If Your Label Isn’t Selling These 5 Things, It’s Losing Money

You didn’t build your label just to say you have one. You built it to make money. But here’s the truth—if you’re not selling these 5 things, you’re sitting on a catalog that’s leaking cash. Most indie labels are sitting on thousands in unused assets because they don’t know how to package their music the right way. Let me show you what your label should’ve been selling from day one.

For everyone watching, I'm willing to bet that 90% of you have never heard this before. The first thing I gotta say is that if you can't seem to get more money out of your music even though your promotion has been great for where you are, it's not about who you know in today's situation — it's about what you know. Because even your connects have never put this together in their minds. I guarantee you'll be thanking me after this video because I wish I had this info at 22!

Anybody who wants to pull more revenue out of their music without producing a bunch of extra materials and products, this is for you.

All I'm here to do is help you understand that your album is a goldmine if you know how to mine its value properly.

I gotta say, when I figured all of this stuff out, it wasn't because somebody taught me—it was because I had to put all of the pieces together. It would take all 20 of my years in the game to make this work. Nobody had ever expressed to me what I'm about to tell you today—not because they were gatekeeping, but because they never saw it. Everyone’s too busy chasing streams to see the gold they’re sitting on. So you may want to stick and stay because we've got to cover D2C, Sync, Remixes, Production Stems, and Education assets. Some may have a mind melt at the end, but you'll put yourself back together after a few minutes. Let’s begin.

Sell Music D2C (Direct-to-Consumer)

Many artists think fans won't buy music D2C and it's not worth their time, but the truth is you're cutting out one-third of your fan base by not giving them a digital product to support you—one that's easy to buy and consume.

The only reason you can't get past this step is because you think every fan belongs in the Spotify basket. That's the key to income failure.

Once Chris and Mag over at EVEN explained how D2C buyers are supporters, my whole world opened up another notch.

So take your album and build its assets just like a physical album: liner notes, contacts, credits, thank-yous—you can even do this in video form to take it over the top. Drop the actual contacts and social media pages of everybody you worked with to create the album. Now you've actually created something worth buying.

Once you do this, the people who were already there wanting to support you will come alive, and you'll see what I mean. They were always there; you just never gave them anything to support you with.

I was in your shoes with Digital D2C and thought nobody would buy—until I started buying myself and realized what I really wanted from a Digital D2C album. Now, when an artist is releasing one, I look for the features and add-ons. If they aren't there, I won't buy. However, as a fan, I'm ready to buy if the music is great,t and I see you have a movement that needs to be supported.

You might think this takes a lot of work, but it doesn't—EVEN or Bandcamp will do the trick. The key to sales here is in the value-packed add-ons.

License the Music

A lot of artists will spend so much time focusing on streaming, and while it's necessary for discovery, it can stall your growth if you don't pursue other avenues that will bring you more exposure and more revenue. That's why, in addition to streaming, you should prep your music to license. It should be a part of your sales process — period, no questions asked.

A lot of artists and new teams skip this step because it really just comes down to not knowing what you don't know.

Skipping out on adding a great sync agent to your sales team keeps you in the D2C world and streaming world, which is okay for the moment. However, when you're looking for crossover appeal and promotions, there is no better way than to have your songs synced in film and television. It is another way to create longevity in your music and become a part of culture, stamped in history through other media products.

The way I got into sync was by attending pitch meetings and sync summit conferences. The community has grown exponentially, and if you want to get in, you've got to get active so you can build your connections.

Once you step into the world, you find that things become easier and begin to feel like it's possible to get some placements — and it totally is possible.

My second placement came from me going to a pitch meeting and playing a record from an artist named Baby Rose. Her voice opened the door, and after the supervisor heard my catalog on the side, I was commissioned to do the theme song for Rickey Smiley's reality TV show for the last season, plus 14 placements of music across the season.

You may think you need a lot to get started, but all you need is great music and a connection to get started — you'll figure out the rest once you get in.

So far, we've covered the easy stuff: direct-to-consumer and sync. But the last 3 steps are going to blow your mind if you've never heard them before. Trust me, you're going to need my 60-Day record label system to handle all of this cash you're about to receive with these products — grab it below. Now let's jump into mind-blowing secret number 3

Sell Remixes & Alternate Versions - Extending the Catalog

Here's where things get funky. Many new label owners will not do anything with their records beyond creating the original version. However, in a lot of cases, even if you have a hit record, the original version can only take you 80% of the way — it's not until you remix the original records that you gain that extra 20% that takes things over the top for you.

Remixes are a way to get more usage out of your records, and they can also breathe new life into a song that is stuck or not working, but really just needed better production.

I was working with an artist named Michael Gadiva in 2015, and we made an album. It did well for the local niche we were in, but then I remixed the record, and it actually boosted engagement at her shows as well and expanded the catalog we were creating.

Look at your previous single or album release, figure out what listening audience you want to target with your remixes, and go for it.

You increase your catalog for the listener, publishing, and for sync opportunities.

Think about how many versions of a Drake or Kendrick track you’ve streamed or heard—the slowed version, the chopped version, the Jersey mix. Remixes keep songs alive. And guess what? They do the same for your catalog.

