars or 5, 5 of them for $10.
Dave: Right.
David: I was like hmmm… Okay, you can’t really argue with economics, right? (Inaudible – 04:27) I could sell four of these to my buddies. And I was selling these things for like 10, 20 bucks each.
Dave: Nice. Nice…
David: I was making even better money than I was making and that’s kind of how it started. It just kind of gave me that taste.
Dave: So thank God for Rambo.
David: Yeah, yeah, yeah… Thank God for that and just the testosterone of being a little boy and wanting to prove something with a big knife.
Dave: Right. Well we talked a little bit before the call about Seth Godin as quite an inspirational character. Who inspires you? I mean, obviously it sounds like your granddad certainly helped in some regard as well.
David: Well he gave me… in my start.
Dave: Right.
David: And he was a guy that inspired me in maybe in a negative way because I saw him work a job. He really wanted to be a teacher and that was really his thing. He was probably the first guy in my family to go to college but ended up having four kids. This is in the hills of East Tennessee and you can’t support 4 kids on a teacher’s salary.
Dave: Uh-huh….
David: He was a salesman and he did that to make money and he was good at it but it just wasn’t his dream. So you know, I’ve seen a lot of people that, you know, it can be a really long life…
Dave: Uh-huh…
David: – when you’re not living your dreams. So he did inspire me but it was kind of an, maybe an anti-inspiration.
Dave: Sure.
David: As far as successful people that I try to emulate more directly, yeah I like to read like a lot of biographies. You talk about Seth Godin and you know what a lot of people don’t know is, you know, Deth Godin is almost broke at one time. And Seth Godin has had a lot of, you know, things like every entrepreneur business owner would have. He’s had a lot of things that go wrong. And you have to get over these things and continue because there’s a lot coming against you when you’re an entrepreneur business owner. And you know financial troubles, people don’t understand. Your family thinks you’re crazy. Who knows? So I like to read biographies. One that I read recently that I was really inspired by, going back to our Redneck gun show roots… Paula Deen.
Dave: (Laughs) Oh yeah.
David: (Inaudible – 06:40) because I didn’t even know who Paula Deen was. Being in school one time, and okay, you know who Paula Deen is? I never watched television then I heard her story and I read the biography. Did you know she was 48 years old when she started?
Dave: No kidding.
David: She was, had agoraphobia. So she was afraid to leave the house. Home ridden, divorced, no skills except for she could cook. She knew how to make tasty dishes out of butter, cream and whatever else they’re throwing there, meat.
Dave: I thought that’s all she uses. (Laughs)
David: Yeah. Beans, shell and lettuce… And Paula Deen has 3 ingredients and she can make about 50 things with it. She’s got a really fascinating story.
Dave: Huh…
David: And it isn’t about the cooking. And I think it’s… that’s what it says. It’s not something about cooking.
Dave: I’d love to pick that up.
David: – autobiography.
Dave: Yeah.
David: And I really love stuff like that because I’m a big mind psych. I was always really into the mindset stuff. When I was 15 years old, the guy gave me a book called As a Man Thinketh. Yeah. If you haven’t read it, it’s really a short book. It will take you about 20 minutes to read it. It basically says you know, it’s from the Bible and you know basically if you think it, you can make it happen. (Inaudible – 07:53)
Dave: Sure. Yeah. And I will include links to everything we’re talking about in the show notes so if people are interested, they can definitely check that out. Are there blogs or websites that you read regularly?
David: Yeah, I’m traditionally, are in the traditional direct marketing business, I should say.
Dave: Uh-huh
David: So I’m really fascinated by any kind of like direct marketing type of websites. I really love, and this is going to sound silly, but I really love Cosmo. I like Cosmopolitan Online. I love the magazine, Cosmo.
Dave: Right.