If you're thinking, how many should you do? As many as you'd like — and with AI, remixing your songs becomes even more enjoyable.

Sell Stems, A Cappellas & Instrumentals

In addition to remixing, it's always great to sell the option for other remixers to get in on the action. Many artists want to prevent remixing; however, you can't. People are going to do it anyway, so you might as well meet them where they are and sell them the tools to do it. AI stem creation is never going to be as high quality as your stems and one-shots pulled directly from the song.

Many artists will feel like they are selling out the art. However, I see it as a golden opportunity for sample clearances that can be done in-house, creating more income generation for your label.

I figured this process out because as a producer, I used to buy the Blap Kits by !llmind, and some of his kits were used by Anderson .Paak. It then dawned on me — if he's sound designing, aren't we all doing this anyway when we create records?

The reason why I was purchasing was to get drums created by humans in the niche I was selling to. I would have sampled the drums myself, but it's tedious work, as I used to do this back in my MPC 2000 days. !llmind provided a solution, but what if the creators just provided the kits and sold them because the samplers are going to sample anyway? So why not help them out? People pay for convenience, not problems. That's how we got Spotify. CDs were cumbersome, and Spotify provided that solution.

Once you do this, you create an additional revenue stream from the single album you created, and you won't necessarily have to create a new product. You're just leveraging the single creation you made, which was the album.

I used to think this was blasphemous to creators, but at the end of the day, as a sampler who sampled, I used to buy Timbaland and RZA drumkits off of eBay that were just lifted drums from the original records anyway. The underground market took all of that profit illegally. Why let them do that when you could offer it to them? The other creators will never be you anyway. Selling stems is like giving out Lego blocks—people want to build something new, but they still need your bricks.

You may think this will be a tedious task, but all you're doing is putting stems in a zip folder and selling it on your website.

Sell Behind-the-Scenes or Educational Assets

Again, as an artist, you might think it's blasphemous to show people the process, but let me make it easy for you: your supporters just want the factory tour, and creators just want to know how you sang, rapped, or played the way you played. Does this mean you give them the secret recipe? No. Just give them the who, what, when, where, and why. The how is a premium experience.

If you're stuck here, just think about how long you've studied your favorite artist, and then imagine if they made it easy for you to understand what they did by putting it all into one product — would you pay for that? Exactly!

In order to come up with this solution, I had to look at my buying habits, because in order to become a good seller of your music and music experiences, you have to become a great buyer of music and music experiences. Otherwise, you will not know how to provide a great experience for your customers. Don't believe that? Fine, but you'll learn once your products don't sell like you expected them to.

Film a studio session or two and pick out the highlights, then shoot a second video talking about the highlights, kind of like a reaction video. Drop the highlights during the months you're talking about them, and now you have an educational asset in addition to the album credit visuals we talked about earlier in the video.

Fans will become die-hards because you've provided amazing experiences for them.

Again, as a creator, it may feel wrong to give this insight, but as an aspiring creator, you'll take anything you can get. If you all remember my chair example from last month, you know what I'm talking about.

On another note, in Atlanta, home of Chick-fil-A's factory tour https://www.chick-fil-a.com/backstage-tour, do they give away the secret recipe? Absolutely not, but you see how it was started and the history of the restaurant. That's all fans want.

BTS in its raw form is the easiest way to get started, but you'll want to strive to take it up a notch.

Here’s what you can do!

This week, I challenge you to pick one of the five and just start. Whether it’s remixing, packaging, or filming BTS because your future catalog starts here. I want you to create a direct-to-consumer digital album offering and list out the add-ons you'll combine with the download, find some pitch meetings and sync conferences you can attend, create a remix pack, create some remixes, and create an educational asset. The real question isn't "should you do this?"—it's "how much longer can you afford NOT to?" especially if you really understand where I'm coming from.

Now, If you need help with devising a strategy on any one of these, join our group strategy calls every Monday night at 7 pm EST inside the Music Money Makers community. Click below to join.

Don’t make this difficult

Whether you know it or not, these products already exist in the music industry; however, they are just outside of the artist's personal ecosystems. Everybody else is making money off of you, and you're letting them do it! Let me express this: it will not be overwhelming if you take your time and take it one step at a time. The thing that takes the most money is the original product itself. The magic isn’t in new music. It’s in multiplying what you’ve already made. That’s how real labels scale. You don’t need perfect conditions. You just need to start with what you’ve got — and watch how far that can take you.

What’s it going to cost to keep doing it your way

If you launch the album, go to streaming, and don't create these products, even if you don't have a fanbase, when people come into your world and see that you have something to offer them for their use case, you're going to win. But if you don't do this, you're going to burn out on streams. They're necessary, but they are also a graveyard. Streaming by itself breaks many artists spiritually and causes them to bow out. Don't put yourself in that position. Leverage your musical intellectual property.

At the End of the Day

You’ve built the label but this is how you finally turn it into a business. And If you were struggling with ways to pull more revenue out of one single album without creating a bunch of new stuff, you now have the building blocks to start building a self-sustained artist ecosystem.