David: It’s like AskMen. The reason I do is, it’s in… Like any of those when you’re going through the check out at a grocery store… It’s attention-getting and it builds curiosity. And I think those are things that really help sell a product. So I’ve subscribed to probably a dozen or more magazines for men and women – Maxon, Shape, National Inquirer, anything that builds curiosity has fascinated me. So I really spend a lot of time on those sites like looking at the articles. If you get to like AskMen, it’s like Seven Steps to Be a More Effective Date; Seven Reasons That She Dumped You; The One Seat You Should Never Sit In An Airplane. I love that kind of stuff and any of those books they try to sell you through direct mails that would be one of them. And I love any of that stuff. A great book is Claude Hopkins’ Scientific Advertising and this is from back in the early 1900s. Claude was one of the guys that did that Schlitz ad for Schlitz Beer.
Dave: Uh-huh…
David: And this is what’s fascinating to me. I mean, he took a system of making beer which every other beer maker used. But he got in there and explained it to people and I think it’s like, you know what? It’s like the history of stamps. That’s why stamp collectors love stamps. It’s not just because for pretty picture. It’s the country. It’s the story behind it. It’s the hops and the malt and the purified water in Schlitz beer. It’s the… how the cattle was raised for the 100% Angus burger.
Dave: Right.
David: Wherever, you know… So it’s like the story behind it. And I think getting that kind of skill is really, really good. And so any kind of direct marketing stuff that explores the curiosity, you don’t get much better than Cosmo. They got guys and all they do is come up with the headlines for the covers. And that to me is fascinating and how they test it. And I would recommend that for any, any entrepreneur. You know, and on that, you know another great site… This is also very competitive, and also something that you’re trying to get attention from. I love AVN.com.
Dave: Uh-huh…
David: – which just as a word of warning, that stands for Adult Video News.com. It is an adult site but adults serve this pornography, I guess just for lack of a better term. That is the most competitive market on the internet.
Dave: It’s also one of the most innovative as well.
David: Absolutely. Well that’s exactly why I go to AVN.com. Those guys are pushing forward with video, with media tools. You know I had one of the first membership sites on the internet back in the mid ‘90s, about ’94, that was not pornography. And I got the idea from that. I actually had to use the pornography system. I was the only non-pornography guy getting the, it was this called net building…
Dave: Uh-huh
David: – at the time and used in the system because people didn’t realize it. So they’re pushing, everything that we do now, you know, the pornography guys are 10 years ahead. And if you want to see where things are going with technology, AVN.com is where to go. And again as a word of warning you may be offended by some of the stuff but it really is like a business publication. They also have a really great print magazine and if you get yourself a dirty domain and sign up as a business, you can get to that print publication for free.
Dave: Hmmm…
David: So I love that. Another one, ClickBank, which is where all the direct marketers went when they first got online… So ClickBank, if you wanted to see innovation and affiliates. You know, what these guys do to really get people fired up about selling the product for them is really great. They’ve got a lot of direct sales letters like this one page websites that you go to (Inaudible – 12:00) anything like that. I’m always clicking on ads when they talk about, hey, how’s life in New Jersey or how’s life in Nashville? That can actually geo-target it. So how’s life in Nashville? Just lost a million pounds on the Asi Ad Berry …
Dave: Right.
David: You know this little known trick will blast belly fat.
Dave: Right.
David: Oh really? You know, and I’m fascinated by that and how that works because it’s extremely competitive and if those ads are out there, people are making money for those sites, I want to know so I can make similar money with other sites.
Dave: What would you say is the most effective form of marketing?
David: The most effective form of marketing is going to be word of mouth.
Dave: Right.
David: And I think that it is really fascinating that we have these tools here and I think really the technology is coming forward so fast. We really haven’t really figured out how to maximize them. You could hear about like things like transparency.
Dave: Uh-huh
David: And (Inaudible – 12:57) you know we see some things that work and some things don’t, you know….
Dave: That’s true. It is early days to… as far…
David: It is early days
Dave: It really is.
David: I think one thing about social networking is… or social marketing, whatever you want to call it, is it’s really, really easy to kind of get caught up in it and think that it’s marketing. And I saw this a lot with Boot Bands that they thought just by like adding friends to Myspace was going to help them out. And I can tell you first hand that, you know, I’m just going back to the old school direct marketing every time because of that, that if I have a mailing list of a thousand people, especially if they are a thousand paying customers, I would rather have that than 10 or 20 times friends on Facebook or Myspace. I mean, I think that there’s so much noise out there that that is going to be… I mean, that’s out biggest hurdles, the distraction.
Dave: Uh-huh. That’s true.
David: So that’s why I think something like you know, AVN, if anybody has ever ended up accidentally of course on a porn site…
Dave: Just for the articles.
David: Just for the articles. You can see all the banners and pop ups and you want to talk about distraction. These guys are cutting through that noise and I think that’s going to be an important skill to have.
Dave: Yeah.
David: I’m not sure where this is going to go. I mean I think about things like radio and how radio I think is going to have to go what I call local-local.
Dave: Yes.
David: To survive broadcast radio. And we’ve got the social media on a worldwide scale but you know, we still like to get together locally.
Dave: Uh-huh…
David: And that’s the kind of stuff that I try to concentrate with. I’m like some very old school. What’s old is new again.
Dave: That’s true.
David: So you know, for example, if I were to send something through the mail, I mean, nobody’s sending mail anymore. So it makes my direct mail campaigns a whole lot easier. I’m going to call somebody. Nobody picked up the phone anymore. It makes it a whole lot easier.
Dave: Uh-huh.
David: So in some ways, you know, that’s going to be your best bet to cut through the noise, is doing what your grandmother would have done. No more grandma get a long distance call shush…shush…shush…
Dave: Yeah.
David: It’s long distance.
Dave: Right.
David: The whole house had to be quiet.
Dave: Sure.
David: So…
Dave: Yeah.
David: We may be going back to something similar like that. You know, it’s really easy to leave email messages in Facebook Invites and eBites and Twitter messages and…
Dave: Yeah
David: You know, we’ll see. It’s an exciting time though, no doubt. And it’s going really, really fast and I’m very thankful for the technology because I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if that stuff didn’t exist.
Dave: Yeah. I finish each show asking for 3 tips that you would offer any entrepreneur and you’ve given a lot of great tips. So if you want to rehash long or one said, a refresh in your mind, I would love to hear, or maybe a few tips…
David: Well, let me go back to the Paula Deen gun show tip which is I’m vegetarian. So Paula Deen and I have nothing in common as far as the food that we eat. I don’t own a gun. As a matter of fact, I would say that I’m anti-gun. I’m a very liberal guy and I don’t care for guns. But that’s not to say that you can’t learn from somebody…
Dave: Uh-huh
David: – that have a gun or that would eat six of butter, you know. So don’t… you know, I think that a lot of people hang out with people that are just like them. And I would encourage you, if you’re liberal and you’re a big Obama fan, you know, turn on Rush Limbaugh. Turn on Hannity. See what those guys are saying. If you like Hannity, and if you like Rush Limbaugh, and if you like Atlas Shrugged, you know turn out Obama and see what he has. Because I think hanging out with different kinds of people is really the best way to come up with stuff because the truth is we woke up with really good ideas and that you can take the most. So, you know, if you’re Christian go to the Unitarian Church. Unitarian… I don’t know. Go … go… Unitarians would go. Go with the Southern Baptist Church. So that would be one tip.
You know, secondly, I would say, be stupid. And what I mean by that is you know this is actually the reason I joined Jumpstart Foundry because I’m absolutely not the smartest guy in the brim. And I want to surround myself with really, really brilliant people. I mean, I get in to Jumpstart Foundry and I see these guys are talking off pivots and you know investments, and venture capital, VC. You know, I had to… what’s VC man? Oh it’s venture capital. Okay and what is that? What’s a hedge fund? And these guys are talking so over my head. I had no idea. But, you know, that’s the way that you get better. You hang around (Inaudible – 17:16) being a musician. When I was a guitar player, the way I got better with guitar was hanging out with the guys better than me.
Dave: Right.
David: Anybody, you know, high school guy in the little league, that’s just not just fair, is it? So to get better, you really need to be the dumbest guy in the room and this is sort of related to that is obviously get out of your comfort zone. You know building a business is very, very scary. You’re being pushed to the limit. You cannot get where you want to go, being who you are now, because being who you are now got you where you are now. So you know I think it’s really important to get out of your comfort zone. I’m planning a trip off to Toronto in about a month and one of the things that I’m going to do when I’m up there is they got something called CN Tower. CN Tower kind of looks like the stratosphere…
Dave: Uh-huh. I know. Actually, Toronto is my hometown.
David: Oh is it really?
Dave: It is.
David: Well CN Tower is… You can talk about this and see… I believe it’s the tallest manmade structure that’s not a building.
Dave: Yeah.
David: – With America or the world or something.
Dave: In the world definitely, it’s the second tallest free standing structure in the world
David: Okay.
Dave: Well and we shake our fist and we say… Yeah, it’s in Dubai. So I always shake my fist and go Dubai!
David: So, well, I think you can do this in Dubai. You can actually walk on the outside of CN Tower now.
Dave: You can.
David: You can Dave. I mean, you’re strapped in.
Dave: Yes.
David: But you can get up there and it’s… They use meters so I don’t know what meters is but that’s a thousand meters. Who knows? It’s really, really high up in there and look down in the glass floor.
Dave: Yes.
David: And you can actually walk outside of CN Tower. You got the strap on you.
Dave: Yeah.
David: But I mean, what better way to get out of your comfort zone? And I think that that really, it relates to business like this. You walk back in. You discover that you’re not going to die, that you’re still alive. And you say, wow. And when you’re doing something like the CN Tower, you’re really, really present. You’re just thinking wow, you know, I’m really focused. And I think those are two skills that are going to come in handy for business and that’s what you get from being outside your comfort zone. It was a lot for me to even be on this podcast Dave. I mean, I’m nervous. I’m nervous I’ll make a mistake and sound like an idiot.
Dave: No, no…
David: (Inaudible – 19:28)
Dave: You sound right.
David: Yeah, so thank you. And that’s how you get better though. You keep pushing, pushing yourself.
Dave: That’s great.
David: We have to do that CN Tower man. And you need to fly, fly back up there with me.
Dave: Oh I know. I’d love to. I’d love to.
David: Yeah. Maybe I have to hang on to that. We’ll do that together.
Dave: Yeah.
David: That’s the kind of stuff that I’m looking for. I love people that like to get out of their comfort zone. I find that to be… People think entrepreneurs are crazy. You know Richard Branson or Tony Robbins or some of these guys that are known for you know driving fast cars or flying around the world on a balloon or something. That’s the reason they do that and look for a Gotham.
Dave: Yeah, definitely. Well, listen, I want to thank you so much for taking the time tonight. Hey, where can people find you online?
David: You know what? MusicMarketing.com is a site that I’ve just put up for musicians. But if you want to just cut up my inside thoughts on what I call the “Inner Game” of Entrepreneurship, I’ve set up a blog and I just, it probably has 30 people who read it. It’s called privatevictory.com.
Dave: Great!
David: So Private Victory just kind of has my thoughts on just all these mindset stuff because this stuff fascinates me. I read books on it all the time and I think that’s really the key. It’s not necessarily knowledge. It’s just belief that you’re able to make it happen.
Dave: Well, I’m going to include all the links in the show notes. So for anybody listening who’s interested, definitely reach out to David and check out that blog and check out MusicMarketing.com. Listen, thank you so much. I do appreciate it.
David: Dave, it’s awesome. Thank you for the opportunity.
Dave: Thanks. Have a good night.
Extro: (Music Playing) For show notes, links discussed in today’s podcast, and much more, visit jumpstartpodcast.com. Thanks for listening. (Music)
Posted on September 4, 2011
Categories: Blog, Podcast
Tags: Adult Video News, As a Man Thinketh, Ask Men, AVN, Claude C. Hopkins, ClickBank, Cosmopolitan, David Hooper, It Ain't All About the Cookin', Maxim, MindSet, Music Marketing, National Enquirer, Paula Dean, porn industry, Rambo, Scientific Advertising, Seth Godin, Shape, Think and Grow Rich, WRLT